Never send a sales Prospect Pricing to review on their own time. They might not understand it, and they might not think the cost is reasonable. A lot of salespeople want to know the best way to explain pricing to sales prospects. Explaining your pricing model in-person or over the phone is the best way, and it will help you close more sales.

Enterprise salespeople will spend days, weeks, months, and sometimes years chasing prospects only to let them look over pricing on their own.

It can take forever to book a first meeting, why would you give up control of a sale after so much work?! Don’t run 90 yards and drop the ball right before the goal line.

Take control of the sales process by making sure the prospect knows what to expect. Make sure they see pricing through the lens you would like them to.

Inside salespeople (usually) never let their prospects off the phone, but enterprise reps sometimes forget their initial training.

An easy way to close more sales is to make sure all of your pricing discussions happen in person or over the phone. I believe preempting pricing objections is important, and it’s impossible to do correctly if you’re not with the customer.

5 things that happen when you let the prospect look over pricing on their own:

1: The prospect doesn’t understand your quote

Hardware products should never be put into a quote and sent to customers to review on their own. You likely have a few different components, and you should never make customers solve your pricing puzzle themselves.

They won’t understand why the install is so expensive, what the individual components are, and they might compare your prices to consumer-grade products.

Enterprise hardware is always more expensive than consumer grade. Your customer might think both products are the same if you don’t tell them otherwise.

Explaining the different items on your quote helps create an honest and open sales closing process.

If you sell a SAAS solution it’s still important to explain pricing to sales prospects in person. They might not know how your different pricing tiers (if you have them) work.

Just because you’ve explained pricing once doesn’t mean they will understand. People are forgetful. Sometimes you have to repeat yourself to make others understand.

2: The prospect gets sticker shock

If you haven’t prepared your prospect for how much the solution costs, they can get sticker shock.

You can’t prepare your prospect for the cost if you aren’t with them when they first see pricing.

If they look at pricing on their own, the cost might obstruct the product’s value. Customers avoid buying products that will help them because of cost all the time.

Make your prospect understand the pricing model. Salespeople explain so much about their product without explaining the pricing strategy.

Make sure they know why you’re more (or less) expensive than the competition. Explain the features that drive the price up.

The customer is less likely to get sticker shock if you brace them for the cost beforehand. Make them understand where you stand compared to your competitors before they see the price.

Framing is one of my favourite psychological principles salespeople should use. Framing can help position your solution so the customer sees it the way we want them to.

We can position the quality as high so customers expect the price to be high. They will expect your solution to be expensive, and will be pleasantly surprised when it’s moderately priced.

3: They stew on questions that are not immediately answered

Misunderstandings kill deals. Price misunderstanding can easily be avoided, but not if you let the customer try to figure it out on their own.

The customer might not understand that you have different pricing tiers, product levels, or additional features you’ve added on. They won’t know if these are optional or not.

Sometimes they will assume the price is fixed and will go with a cheaper competitor. You lose many of those deals if you could have discounted.

You can get past these misunderstandings easily and close more sales if you only show pricing in person (or over the phone).

4: They control when you have another conversation about the product

You can’t get past concerns if you don’t get an opportunity to talk about them. Every salesperson has lost deals because the prospect went dark. It happens to all of us and it’s infuriating.

Sometimes they have issues we can resolve, but don’t get the chance to explain!

Pricing issues can be hurdled but only if you have a conversation about them.

This is a no-brainer, but we all know salespeople that let customers review pricing without them. They miss out on closing sales because they don’t get a crack at handling the objections.

5: The salesperson has no idea what the prospect is thinking

You can’t know what the prospect is saying about you or your pricing if you’re not there.

Over the phone we can hear voice inflections that give us clues. In person we can read body language. We don’t get either of those advantages if we’re not in front of the prospect.

These clues can let you know if you’re going the close the sale right away, or if you have to objection handle first.

Set up a price review call if you can’t provide pricing immediately

Setting up pricing review calls is a great way to close more sales. It ensures you have a conversation solely about the cost of your solution, and it’s a great chance to flush out potential roadblocks.

4 steps to a well-executed price review meeting

A) Tell the prospect how long it takes to prepare a quote

Set proper timelines and expectations. If it takes a week to prepare a quote don’t over-promise. Make sure you’re always on schedule when it comes to sales meetings.

The customer should always know what to expect from you.

Consistency in your sales approach is important. This is a reflection of the service you’re going to provide if they sign up. You want to create a good impression.

B) Schedule a followup call during your current meeting

Don’t leave your current meeting or demo without a meeting scheduled to talk about pricing. It’s always harder to schedule your next meeting if you’re not in a meeting!

If the customer is reluctant to book a call for pricing, something is wrong. They aren’t as enthused as they should be at this point. This is a good time to flush out concerns, and then push for a follow up meeting.

If the prospect is unwilling to book another meeting, there’s a good chance they weren’t going to buy anyways.

C) Send a calendar invite for the price review call

Get the prospect to find a time in their calendar on the spot. Send out the review call invite on the spot. Make sure they get it and accept. 

D) Recap the benefits of your solution before you show pricing

Never get right into pricing on the pricing review call! It sounds funny but there’s an important reason why.

This will be the least impulsed your prospect will ever be to buy your solution. They aren’t on a demo, haven’t talked features, and are expecting to see a large number you want them to pay!

Make sure they remember why they are looking at your solution, and the parts they like about it the most. Go back through your benefits before you show the price.

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