Are you willing to cut your price to land a new customer?
Unfortunately, far too many salespeople are willing to do so.
Sorry, in my book what the salesperson is doing is cheating on the new customer and all of their other customers.
Let me set the stage for how this typically goes.
The salesperson is making the presentation to a new customer and everything has gone just fine. The customer has raised a couple of issues, but all have been dealt with and it feels like they’re ready to buy.
The salesperson presents the price to the customer, and without hesitation, the customer says something to the effect if they could get some sort of a discount, they would go ahead and buy. Stupidity then overtakes the salesperson, who then says how they’d be happy to give them a discount and boom — the deal is made at the lower price.
In this instance, the customer is happy and the salesperson is happy — but are they truly happy?
The customer got a lower price, yes. Sure, that’s good, but in the back of their mind, they’re wondering if they got the best price, and worse yet, they’re wondering what else they should have asked for.
As the customer is thinking about what they could have asked for, they also begin wondering if what the salesperson had been telling them was even true. Before too long, the customer can quickly begin to feel the salesperson cheated them.
Now let’s shift to the salesperson.
They rolled over and played dead, without any hesitation. They gave the customer a lower price. In their mind they might try and justify what they did, but inside they begin to wonder what the customer must be thinking.
Worse yet they probably can’t help but think what all of their other customers who didn’t get the lower price would have done if they knew a lower price was available for the asking.
Just as with the customer, the salesperson begins to feel the new customer cheated them out of a higher price and in so doing, other customers might think the same.
The entire process smells and the only thing it does is leave a bad taste.
I’m not a fan of discounting, but if a discount is given, it must be offset with a reduction in value. Merely giving a discount and not changing the product offering in some manner is simply dumb. It’s bad business and it’s bad salesmanship.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
