The focal point of this podcast episode revolves around the intricate psychology of customer negotiations, specifically when clients assert they are merely seeking the lowest price. We delve into the subtleties of discerning whether such statements are genuine expressions of price sensitivity or mere smoke screens designed to elicit a reduction in pricing. Through a comprehensive analysis, we explore various scenarios that illuminate the importance of effective communication and the art of listening to clients' underlying intentions. It is imperative to recognize that clients often mask their true desires behind a façade of price concerns, which necessitates a strategic response that emphasizes value rather than cost. By fostering a transparent dialogue that clarifies the distinction between "cheap" and "value," we equip ourselves to better serve our clients while enhancing our professional credibility and market standing.

When someone says they want the cheapest price, should you drop your price or just walk away? Today, Sam Wakefield discusses the psychology behind how to sort the client that wants the “down and dirty” price. He’s going to be unpacking that and talk about a couple of different scenarios where that might apply and how to effectively use this verbiage to decipher what they’re really telling you and to listen between the lines.

A thorough investigation into the psychological underpinnings of consumer behavior reveals the complexities surrounding the notion of price, particularly when clients assert their desire for the cheapest option. The discourse emphasizes the significance of discerning the underlying motivations of clients who employ such phrases as a negotiating tactic rather than a genuine request. We delve into the intricacies of effective communication, positing that the articulation of value, as opposed to mere cost, is crucial in establishing trust and confidence with potential buyers. By employing strategic verbiage that challenges the notion of 'cheap', we position ourselves to uncover the true desires of our clientele, leading to enhanced sales outcomes through clarity and transparency. Through various illustrative scenarios, we elucidate how to navigate these conversations, ultimately guiding clients towards understanding the long-term benefits of investing in quality over price alone, thus fostering a more fruitful relationship between service provider and consumer.

Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more, it's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Greetings and salutations.

Welcome everybody back to Close it now, your source for all things H vac sales related.

And just in home sales related, today we're going to be discussing when somebody says, well, I'm just looking for the cheapest price, there is some psychology and a way to filter that to easily figure out if that is just a smoke screen for you to see if you'll drop your prices or if they are truly just looking for the absolute cheapest thing they can find.

So that is what we're going to talk about today.

We're going to break it apart a little bit, unpack that and talk about a couple different scenarios where that might apply and how to effectively use this verbiage to decipher what they're really telling you to.

Listen between the lines, as I like to say.

So stick around.

Thank you for listening.

That is definitely a huge, huge thing with sales, especially in home sales, is listening to what they really mean.

Because a lot of times clients and just people in general, they're gonna smoke screen what they really mean.

They're gonna tell you these things because part of it is just that's the way they've been trained, that's the way they grew up.

Depending on what culture they're from.

There are some cultures around the world that it's almost as if right alongside math and science in school, they have a negotiating class in their elementary school.

Raise your hand if you've ever come across that and it's okay and it's great.

And you need to be able to effectively counter those negotiating tactics and principles and how to learn how to unveil what they're really wanting.

And a good example, this comes from a guy on my team, Dan.

Thanks for this, Dan.

We were talking about it this morning in our meeting and he had a client that was getting back to him with, well, you know, I'm not so sure about Your company, you know, I'm really looking for a cheap price here.

And so he of course gets back with.

And anytime anybody says that if they even come back to you with that, they're still interested in your company, they're just trying to negotiate your price down, you haven't shown them everything they're looking for.

There's a possibility that you haven't increased your level of certainty with them to the fact that they're confident in your company.

They're not maybe not 100% confident in you as the representative.

Maybe they're not 100% confident with your project.

So this is how you handle all of that and what to do with it.

So with this verbiage, what you're looking for is anytime anybody says, hey, I'm looking for the cheapest price, got to clarify that because there's a difference in cheap and value, you know, there's a difference in cheap and low price, right?

So with that, what I like to do is instead of saying, okay, you know, I understand you're looking for the lowest price or something like that, actually use some, a lot more clarifying words, be very descriptive in how you describe that.

Say, okay, are you truly looking for the low down, dirty rock bottom, cut corners, scrape the bottom of the barrel price or are you looking for the best value for your dollar?

Now this is going to do two things for you.

So, and use those kinds of descriptors when you respond.

If you're in person, if it's email, if it's text, however it, if you're on the phone, say, okay, listen, are you looking for, I want to be clear on what you're asking me for.

Are you truly looking for the low down, dirty rock bo, you know, bottom feeder, scrape the bottom of the barrel price, or are you looking for the best value for your dollar?

And what this is going to do.

The people that are truly looking for just the cheapest price and they don't care about quality because you're going to have some of those clients, you will have clients who don't literally don't care about quality if they have to do this every five years, but they are just installing the cheapest price, they're okay with that.

And you have to come to terms that there are those clients out there and they're not the ones you want because when you sell that project, guess what?

Those are the clients that are going to complain the most.

They're going to find the most things wrong with your install, even if it is impeccable, even if it's textbook.

They're going to find some stuff wrong with it and you're going to have go backs and you're going to have complaints and there's a good chance you end up with a bad review.

Even though they were the ones that beat you up on the price, they were the ones that just dropped, made you drop the bottom out.

Don't do it, don't fall for that.

So you're gonna have those clients, but so this is gonna differentiate the people that are truly looking for that.

They're either going to move on and not respond back to you, which is fine, or they're gonna, you know, it's possibly.

They could get mad a little bit about it.

They could get, you know, you're calling their bluff.

So you've got those clients.

That's really what they're looking for.

Let them go.

Bless and release.

They can be someone else's headache.

However, and this is the important part, and sales psychology comes in, you will have those clients and the majority of them actually are the client who they really are looking for better value.

They maybe not necessarily are interested in the lowest, cheapest price system you have, but that was just their way of having a smoke screen of getting you to drop your price on some of the other stuff that they're looking at now for those clients when you tell them that, it's kind of like your takeaway because they're going to come back to you with, well, now, hang on, no, that's not really what I'm looking for.

What I'm looking for is, yes, the best value for my dollar, the best value for the project.

I don't want you to cut corners.

I don't want you to leave things out.

I really am looking for a better value.

And that reopens the negotiation that opens the ability to have that conversation with those clients because they understand that one you're seeing right through their smokescreen.

You basically labeled it and said, listen and just tell them up front, we will never be the absolute cheapest company, nor would you want us to be the cheapest company, because the things that I would have to leave out in order to make that price happen, you wouldn't want me to leave out.

So I decided a long time ago to not skip steps and be proud of my price because it's for quality work.

So if somebody else is coming in and offering you a system at a thousand or $2,000 less than I am, but it only lasts half as long, have they really saved you anything?

If you have to do it all again and again every few years and you have maintenance issues along the way and it doesn't cool or heat the way they say it's going to.

Have you really gotten a better deal or did you just buy yourself a headache?

And so when you have this kind of upfront, just really clear, you're just like, I'm not making this up.

You can Google search this stuff.

It's exactly what happens.

You have thousands and millions of people who have given bad reviews for this exact same they took their price and just went off of price instead of value and quality.

And then they end up with a project and with a system that is nothing but a headache and it's giving them nothing but problems.

And this 100% actually I love quotes, so quotes are very powerful.

There's a quote by Benjamin Franklin that we actually have on the back of every single one of our business cards.

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

And that's a Benjamin Franklin quote.

I'm going to read it again.

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

And it's super, super powerful because.

And it's even on the bottom of every single email that we send because we don't want to be the cheap person.

The example is you can sell 10 systems that are your basic efficiency systems, your builder grade stuff, or you can sell one or two high end equipment and earn more money, have more net at the end of the day than 10 of the basic ones and you worked a lot less.

So that's how you work less and earn more.

That's exactly what our podcast is about.

That's one of the key principles and premises of this podcast.

This is not about working your face off until you don't see your family and you never get to take vacation and all this kind of stuff.

This is about being efficient and managing your time by upping your ticket price, upping your sales numbers, up your close rate, you could have the same number of leads.

And if you up your close rate and you up your ticket price, you're going to earn dramatic amount of more money.

The example is with and I'll just pull from my own life where I'm at now from the first year to the third year I have the same number of leads, but I gave myself a $50,000 raise by just changing the number of my close rate and just changing my average sell.

Those are the only two things that changed.

That number of average number of leads was about the same, but when you do that, you dramatically change your bottom line.

And it's awesome when you see that happen.

Every single one of you can do that by applying some of these skills, these techniques, these principles, and it's going to change the way that your customers interact with you.

The other thing that happens when you communicate like this, when you communicate very clearly, because crystal clear communication is crucial when we're doing sales, especially for something that it's a high ticket item.

I mean, we are high ticket closers.

You know, you see Dan Locke on all over the Internet.

If you've never heard of him, look him up.

Dan and Lok Dan Locke, he is the high ticket closer.

They call him, you know, he's talking about high ticket closes of, you know, 2,000, 3,000, $4,000.

I laugh when I see those because in our industry, high ticket closing, our threshold to start is what, six, seven thousand bucks for a complete system.

And commonly every single day I've got one I'm working on right now, that's 37,000 is what we just ended up at.

You would commonly do, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, $50,000 projects all the time.

Because we educate in this industry.

We educate, you offer services, you offer all of the extras so people can say, you know what, I like this, but I don't like that.

I like this, but I don't like that.

I understand the benefits here.

Thank you for educating me.

Thank you for taking the time to go.

I don't know how many times I can tell you, be able to tell me, thank you for taking the time to educate me on what all of this does and what the problem is and how you're going to fix it because no one else cared enough to take that time.

That's why I chose you.

So you've got to do the due diligence and explain things the right way, but in a way that they can understand it, a way that they know what's going on.

So the other thing that happens when we are just completely transparent in that conversation, when you're like, listen, are you looking for the down and dirty, rock bottom, bottom of the barrel, lowball price, or are you looking for more value that not only weeds out the people that are truly looking for that, that are just the cheapos.

And then the other people that come back and say, okay, no, let's really talk because I like your company, you know, let's see what you can do.

But it also, in that transparency, what happens, you're basically opening up and say, listen, I'm here to help you, but I'm not going to cut corners to do it.

It boosts your credibility as a company.

It boosts your credibility as a representative.

And basically telling them, I'm not going to compromise my quality because you asked me to.

I'm not going to compromise my quality and my service just to win your sale.

And by doing that, you're basically saying, look, the impression that you get that you give off is, listen, I need people.

I don't need a single sale.

Your one project is not going to make or break my success.

I am a quality representative for a quality company with a quality product.

And if we win or lose your project, it doesn't make any difference to me because there will be others, there's always more waiting who want quality work.

And when that is the vibe that you're giving out, it's kind of like when you see people in the dating scene and you hear all of these people talk about you can smell desperation a mile away, right?

When somebody is desperate, there's not a date inside.

It's like a wasteland.

It's a desert out there.

But the second that you take yourself off the market and you have that whole I don't really care attitude, geez, that's crazy.

There's dates everywhere.

Everybody wants you.

It's the same thing with this.

If you are desperate to make a sale and you're, okay, well, listen, you know, what's the other company doing?

And I can match that price or I can drop my price even lower.

I guarantee you I'll beat it.

What does that sound like?

That's horribly desperate.

I had a guy call me earlier, gave him a quote yesterday.

We're working on the final details of it.

He's like, hey, I just wanted to tell you it's a big project.

I'm getting other quotes and they're coming in cheaper than yours.

And I said, absolutely, sir, I'm sure they are.

I said, because I'm going to be transparent with you, here's what's going on.

And not just global, across the country.

The market is down a little bit.

I said, and what's happening in a slower year?

This is a slower year than the last several.

I said, so, sir, as you're comparing all of this, what you're going to see happen is there's companies out there that are so desperate for work that they're willing to drop their prices to crazy amounts lower just to get any kind of a job.

But the things that they're cutting out for your project, I would never do.

So, yes, I said, absolutely.

Let me help you compare the quality of work.

So, because what we're talking about is not an appliance.

If you went to Lowe's or Home Depot and you buy a refrigerator and you plug that sucker in and it doesn't work, you can blame the manufacturer, you can blame Kenmore or Bosch or whoever made the refrigerator.

I said, but what we're talking about here is a lot different.

This is like buying a Ford F150 and having it delivered to your front yard in a thousand boxes.

And then it's up to you, you to hire the company who's certified and qualified to put it together and not have missing parts left at the end, not have extra screws and components because they didn't know where they went.

So that's why our prices are where they are and that's the quality of project you're going to get.

And so that's just straight up what I told my phone.

He's like, oh my gosh, yeah, you're totally right.

I was like, because if their systems don't last as long, you haven't saved anything because you've got a headache now and it didn't accomplish what you wanted to accomplish.

So at the end of the day, it's never about the price.

It's about the quality of the project and doing it right.

And when you communicate on this level, can you hear the confidence in my voice?

And you have to be connected, of course, to a company that you know the quality of install is that good, you know the quality of service behind it is that good.

You know what your design is that good.

And you're only going to offer the best of what you can do, do your best and forget the rest.

Right?

But when you have that type of conversation, the confidence in your voice comes through.

You don't have to say, I'm confident, you just are.

It's about belief.

It's about knowing that you're offering the right thing for the right purpose to the right people and knowing that your price is the right price for the amazing level of quality and service that you're offering.

So that is the rest of that conversation.

But just ask them, label it.

That's called as is ing it.

You are basically, I'm going to call this as it is.

Are you looking for that low down, dirty, rock bottom, bottom of the barrel price or are you looking for the best value for your dollar?

And they will absolutely clarify and they're going to sort themselves for you so you don't end up with the bottom feeder who just wants the cheapest price and doesn't care what corners are cut that are only going to be complainers.

Or you'll find that a lot of the people will come back to you and the bigger majority will come back to you with you know what?

I really do want the best value for your dollar.

Thank you for explaining it like that.

No, I don't want you to cut any corners.

What can we do?

Let's work together to come up with something that works.

That's exactly how to have that conversation and it's extremely powerful.

So I would love to hear from you about what value you got from this.

What was your biggest takeaway from today's episode?

Shoot me a message@samoseitnow.net go to closeitnow.net to stay in touch.

We've got the coaching program has now begun.

So we've got group coaching, we've got private coaching and watch out for some events.

I've got some events coming up in the fall that are going to be amazing.

They're going to be rockers.

So shoot me a message if you would like to discuss a three do it a three day boot camp for your organization because I've got my sales system is proven start to finish.

From soup to nuts from the first call to the close every single time.

So that blind date to marriage proposal in less than an hour and getting the ring on the finger.

So that's the Close it Now system.

So anyway, if you got value from this, share it with someone.

I would love to hear your feedback.

Until next time.

I will talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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