Basic Principles for Handling Price Issues

The conversation over how to quote and when to quote can easily be summarized. I keep things simple by following these disciplines in face-to-face selling:

Don’t quote a price on your service until you understand the customer’s situation completely and it plays to your strengths.

Don’t quote a price on your product until/unless you know you can back it up with better service (that’s easily validated by existing customers) and with better support, and these things matter to the customer.

You want to avoid, as far as possible, the quote-and-run, show-up-and-throw-up, spray-and-pray tactics employed by, even today in 2008, most sales professionals.

Steer clear of prospects wanting immediate, up-front pricing, or find ways to screen them out earlier in the process. And sprint towards anyone wanting to honestly evaluate the strengths and advantages of similar competitors.