John is in a meeting room with his potential buyers. He is proposing to these buyers the latest model PX19S Machine Copier for this company which will increase their printing speed dramatically. The aim that John sets is to sell them 3 units.
Now, John starts presenting confidently like how he rehearsed. Their eyes were glued to his presentation and he knew that he has caught their attention. Once he is done, he looks at his buyers for their reaction.
Dead silence.
The HR procurement manager breaks the awkward silence and asks,
“How much is the machine?”
“RM3000”
“That’s crazy!!! Why do we want to pay so much for a copier, we already have a quotation from another supplier for RM2000!”
“But.. but ours is better!”
“Give us 40% discount and we will buy. Call your manager now. If you cannot give us this discount then you can leave”
John panics and asks to leave the room for 5 mins to call his manager to approve the discount.
This is a common scenario where buyers bully salespeople in order to get the lowest price. They are trained to pressure the sellers to give them a very low price.
So, what could John have done instead?
1.Control emotions
It’s very easy to feel nervous and fear when put into this situation. First of all, he is outnumbered by the number of buyers in the room and with their aggressiveness. Secondly, he has the pressure to give discounts because if he is able to get approval to give 40%, the buyers will buy!
But if he wants to close the deal at full price, he needs to first calm down.
2.Understand the buyer’s intentions
The buyers seem interested to buy but they want the lowest price. So, his job now is to convince them to buy his product at full price. To convince them to pay more than his competitors, John needs to find out more first –probing.
3. Probing
When buyers compare John’s product with other competitors, he shouldn’t just defend immediately like “Ours is so much better!” or “Their product is lousy!”.
He should find out by probing more. There can be many ways to probe like:
“I understand that you can get it at RM2000 from XX. But can XX’s product print 5x faster than regular printers? Ours can”
“Do you usually need to print many documents in a short time? And are there instances where papers get jammed and you spend lots of time fixing the machine? Our machine is patented with the latest technology that reduces the possibility of jammed paper by 100x”
“How much do you print every month on average? Okay, do you usually replace the ink/toner every 2 weeks? Our latest technology only uses 50% of the toner and will still produce the same quality. That’s 50% instant savings for you!”
4.Win-Win
When the buyers realize that John’s PX19S Machine Copier is able to solve their printing problems yet save them money, they will definitely be more interested.
The other competitor may give them a lower price, but John has clearly shown that though his product is more expensive, it solves their everyday problem and yet shown them that his product is superior to the competitors. They will buy at full price and this will end in a win-win situation.
This scenario is a simplified story, but we know that actual negotiation can be more complex. We have designed a specialized process for any negotiation scenarios that will ensure that you or your salespeople can close sales at a full price yet buyers will come back for more. Our negotiation system is proven to work, and we have real testimonials from real salespeople! Talk to us today for us to share a little more about how we can help your salespeople.
