Prosper by Marketing VALUE not Price

In an uncertain economic environment, businesses of all kinds are faced with more skeptical buyers and contracting budgets. At Promise Productions Marketing Communications, we believe the answer to this is a stronger value proposition and inbound marketing strategies.

Many times a company will react to these buyer objections by offering to lower their pricesl. However, this approach substantially impacts the business owner whose overhead usually remains constant. If you sell a product with a 20% profit margin that your sales team routinely discounts by 5% in order to get the deal, then in effect you need to drive your team to sell 25% more of that product in order for you to break even!

• Do you often end up paying for the non-performance of your client's existing vendor by dropping your price to get the client, whose problem wasn’t being handled by the incumbent effectively to begin with?
• Do you buckle every time your competitor price-drops simply because you lack the conviction or knowledge to differentiate and sell on value?

The buyer's motivation when objecting to price tells you a lot about your marketing strategy for dealing with pricing and these objections.

Value Perception: 

The price of your product or service, whether accepted or rejected, is contingent upon your prospect's perception of what that product or service will ultimately do for them when compared to the competition. What the buyer believes your offering is going to provide them is their reality. 

Before showing or telling them anything it is essential that you first uncover what they are looking for and more importantly what your solution will actually do for them (or avoid with regard to back-end issues) above and beyond their current mode of handling the problem (incumbent). Unless you uncover what is lacking in their current product or service and the ramifications of this absence, you will not be able to sell on value and hold your price.

I was watching a video this morning on some ultra high-performance and high-luxury cars that cost a fortune! And yet the manufacturer was confident they would sell every single one of them at exactly his asking price. Why? Because the had SUPERIOR VALUE -- the product did something for the buyer that no ordinarily-priced car would do. In this luxury item, the value is the prestige, the envy factor, the exclusivity, the fast speed, etc.. Those who value those things will not haggle about the price. 

Although you could feed an entire 3rd world village for a year with the price tag on the item, the buyers were lining up begging to have one because of the VALUE it represented for them. Friends, this is the power of value-based marketing.

The other thing this company did right was to know their market -- they were not trying to sell to everyone, just those who were already receptive to their value. Those who deal in commodities (fast food, coca-cola, etc.) can never raise their prices above a certain level because they have insufficient extra value over their competition to justify raising their prices.

That means you must understand your buyer and what they want MORE than money, or at least a certain level of money. Unless you know what your buyer values, all you have left to bargain with is price and you lose.

In contrast to value-based-marketing, the typical sales person attempts to resolve the price objection by reasoning with the prospect intellectually. However, by repeating the same features and benefits that were insufficient to capture the prospect's signature to begin with you are getting nowhere. What is necessary to close the sale is to distinguish MORE VALUE to the buyer.

By emotionally engaging the prospect you allow them to visualize the outcome or result of your product or services. The value of what you offer must become real to them.


If the price objection you're dealing with is ego driven, money is secondary and the ability to feel as if they won is paramount. In this situation, give in to to their ego, not to a price concession. In some situations the buyer simply needs to win, or know they somehow managed to negotiate "extra value" for themselves. 


In this case, see what other aspect of the deal you can give them other than to lower your prices. Uncover what is important to them such as delivery, meeting critical deadlines or response time to problem resolution. If you can give in on one of their demands this often allows both parties to get what they want. They win with regards to a term you held fast on and you win by holding your price.


For specific strategies for your business to win through value, contact Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.