Pricing is the only “card” the salesperson has to play. On a chessboard it’s like our queen versus our client’s full board of pawns (tennis ball objections), rooks and bishops (previous advertising experience and decision-making process), and king (business need). We have to defeat a full chessboard while protecting our queen. In other words, we have to get our client to play all their cards before we play our one.
So when the client asks, “Okay okay, how much does it cost?” We have to parry with, “I’m getting to that, but first let me show you one more thing / ask you one more question.”
And we do that over and over, skillfully nonchalant, until we’ve fully qualified the client, upfront contracted, and basically ensured that when we show the client prices, they’re going to pick a program and sign up.
If we don’t have all the clients cards played and we get to pricing prematurely, we’ll get an objection we weren’t expecting or a part of the program where the client doesn’t see value will go unspoken. Handling these issues when the client has a credit card screen in front of their face is near impossible. They get nervous about putting down their card and cease to be rational.
Their mind needs to be almost fully made up by the time they’re looking at pricing so you can make a final emotional push to get them over the edge.
If you don’t have all their cards played and their rational mind convinced at this point, however, no amount of emotional push or salesy last-ditch efforts (like lowering the price, money-back guarantee, offering promos, adjusting contract length) will get the client to ignore their brain and sign up.
The key is that when you get to the point of showing pricing, the only objections you’ll get should be related to pricing. In other words, the client is convinced of the value of the program and understands how it works, so none of the objections should be about whether this is a product or service they want or need or if it will work for them; all the objections on the pricing screen should be just about finding a budget that the client is comfortable with.