Handling Objections: "Your Price is too High"

Posted on 07/01/2007 in Handling Objections

The Best Sales Professionals Respond Skillfully to Objections

What are the most common sales objections?  How can you improve your ability to respond to these objections? All salespeople encounter objections, but the best salespeople are more creative and confident in their ability to respond to objections.  What is the most difficult objection that you encounter from customers?  

Common Objection:  "Your Price Is Too High”

Average sales professionals tend to respond poorly to the "price-is-too-high” objection.  The best salespeople, by contrast, have learned some effective ways to respond. Think about how you or your sales team are currently responding to price objections.  

Depending on the industry that you are in, and the type of selling that you do (product or service sales), here are four effective ways to respond to "Your price is too high."

  1. Highlight the value that your company, product or service can provide. Have the courage to express in a clear and compelling way why your higher price is justified. For example; lower shipping costs, inventory management, productivity gains, reduction in waste, and technical assistance.  Whenever possible, quantify the value by using ROI, and cite the payback time or time savings.
  2. Offer to substitute a less expensive product or service.   In many cases, the competitor can offer a lower price because their product/service is not at the same quality level as yours.  If so, recommend that the customer use one of your other products or services instead.
  3. If you must make a price concession, get something in return.  Don’t make the most common mistake that average salespeople make, which is to meet the lower price without getting anything in return.
  4. Instead of making a concession on price, offer an "elegant currency” instead.  We discuss the concept of "elegant currencies” in-depth during our negotiation workshop, but if you haven’t heard the term before, an elegant currency is something that has high value to the customer but is low cost to you. For example: "I can’t reduce our price any further, but I would be willing to extend your warranty.” 

Visit our Essential Selling Skills workshop and our Online Selling Skills pages for more information. Sales Managers interested in helping their salespeople improve handling objections skills, visit our Sales Meeting Kits: Handling Objections page. 

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