..

Salespeople talk too much and too fast. Thats something you can avoid. Stop talking more, and try using few words to make your client work for you.  "I don't know." That's perhaps a powerful sales word you can use in for starters handling objections in sales. As a salesperson, we many know our product well. But, we are supposed to understand almost everything about the client, his/her requirems, and importantly budget! When you talk too much, showing you know everything, you lose control.

In any sales conversation, whoever have the big questions own the conversation. You should be doing less than 20% of talking, and leave the prospects to do 80% of talking. An amateur sells, but a sales maverick, makes clients deduce their own logic, and figure out why they want to buy from you in the first place! As a sales "closer", take control of the conversation. Buyers don't like to be SOLD! You let prospects sell your products by themselves. So, all you do is simply ask questions with knowledge of unknown.

Here's a trial convo using one simple word - I don't know.

Prospect: "So, how much do you charge?" You: "I don't know. It depends." You: "I don't know. Depends on what you're looking for." "Tell me a little bit about what you're looking for, sir."

Do a lot of digging.

Prospect: "Is your product any good?" You: "I don't know. Depends if you want something good." You: "I don't know. Depends on how do you define good."

Stop explaining "why". Anything most prospects throw at you, try redirecting back. It's good to always answer a question with a question. Rather working to justify "why", ask them . Have you ever tried that before?

Prospect: 'Well, why is your stuff so expensive?'

Most conversations work around - 'Let me tell you,' and then its a 15-minute thing. From now, here's how you handle it. When someone throws a question like 'Why is your stuff so expensive?' reply "I don't know, sir."

Prospect: "Why do you think people pay you so much money?"
You: "I don't know." Prospect: "I guess… you're good.' 'Well, I'm looking for.."

All starter questions are smoke and mirror. At the end of the day, it's about understanding what your client wants, and their requirements. If they can't come with a definitive requirement, stop fooling around, and save your time!

Whatever a prospects throw at you, don't let that throw you off your game. It's not necessary to sound too excited, and go at length about your company. The sales conversation, need not be a pleasant experience. Obviously, you need to learn, requirements, budget, and qualify a prospect.

There's no secret way to automate this, perhaps it's learnable. Money, time, needs, decision, just try approaching with an answer - "I don't know" & find out what their needs are. Handle the whoever answers the question and take control of your conversation. You want to be doing 20% of talking, not 80%, and you want to qualify prospects up-front.

WE❤️ SALES

"How Much?"

What do say when your prospects ask you the biggest cliff-hanger in sales "how much do you charge?" What's your response? How do you handle this objection? When prospects are asking this, what you say later, is also very critical to closing the sale. Think. Pause. And, Act wisely.

Example, It could be over phone, it could be face to face, as you are just two minutes into your conversation, and if your prospects are asking you this exact question, "how much is it". It simply means prospects want to get to bottom line. They want to know price right away, and fly to next seller, "just tell me how much is it".

And, it simply means - "I don't care for your features, benefit, I just wanna know if this fits my budget". The minute you give out price, you tell them that exact value, you've lost all control of negotiation, and because you have not taken time to build up prospect's needs, or did not do enough background research to discover exactly what they're looking for before you get to price.

Me: "What's your budget?" Client: "Whatever you'll regret later."

So when you tell them price, let's say it's 10 thousand, it's 50 thousand, it's a hundred thousand. At the right minute you reveal a number, you've lost your upper hand, because now all you could do is wait for your prospect to say "you know what, nope, that's too expensive". "No, I don't wish to pay for that" or "nope, that's not what we thought" that "we were gonna spend, then we're gonna do.."

The problem now is working on the "justification" part, and getting in terms with the buyer. You end up convincing the buyer "Right, oh but, but we are so good that our product/service is better, that we've been in business for X amount of years… "

Now, by justifying price, you call the shots for negotiation, and, thats something you shouldn't. If it's in the very beginning of your sales conversation, when your prospects ask you "so, how much is it exactly?" Redirect! Redirect the conversation going back to his/her requirements and find exactly, why are they talking with you in the first place. So, in the beginning when they ask you a question, "how much is it", you can simply reply, "I don't know", or "It depends".

A prospect say something like well it depends on what? "Well it depends on exactly what you're looking for." "Why don't you tell me a little bit about what you're looking for?" And, you go back to their needs. You go back to their wants, you go back to why are they talking to you in the first place.

Now, if it's somewhere, let's say in the middle of a conversation. You are qualifying them, you follow their needs. You've done all those steps and now it's more near the end. And, when you're actually talking about money and they say well how much is it? Now, whenever you give them a price, let's say it's 10 thousand, don't stop with a number, and here's why.

Me:"well it's 10 thousand". Prospect: "oh, it's too expensive", "it's more than I thought".

It's a near natural response from your potential buyer. So what do you do, as you want to continuously ask next question! Add the number, but go ahead and continue the loop!

Prospect: "well how much is it", You: "it's 10 thousand. Are you comfortable spending that kind of money"? You: "it's 10 thousand, Is that within your budget"?

So you took next question and you go on a question-chain, and keep the conversation running. It's either "oh, yes" or they'll say "no". Now, if they are giving you resistance on price, handle it objectively, and we wrote a good post sometime back. Read more ⟶

How to handle some of those objections, that if they ask you that question you always want to redirect. You don't really just wanna say blurt out price without something else. Sometimes if it's somewhere in the middle of the conversation, they ask you well, how much does it cost? If they are pushing and pushing and pushing, you can also give them a range. You can give them a range, and sum it up with "it depends" on what you need.

"… Instead of giving them a budget that they'll reject, why don't you give your prospects a bottom-line they will fit into."

Let's say you are a into sales lead generation, and you are developing a funnel, a brand or something for them and they ask you well, how much is it gonna cost me to do all inclusive? "Well, you know, anywhere from five to 10 thousand. How do you feel about that?" And you just, and listen and see what they have to say. Now they might say oh, okay, that's what we were thinking roughly to spend, okay or they might say, "oh, whoa, that's, whoa," and few penny pinchers would reveal they are swimming naked saying "whoa, hold on a second, that's way more than what we wanna spend". Then you go back to handling an objection. When your prospect's asking you "how much is it", be prepared to handle objections, and every thing depends on timing. In traditional sales, buyer owing the money, dictates the power. When its a sales conversation, its wise to handle your pricing strategy as per needs of the buyer, rather telling a price, and then revising it later. No one likes to be told it will costs more after you go ahead & check with your pre-sales team about working with a bad client's requirement. And, we wrote a rather great pieces on consultative selling. ⟶

When someone approaches you, "how much", always demand taking the upper hand. When you need to control a sales conversation, pause before you reveal the price, as maybe it's too early and we haven't built up the demand, and we haven't created the needs. When you want to retain and remain powerful in your sales conversation, retain the reign on your sales negotiations, when the talk is money.

Good luck!