An acquaintance of mine with a similar work background told me that recently he and his wife were shopping for a graduation gift. They found an attractive ladies’ watch and decided to buy it. After telling the store salesperson they wanted the watch, the clerk violated a selling no-no. He volunteered a 30% discount although they didn’t ask for one, and had already told him they wanted the item.
This surprise discount made my friend curious how much more he could get the price reduced, with a little work on his part. He started into the role of a grumpy customer with second thoughts and told the salesman they wanted to look a bit more before making a final decision. Automatically the clerk responded by taking another 20% off, which came to a 50% discount in less than 60 seconds!
Now he was really curious to see how low the clerk would go, as his wife started feeling uncomfortable, knowing what was coming next. The guy continued to object and argue with the sales rep, and yes, every time this employee responded with an additional discount.
They finally walked out of the store with the watch, having paid only 35% of the list price! He said he thought he could have even done a little bit better, but was getting the hairy eyeball from his better half, so he thought he’s better call it a day.
If you sell premium products or services, routinely priced at double the amount of your competitor’s offerings, this should be an informative piece for you to absorb. I’ll bet many of you regularly whine about major pricing variances, although I’m sure your sales manager has provided repeated training on overcoming this hurdle. I’ll skip what you already know and go straight to the importance of these three pillars; pesky because if you omit one, you’re probably done!
1. The Credibility Pillar – Your prospect has to believe, without question or doubt that you believe you’re going to get your asking price for what you’re selling. Staying with a wristwatch illustration, for a jeweler to be able to sell a Rolex he must be loaded with credibility. He will talk about aesthetic value, beauty, design, style, color, and balance. He will elaborate on the mechanism and conclude by talking about the platinum and gold.
Circling back to what you sell, you need to embellish your offering in the same manner. Along with emphasizing your years of continuous customer service and the generations of customer satisfaction your firm has provided, you will need to relate what it is that makes your brand the most successful name in your industry.
To succeed as a credible premium seller, you can never knowingly misrepresent anything, because people won’t pay top dollar for excuses. Why should they? If you want to sell at a premium price you can’t have delivery problems, and you certainly can’t ever lie about ANYTHING. Otherwise, your prospect is finished with you, because your credibility pillar failed to hold up.
2. The Comparison Pillar – Just because your prices are higher than the competition doesn’t mean they are too high. If you feel they are you may need to be working somewhere else, because you will end up exaggerating whether you realize it or not.
You must be prepared to sell value, which is what buyers receive for the price they pay. Emphasize features that are either unique or exclusive. You must know that you know you are providing the best customer value in your industry.
3. The Consideration Pillar – When people pay a premium price they almost always know it, so don’t ever take them for granted and think they are stupid. Buyers in that league have a different set of expectations, and you cannot afford to test or frustrate them.
Your prospect doesn’t want to hear that one of your installers or technicians didn’t come in this morning. They don’t care if somebody forgot to gas up the truck, resulting in your team arriving an hour late at the job site. All they want to hear is, “You need it when? No problem.” Remember, excuses don’t count in the big leagues!
As a premium provider, you must quickly learn to play above the rim, and your admin support people, service department and management team must be right there to back you 100% of the time. If any one of those three pillars is weak or missing, you have no business attempting to sell premium priced stuff, because you will absolutely fail.
—————How Rare is This?—————
Upon returning from his mailbox one day, Doug opened a piece of mail bearing the return address of a long term client. It turned out to be a handwritten thank you card that read: “Doug, thanks for taking time from your retirement to help make us better. It was good fortune and God’s providence that connected us at just the right time. Thanks again.” I (Doug) am humbled…get to know me here.
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