Three Tips for Never Discounting Again

Linda is one of my clients who, when we first met, complained about how she had to discount over and over and over again with prospects who were trying to consistently beat her down on price. We changed three key components of her selling in order to insure that she would never have to discount again.

Three Tips for Never Discounting Again

#1. Stop leading with your solution. Some salespeople approach a prospect and say, “Let me share with you how my product can help you,” or, “I’d like to show you how I can save your company money.”

This is leading with the solution, or leading with your product or service. This is ultimately going to put you in the position of appearing to be a commodity and thereby getting beat down on price.

Rather than leading with your solution, first start the conversation by understanding exactly what is going on in the world of that prospect, and then after that point, you have disqualified any people who are not a fit. Now it’s time to talk about your solution, which is catered directly towards the challenges and goals of that prospect.

#2. Learn the Delta. Your prospect is buying from you for one of two reasons: either to make more money or increase sales/decrease costs. In your selling conversations, it’s important to learn what your prospect is really trying to accomplish. Your solution is going to solve some particular challenges.

Understand those challenges and what those challenges are costing that prospect.

By knowing these features you’ll learn the Delta between where they are now and where they would like to be. More specifically, the delta is the difference in either revenues or costs that they’re experiencing currently vs. where they’d like to be—should they invest in your solution.

For example, suppose you have a marketing product or service, and currently your prospect’s revenues are at $10 million. But, they believe that revenues should be at $15 million. That means the Delta is $5 million. This is the value that a service like yours is going to create. Learn that Delta with every prospect.

#3. When you cut price, cut out deliverables. There’ll be times that your prospect won’t be able to invest in the entire solution. Rather than selling the entire solution at a discounted rate, remove some deliverables in order to decrease the price of your solution.

So let’s say a prospect wants you to cut a $50,000 solution to $45,000. Cut out $5,000 worth of value.

Remove some specific component in order to lower the price. This way, you’re not actually discounting, but rather, selling a sized-down solution with a corresponding lower price.

You shouldn’t have to sell your product/service short. There are ways around this problem. By applying these three tips for never again discounting, you’ll find that your average sale sizes will be significantly higher than they’ve ever been before.

Which of these tips could you apply to your selling today? Please share below in the comments.