Want to know why price increases fail?
1. The salesperson doesn’t believe in it.
2. The Sales manager doesn’t believe in it.
Go ahead and argue with me. I’m ready to hear your argument.
Here’s mine very simply put: There is no way a price increase is ever going to work if the salesperson and sales management do not believe in it.
The lack of confidence displayed by far too many salespeople when it comes to talking about price continues to amaze me.
They are quick to say the price increase will never work because the customer won’t accept it for any number of different reasons. I’m always amazed at how quick they are to say it’s always the customer who doesn’t accept the price increase. It’s never the salesperson’s fault.
Sorry, I simply do not find that to be the case.
When a customer rejects a price increase, what are they really saying?
What they’re saying is the customer didn’t layout a good enough proposition for them to see the value of what they’re buying. To me that says it’s the salesperson’s fault the price increase didn’t go through. It’s not the fault of the customer.
Not only is it amazing the number of salespeople who don’t have enough confidence to execute a price increase, it also is amazing the number of sales managers who don’t. When a sales manager sits in a meeting and bad mouths a planned price increase as being uncalled for or stupid or a bad idea, how can a salesperson not have the same attitude about it?
Sales organizations must stop making the customer the reason a price increase didn’t work and start realizing it is their fault it didn’t work.
Is it easy? No, I never said it was, but until you start taking responsibility there is no way you’ll ever know.
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
