Creative pricing in B2B sales … This is how to win more deals;
Too many salespeople are quick to provide pricing. This is “premature elaboration”. Furthermore, this is an example of what this looks like. This is a common mistake in enterprise sales. Generally it is when a salesperson provides pricing before they understand a customer’s situation.
Before you provide pricing you want to build a business case that shows the value of your product or service. Pricing without a clear business case is bound to cause sticker shock. Especially in enterprise sales where costs are large. There are also usually many competitive options. In fact, there are also usually many internal projects that compete for scarce budget. So, given all these challenges it is clear that providing pricing comes with lots of risks.
What is less known is that the pricing page of a proposal is often the only page a senior executive will look at! Yes. It can be frustrating. You spent 3 days putting together the proposal and they only glance at the one page that outlines the cost.
Remember this and do something #creative with that page. It is your big shot at articulating your #value and #differentiation. They are NOT going to go hunting through your proposal to find your summary on value! So you need to make sure it shows up on the pricing page as well.
Do NOT just throw up a bunch of numbers on this page.
Example of creative pricing in B2B sales
· State how your pricing model is different / better than the competition.
· Summarize the business case next to the pricing – eg. “typical total cost is 15% of the ROI by year 2” or “expected payback from similar companies has been 6 months”. Even better if you can show this with a graph or chart.
· Re-iterate the goals of the project and/or the cost of doing nothing – eg. “Current costs of operating without this new software is estimated at $750K/month”
In summary, it is amazing to me how many large proposals in #b2bsales have a pricing page that only has numbers on it. Undeniably this is a missed opportunity. Because you can win more deals with creative pricing in B2B sales.
