what you need to know before you get to price.
watch the video or listen to the podcast.
follow 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 podcasts on apple here or grab the rss feed here.
with sarah dobek and ty hendrickson
inovautus consulting
negotiating the terms of a new engagement can be intimidating and downright scary.
related: growing revenue through client service | eat that frog: asking for a prospect meeting
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.
however, it’s the most important – and last – step to securing new revenue.
when you can learn what you need to have ready for the discussion, know what questions to anticipate, understand common pain points in any agreement so you can address them head-on, and how to show the value of what you’re proposing, closing the deal will become much easier – and lower your anxiety.
negotiating price and/or new business is something everyone seems to struggle with early on in selling. why is that? (hint…talking money can be uncomfortable, but the price is only negotiated when you haven’t built enough value in the sales process).
what is ideal to know about your prospect once you make it to the proposal stage with a prospect? (who is involved, decision making criteria, timeline, potential obstacles, budget)
what are some tips to close more business at higher rates? (hint…build value and take objections throughout the sales process, know who you are selling to and what they value, follow their buying timeline, not your selling timeline, and build trust.
key take-aways
1. how to negotiate price and/or expanded service offerings.
2. what you need to know about your prospect when you make it to the proposal stage.
3. tips to close more business at higher rates.
transcript
ty
here, with our president and founder sarah dobek, and in this video we’re going to jump a little bit more into the negotiation. part of selling and really understanding how to win more business and get across the finish line a little bit quicker, so start out with a typical question, let me get your thoughts on why people are so intimidated with negotiation and what?
what is it that people should really be thinking about going into a negotiation?
sarah
a lot of reasons people are uncomfortable ’cause we don’t like conflict and negotiation implies conflict, right?
like we don’t agree with you or we don’t think you’re worth that, and i can’t tell you how many times we go there internally, like am i worth it?
there is this shame feeling or this conflict or here we go again, another client that doesn’t go to value.
what we do right and all of these voices start playing in our head and so it triggers us right? and so one of the things that i think we have to do to get comfortable with negotiation is recognized.
but a lot of negotiation is because we have not fully communicated our value or we’ve missed an opportunity to understand what is driving their decision and a lot of things and negotiation can actually be a lot easier than we think it is, but it requires really good listening and a lot of.
i think to understand that sometimes it doesn’t require you to change anything.
it requires you to hear the other parties’ side and truly understand and make sure they’ve been heard and addressed for things and we don’t think that we just think oh here we go to negotiate. i have to drop my price and that’s not true.
ty
i absolutely love that you started with that because everyone hears negotiation.
is it they think price objections and they think the minute there’s any type of pushback.
god, i have to discount, but that’s not the case, you know.
did you know people might push back because it’s not the right tone?
people might push back because they have to get somebody else involved people might push back.
because you know they’ve got to go through a budgeting process or they need more information and there are so many reasons that you get objections, which is part of a negotiation that doesn’t involve price.
and if it really does just come down to price, that’s like you said you haven’t presented the value in their mind.
that justifies the price so when you’re going through the sales process, how?
what can you do leading up to this to prevent giving a price objection?
sarah
well, one is you’ve got to have a really good understanding of what their particular needs are.
what is it that they really want?
what’s driving that decision?
and understand that innately.
because oftentimes negotiating negotiation comes up when we’ve missed that.
i will honestly say there are sometimes where the price is a factor and not the factor that you haven’t proven the value.
it’s that they don’t see the value right, and that’s a mindset issue.
so you could explain it. you could do a really good job pitching your positioning and here’s what makes us different.
but at the end of the day, value is innate into the individual, and so some people see it and some people don’t. and if they don’t see it that’s sometimes not something that you can do
anything about, but i would say 90% of the time that negotiation is within your control, right? if you’ve done a good job called define that prospect.
if you’ve had a really good discovery conversation, you understand the needs. you know you’ll often see a lot of those things get reconciled in the negotiation process.
if you’ve done a good job in that discovery or you won’t get pushed back, that’s how you know you’ve done a really great job of hearing them out is you won’t get pushed back. you won’t get those other questions that are happening when you’ve when you’re done then
ty
you may think it’s a lot of money and they may think gosh for what all i’m getting that’s a steal.
i still remember one of the first people that i ever coached in sales. he was selling software and he had to tell someone that the price tag was gonna be $25,000.
he was so nervous, like and i’m sitting there on the call, shadowing. i’m going to spit it out, say the price they keep asking you what the price is and you could tell he was just anxious about saying it.
and he told him and they go oh that’s it, i thought it would be more, and so he was so worried over nothing.
but he’d done such a good job at understanding their needs and making sure that he mapped it to the value that it made a big difference.
and i think one of the other things that hinder this value perception is understanding the difference between the value you offer and the services you provide.
so what are your thoughts on differentiating value from the actual deliverable that the service you’re doing?
sarah
i think it’s tough because i think everybody has different points of value and what’s important, and that’s part of what you have to understand.
i don’t think you can separate it from the service, i’ll be honest.
a lot of the value is created in how you service your clients.
it’s not just what you deliver to them and i think that’s where there’s a big misperception of the profession is the value.
isn’t the tax return the value? it’s the information in the tax return.
the value is what we learn coming out of the audit.
how we communicate, how we engage with our clients, is what creates some of the value that’s being provided at the end of the day.
anybody can take a box and check something and run a piece of software, but not everybody can synthesize and then interpret and use that information and to have a conversation, and at the end of the day that is part of the level of service that you’re delivering with whatever it is you’re performing, compliance or non-compliance service.
and that’s partly how we create value.
some of it may be in how responsive you are to your client you’re getting a client that’s been burned really badly.
you know, maybe that’s important.
or maybe you want a, you know, a firm that is anticipatory and proactive with you and thinking ahead of you or knows deeply the industry that you’re serving and how can they bring that to you and use that information.
there are lots of different things that we each use as value drivers, and so if we can understand those in any situation that will help us articulate how we create that and talk about that.
ty
you know i saw i actually pulled up my phone.
i’m showing you guys this ’cause i saw this thing on social media the other day that says charge for your worth, not your time and it was an invoice place that someone sent and it said cutting one wire $1.00 knowing which wire to cut $999.
you know, i mean, that’s i go back to that now. i screenshot of that and i kept it because i love it that they’re not paying you, you know $1000 for the tax return, they’re paying you minimal for the time step, but it’s for the knowledge behind that, right?
and so i think that’s the that goes back to you being able to present your value because you believe in the value that you had that you bring to the table and then also helping them understand it’s not cutting the wire. it’s knowing which wire to cut that did not blow everybody up so.
sarah
correct, i love that example.
i’m gonna have to remember that one.
it’s it is true there. it takes years to be able to synthesize and do something, and so it might not take you a long time, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t years or decades of training that went into something like that and it takes a lot.
it’s a hard conversation with firms to get out of that cycle.
i don’t want to turn this into a value pricing that standard. but there is a reason that some firms today are charging rc services right now as a percentage, right?
it doesn’t take long, but the value to the client on the other end of that is in some cases it does take longer, right?
but the hours don’t equate to the value being delivered, and as you do more of these you become more efficient at them.
but why should you lose money, right?
you should rethink that.
that’s good, right?
or the other related to that, but it’s a conversation that we have a lot.
and one last thing is we’re talking about negotiation, and we’ve talked a lot about price and objections.
ty
but what are some things that you should probably know going into a negotiation that will help prevent some of these struggles and conversations from happening?
sarah
know the people that you’re dealing with enough to recognize when somebody just needs more time to make a decision, we all make decisions differently.
we all take in information to inform that decision, and some of us, our decision is based on the relationship.
did we connect with the person in the room and for some of us we need a lot of factual information, right?
well, tell me about all the results that you’ve had and how many clients are you serving in this area, right?
you know what are you doing and how many hours, right?
i think of all the facts that we share in proposals and then there are those other people that are sort of in-between there and so if you can, kind of earn how to quickly pick up on some cues that will give you some insights into those people that will help you understand where to emphasize and spend your time, especially if you’ve got a bunch of people around the table that are influencing that decision.
ty
yeah, and to that point. if you have a bunch of people around the table, you need to know who all is involved in the decision.
you need to know if someone waited more than somebody else.
you’ve got one or more people you need to know what’s involved in their decision-making process, what’s important to each one of them because you have to address all of those.
so you know it comes with being a little forward and a little direct, but ask, you know who’s involved in making this decision, what do they need to know?
when are you gonna want to make this decision?
you know you can always ask when do you want to have it done and back into it.
is there a budget? you know a lot of people are scared of these questions. then you know you’ll start to ask those questions and find out what’s important to everybody that’s involved and what’s going to go into them making the decision.
sarah
absolutely, i couldn’t agree more. we are afraid to ask though, and i remind people all this time the worst thing they could say is no, we’re not going to share that information with you, and then you move on.