When do you start discussing pricing with our prospective clients?
The B2B Sales Maturity Framework, a reliable guide, is designed to assist you in navigating the intricate sales process for high-value or million-dollar deal projects and more importantly enable your client to make a decision.
Problem
Most salespeople start talking about money, pricing, or financial investment very late in the sales process.
The problem with this approach is that you have not validated the value to your prospective client. Research shows that 70% of proposals are not lost to competitors but because buyers stay with the status quo and do not make a decision. Unfortunately, salespeople lose months working on the account with no real opportunity and wasting valuable time and resources.
Second, you must validate the investment the client is willing to get for the desired results and co-create a solution that aligns with the solution and buyers’ expectations.
Undoubtedly, there’s a significant need for trust when discussing financial investment in the qualifying stage.
This is particularly challenging with new customers, as trust has not yet been established. According to Gartner research, B2B buyers spend only 5% to 6% of their time with anyone sales rep when considering a purchase. This underscores the crucial role of multiple, high-quality touchpoints in building trust over time.
Pricing should be discussed in the Qualifying, Validate and Strategise phase. So, how do you talk about financial investment during the early stage?
Build a “business case” with your prospects.
Solution
Money conversation type of discussion:
Start building a Business Case with your prospective client during the Qualify phase.
Building a business case is more than numbers; it’s understanding and validating the problem your client is trying to solve.
Qualify:
What is the problem the client is trying to solve
What is the evidence the problem exists
What is the negative impact on the business? Why are they trying to solve it?
What happens if they don’t do anything?
This conversation will earn you as a trusted advisor with your prospective client. It will also help you qualify for the opportunity and move the sales process.
Validate:
At the qualifying and validation stage, you are not negotiating.
You are in value judgment mode, assessing if this project is worth it for your prospective client. This stage is about understanding the client’s needs and evaluating if your solution can meet those needs, not about discussing specific terms or prices.
Strategise:
Engage with your clients as a trusted adviser and collaborate to create solutions while securing micro-commitments from all key stakeholders throughout the sales process.
For example:
Through co-creation you discovered that your client does not have the full budget for the year, you can look at a phased approach or a cut-down version.
It's about enabling them to make a decision to move forward with your solution.
Before presenting a proposal, agree on a “soft number” using the “3 Part Response Framework”.
When we ask our clients about the amount of investment they have, they might say the following:
No, we don’t have a budget.
Money’s No Problem.
I can’t tell you.
I don’t know.
You can respond to this by using the 3 Part Response framework,
Part 1: I don’t know how much this will cost you. Every client situation is unique.
Part 2: However, other companies in similar situations that successfully achieve the results we’ve been talking about tend to invest between X and Y.
Part 3: Can you see yourself falling in this range?
If you are on RFP. change the Part 1 response to:
Part 1:I don’t want to put you in a bad spot, and I don’t need a specific number. Let me throw out some figures and get your reaction.
If they still say I don’t know.
Who would know?
This is a point where you should think, "Am I talking to the right person?"
Here’s the conversation flow:
Remember, at this point in the sales process, you are not negotiating. You are validating if there is value for your client to work with you and your company.
The critical point here is to co-create a solution and validate an agreed commercial proposal with your prospective client before presenting a proposal.
How do you manage pricing conversations? Would love to hear from you.
By the way, we practice and role-play this scenario on Elite Sales Athletes’ Win High-Value Enterprise Complex Deals’. Check it out, I am running another one in November and will be holding free webinars to the lead up.
Thanks for reading!
I appreciate you,💜
Ren
Comments