“Your competitor isn’t requiring a minimum order per month”

By Scott Sambucci | February 13, 2012

After walking through the sales process with a prospect over four months time, we reached the final evaluation stage.  We’d previously discussed price earlier in the process (purposely on my behalf to make sure we were in range), and now it was time to determine what the final agreement and terms would look like.

I sent detailed pricing information that included a minimum monthly because I understood our business and support costs, and because I knew that our quality and service were superior in the market. This led to this email response from the prospect:

I don’t have a minimum from the other partner we’re considering.  That’s very attractive in the initial stage of the rollout of our product.

We had a call a week later. Guess what? We never talked about price during the entire call.  It was about his project and qualitative differences between our company and the other vendor.

Guess what else? It’s not an “either/or” decision – they may be very well able to buy products from both vendors. 

The lesson?

1. Pick up the Phone
   
2. It’s never about price

(See my list “My Sales Tenets” here…)

Then as we wrapped up the call, I complemented the prospect on one of his sales reps that I met at a conference that introduced me to a new sales opportunity.  (Remember – “Be nice.“) From that conversation, I mentioned another product of ours.  Now this prospect is interested in that as well. We have a separate sales process now rolling with that product beginning with a “Vision” demo next week.