Say you’re a carpet cleaner and you go out and do a quote. Once you’ve measured up and it comes to the time you have to state the price, you bottle it by mumbling something wet and feeble like ” err … ok … that would be … urm … yes thats right, your quote, Um… would £200 be okay … oh sorry, is that too much …?” he says, blushing bright red and avoiding all eye-contact.
The salesperson falters, they hedge their bets, they “aim” to do stuff, they “hope” you’ll be happy.
AAHHHH. It all so bloody drippy. This is like one of those “wet fish” handshakes. Doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence as a buyer, does it?
From the customers point of view (which is the only point of view which really matters) wouldn’t they be thinking “Why are they so worried? Doesn’t he believe he’ll do a good job? Doesn’t he feel he is worth that amount and if he doesn’t think he is worth that amount, why did he quote me that much?
And BANG! Just like that. You’ve just lost a sale. Not being confident in your pricing is losing you a whole bunch of sales – guaranteed.
This is because people don’t want to do business with people who aren’t totally confident in their ability to do a great job and charge a decent price. We want to do business with people who project their ability, project their great work ethic, pride, and confidence in themselves and their work. We want to do business with those who live comfortably in a little village south of arrogant but north of confident.
So look at the words you are using in your sales scripts, and elsewhere. Does your language project confidence, or does it scream, “Please don’t choose me! I’m terrified I’ll make a f**k up and petrified you won’t like me and I’ll be mortified if you don’t like my pricing!”
Go from being a table lamp to a street lamp. From a Nokia 3310 to an iphone.
You know, only you can ask for what you want, and since no customer or prospect in the world actually wants to just give you their money, you will have to ask for what you want, and doing so with confidence and gusto will actually help soothe your prospects mind about purchasing your services.
