The biggest problem with Sales today is that they get employed in your company and after the probationary period is over they want to work for your competition.
The most frequent complaint I have ever heard in my whole sales management career is this one: “We are too expensive!”
I had the chance and pride to work only for expensive companies and if I am to start over again I would pick the same career path. Over and over.
I am for price and quality. And I believe that the former triggers the latter. Always. Not the other way around. Messing them around will only provide pain. Pain of rate increase, pain of killing the precedent already set and other pains that are not coming in comfort either for Sales or for Customers.
Selling cheap is not good for the company and neither for your personal and professional development. A cheap sell will be replaced by websites.
Selling cheap does not require a team or a leader. Customers can do it solely with a click.
My take on any product or service that say is $30 more expensive than the competition’s, that say is $100, is the following:
What the competition is selling in the market is a product or service already sold. You don’t need Sales to reciprocate that sell. It’s already done. Closed.
Your Sales are not selling that $100 already sold by your competition. It is stupid to even try to do a double job. Your Sales are trained and paid for selling only the additional $30 on top of the $100. That’s all.
While complaining that company X is selling at the Y price that is 20% or 30% lower than ours, mindful that you as Sales are actually appreciating the company X.
And if you admire that much the company X then who, in the Heaven’s name, forced you to even apply for a job in some other company than company X?
The hardest sell is to yourself. If that’s not checked with a clear spelled-out YES, if you will never buy your company’s products or services first, do not expect that anybody else will do. At least not from you. No, that’s not gonna happen.
Article by Dragos Calin
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