Everyone wants to get a great deal when making a purchase, but there is more to a great deal than achieving the lowest price. If you do not have the lowest price for a prospect and other vendors are involved in the prospect’s buying cycle, you need to be selling value. The key to selling value is to build the value up to the price in the prospect’s eyes, rather than bringing the price down to the value the prospect wants to assign.

Everything Else Is Not “Equal”

When prospects are searching for the lowest price and attempting to negotiate your organization’s price down, they will often throw out an objection along the lines of “Your package and the other packages we are looking at are equal, except for price.” However, both you and the prospect should know this is not true; if it were, the prospect would not be trying to negotiate your price down and would take the easy route of accepting the lowest price. Help your prospect see how your offering is better through:

• Your offering’s key differences. When pointing out the differences that make your offering better than competitors’, you can use features and benefits – but only those that you know are most important to the prospect.
• Your organization’s reputation in the industry. If your organization is known for long term service contracts included in an offering, for the reliability of its products, or similar valuable characteristics, use these for selling value.
• Your availability as a sales person. If you have built a strong relationship with your prospect, you can use yourself to sell value by letting the prospect know that your services and assistance come with the offering and that you will be available to help for the long term.

Reduce the Risks for Your Prospect

Risk and the desire to avoid it is a major factor in buying decisions, and usually ranks as more important in prospects’ minds than the lowest price once they have an opportunity to analyze it. When you are selling value, try to help your prospect see your offering as the “less risky” option compared to competitors. You can do this by:

• Showing how the package you and the prospect have put together has performed for organizations similar to the prospect’s to reduce risk.
• Use differences in timelines to show how your offering will reduce risks for the prospect more quickly. If your offering can be delivered, set up, and fully functioning faster than any other offering, use this for selling value.
• If you can, include longer term service contracts or warranties in the deal. These rarely reduce revenue for your organization and can help you in selling value without the lowest price.

Rely on Third Parties for Unbiased Value

When a prospect is truly hesitant on whether to accept your offering or the offering with the lowest price, he or she may need more than your assurances that you are selling value. Even if you may have relied on references towards the beginning of the sales cycle to get your foot in the door with your prospect, you can use references and recommendations again for selling value. Find references and recommendations that are as similar to the prospect as possible, and consider:

• Showing the prospect testimonials that you have collected in a face to face meeting to discuss how these satisfied customers were facing similar issues to those the prospect is facing.
• Using case studies that your organization has compiled to drive home how well your offering will perform.
• Sharing customer lists with your prospect so that he or she can see that his or her competitors and other respected organizations are also using your offerings.

Selling value should become a regular component of your sales toolkit so that the lowest price becomes less of an issue. Learn from these and other tactics for selling value so that you can avoid last-minute price objections.