How to handle price objections without undervaluing your services

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by rob

Price objections are an everyday aspect of commercial life. So much so that figuring out how best to handle them has become something of a science that involves clarifying the underlying reasons for the objection in order to decide the best way to proceed.

Then again you might simply think of them as a natural obstacle to be overcome before you get down to the business of talking up the value-driven benefits of your product or service.

Here are just a few of the ways you might handle price objections while maintaining the value proposition of your offering.

A low value objection

The prospect has doubts about your ability to provide value for money. In other words, they don’t think they have a problem that you can solve for them. Possible reasons for this are that they’re too small, or their pipeline is already full, and they simply don’t need an agency.

How big a part does marketing play in their operation? For a business their size, you could provide them with a percentage increase of leads. Your value is that you could potentially expand the size of their operation.

A lack of interest

A lack of interest in your proposition could indicate that marketing isn’t actually one of their priorities. Or they might decide to consider it in the future. You can then empathise with their other priorities.

You say it might seem like marketing can wait, but their competitors won’t be waiting. For example, if you’re an SEO agency, talk about the importance of their rankings in organic Google searches, and sell them on the short-term wins you can honestly achieve for them.

They seemed keen until the price came up.

They seem to like your proposition and they like you. But they’re a bit too eager to know your price. Then they ask about scaling back or cherry-picking your services. Or maybe they talk about having had quotes from agencies who can do what you do, but more cheaply.

This might well mean they don’t have the budget. You then have to decide whether to offer to scale back your services, or simply to add the objections up and call it a day.

You’re too expensive

The question is, too expensive compared to what? Do they mean your competitors are cheaper? Or are they comparing the cost of using your services to the cost of doing nothing at all?

Here’s where you need to get them thinking about the hidden costs of what they’re not doing. This puts you in a better position to demonstrate the value of your product or service by getting them to think about what your service could do for them.

Or just leave it all to Alchemis

At Alchemis, our senior team have over 100 years’ collective experience in developing new business leads for agencies. We’ve worked across all marketing and communications disciplines and understand the challenges of running and managing an agency.

Critically, we understand the challenges around new business, and we know how important a solid pipeline of prospects and opportunities is for planning as well as future growth, and this is where we can help.

We can provide you with a full, outsourced new business function, or work with and support in-house business development teams to help to generate and maximise new business opportunities.

If you are a marketing, communications, creative, research or digital outfit who would welcome partnering with Alchemis to support your new business efforts, please fill in our form or email Jim@alchemis.co.uk or Davidn@alchemis.co.uk.