First and foremost, there is no guaranteed way to stop customers from price shopping,but there are some ways for your sales people to protect your pricing. After all, your company sells product in a market, and the market itself has a strong influence on price.
However, when your sales team is aggressive, and comes to a customer with an extremely competitive price, you are within your right to make sure that price is respected by your customers, and protected by your sales people.
Customers will use your price against you to lower competitive bids. It happens. However, your sales department can use some simple approaches to guard against it happening over and over again. I have included some simple and straight forward statements your sales people can use to protect your price.
Simple & Straightforward Statements to Protect Your Pricing
“Every time we provide a price, our competition simply matches it. So, isn’t it fair to say that we are doing their homework for them?”
“Your pricing continues to decline every time we quote, but yet we never secure any business. Imagine what would happen if you actually started buying!”
"Are you saying that your supplier simply matched our price? How fast did that happen? Doesn’t that tell you they could have given you that price all along?”
“Why does your current supplier only lower price when we decide to quote?”
“If I had your business, I wouldn’t wait for someone else to make me provide you with a competitive price. We do our own homework!”
“So, your supplier simply matched the price on the same phone call when you told him of our lower bid. Well, that was easy. Why did they wait for us to make them realize how important your business is?"
Understanding the real issues behind price demands is essential to protecting your company's price and its gross profit on sales. To learn more about the strategies outlined in the above video, please go to: Five Sales Competencies Every B2B Salesperson Must Master
Lead Your Customers To Their Own Conclusion
This is all about subtly leading your customer to their own conclusion and about improving relationships with all customers. If your company is aggressive, and actively pursues business, your customers will come to understand that they have an opportunity to deal with a hungry supplier – your company. It’s up to your sales people to subtly take control of the situation and guide the customer to the realization that their business is far more important to your company, than it is to their current supplier.
This is not about “bad mouthing” your competition. However, it is about making sure you limit the number of times your customers try to use your company to lower competitive bids.
- You can’t stop your customers from using your price, but you can stop them from doing it over and over again.
- Burned once is enough, burned twice may be a trend, but burned three times and it’s time to use the “Trial-Close” Technique.
Use the "Trial-Close” Technique Customers who Use Price Against You
Understand that customers will use your pricing to lower competitive bids. However, it doesn’t have to happen over and over again. There are ways to put an end to it and move the customer relationship forward. When you feel your customer is abusing your hard work, you are well within your right to use the following approach.
Trial Close Sales Technique: It amounts to making your customer provide you with the price they need to order. You are turning the tables here and your customer must now give you the price they will order at. Here are some statements you can use.
“I am sorry, but we continue to provide pricing only to lose out on business. As much as we want to sell to your company, we simply can’t continue to provide pricing without any orders. Therefore, you must provide us with the price you would be willing to buy, and we will see if we can get that price.”
“Mr. Customer, the people I report to won’t continue to help me provide you with competitive pricing if every time we beat the competition, you simply use it to lower your other supplier’s price. This time, you have to give me the price you would be willing to purchase the product at. Otherwise, I can’t provide a quote.”
“I don’t think we are on the same page. Maybe we are not the right supplier you are looking for. The problem is that I rely upon my management to be aggressive in pricing. It’s natural that if I don’t produce results with a customer, that they will ask me to concentrate elsewhere. It won’t be my decision, but it will affect us both.”
“Please understand, we want to sell to your company, and we can be a good supplier, but gradually over time our pricing will be less and less competitive if we aren’t able to secure some business. That won’t help either of us. Therefore, I need to know what price you’ll purchase at.”
These approaches basically amount to asking your customer to become a more active player in your relationship. It’s not wrong to use any of these types of approaches. In essence, you are basically telling your customer the truth. The end result is that if they continue to use your price against your company, you won’t be able to provide pricing. Will that help them and you? Certainly not! Don’t be afraid to tell them.
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