Creating Clarity Newsletter 010
“I can’t afford it.”
“That’s too much for me.”
“That’s out of my price range.”
Have you ever heard those words or similar ones from a prospect during a sales call? If so, you’re not alone. I speak to many solopreneurs who listen to concerns over their pricing from prospects.
But here’s the thing no one is talking about.
As disheartening as those words are to hear, they provide you with a golden opportunity.
Are your services priced too high?
When someone says your price is too high, it’s usually not because your price is too high. Instead, price is used as an excuse typically because of one of these three reasons:
- Your offer is not clear
- Your offer does not solve an urgent problem
- Your messaging is attracting the wrong audience
Your offer is not clear.
Price is an easy excuse for prospects when they are unclear about what you offer. Said another way, price will be the go-to excuse when someone doesn’t understand how they benefit from your offer.
My guess is your offer makes perfect sense to you; after all, you put it together, but sometimes, we’re just too close to what we do to see it the way others (prospects) do. To us, it’s crystal clear. To them, it’s fuzzy.
FIX: Review your offer. Not from your standpoint, but for your prospects. Making it as straightforward as possible is the difference between making a sale or not. When your offer is unclear, price becomes the excuse.
Your offer does not solve an urgent problem.
Even if your offer is clear, if it doesn’t solve an urgent problem your prospect is experiencing, the objection will be your price. To get to the urgent problem, you need to identify and dig deep into the specific obstacle in their way because every obstacle has two layers.
Known Spoken.
The Known Spoken layer is a problem everyone agrees on, which means using it to describe your offer will only make you sound like everyone else. The Known Spoken layer is usually not enough to take immediate action by itself. You need to get to the next layer so price becomes less of an issue.
Known Unspoken.
Below the Known Spoken problem lies the key to capturing attention. The Known Unspoken layer contains the problems people don’t say out loud but think about often. So when you talk about Known Unspoken problems, prospects will think you’re reading their mind.
This layer of problems is more urgent to solve, and when you talk about them, they immediately make connections in the prospect’s mind.
FIX:Revise the problem. Peel back the layers of the problem like an Awesome Blossom at Outback to get to the Known Unspoken problems.
Here’s a simple formula to help:
Define the Known Spoken problem > Ask: How does that make the prospect feel (Known Unspoken)
Your messaging is attracting the wrong audience.
This one hurts on many levels and happens when you target a broad group of people, say, service providers. When your message is off, it creates items one and two above.
This is not uncommon for businesses, especially solopreneurs, because we don’t want to leave any prospect behind. But, targeting everyone means you target no one. To narrow your message to attract the RIGHT audience, try using a combination of psychographics and demographics.
Psychographics
Psychographics are Known Unspoken problems. When used to describe your offer, they connect with prospects on a deeper level.
Demographics
Demographics consist of measurable components of your audience, such as gender, age, income, role, or marital status. You can and, in many cases, should use demographics in the messaging about your offer.
A combination of psychographics and demographics in your message is like a one-two punch. Psychographics will pull your audience into a deeper discussion about your offer, and demographics help qualify prospects before you speak to them.
Example: If you’re a [call out audience] making at least [income] and you struggle with [Known Unspoken problem].
My guess is you’ve probably seen this type of message before; now you know why it works.
So, the next time you hear “the price objection” during a sales call, do these two things before you lower your price or offer extended payment plans.
First, ask your prospect if there’s any confusion around the offer.
Then, dig deeper into the problem to find the Known Unspoken problem.
If there’s no confusion and the Known Unspoken problem doesn’t move the needle, then you’re most likely attracting the wrong people with your message, which is the thing that binds all of these “pricing issues” together.
That’s it for this edition of Creating Clarity. See you next week.
Cheers 🍺
Ryan
