When a customer says to you that’s too expensive, or I can’t afford that, did you know that’s not an objection?
In this blog post I want to tell you how to react, when a customer says that’s too expensive or they can’t afford it and why it’s not an objection.
The problem is that a lot of the time when customers are going through the closing process with us, and we say to the customer “okay this is going to be $25000 or $100 000” or whatever the price is and they’ll say “oh wow that’s pretty expensive”.
A lot of sales coaches are going to tell you that’s an objection. It’s not.
Saying it’s too expensive or saying they can’t afford the product, or they don’t have the money is not an objection. An objection is a reason why they don’t trust you to deliver the results. When someone says “oh it’s expensive” or “it seems like a lot of money” or “we can’t afford that, we didn’t expect it to be that much”, I’ve often said in the past that that’s your fault and that’s still entirely true.
It’s still your responsibility to understand what your customers budget is. And a lot of the time when customers say “it seems really expensive I don’t know if I can afford that. We don’t really expect it to be that much. We don’t have that much money in the account right now” etc. they’re expecting you to come back and turn that objection.
99% of the time it’s because they don’t trust you, and there’s an element of the buying process which you haven’t clarified with them. You probably haven’t gone out of your way to explain why this is the best deal in the in the in the universe, and that you’re going to over-deliver compared to the amount of money that they’re going to put in.
Here’s what most sales coaches will teach you. They’ll teach you that someone saying “that’s expensive or they can’t afford that” is an objection and you need to turn that objection. The easiest way we know to turn an objection, are things like feel, felt, found.
“Hey I totally understand how you feel. A lot of customers felt the same way. But what we found is that the value we’re going to deliver through this final project is going to outpace that $25000 initial investment hundreds and hundreds of times”.
Feel, felt, found.
But it’s not an objection, saying something is too expensive. Saying that they haven’t got the money is not an objection.
It’s a problem.
The customer saying “this is expensive” is their problem. That’s a framework in their state of mind, that they perceive your product as expensive compared to their situation.
It’s not expensive, but customers are still going to say to you “wow this seems expensive. That’s a lot of money” and the way that I get around that, is I agree with them. Then I tell them to sign and send a deposit.
When a customer says to me “Well that’s a lot of money that’s pretty expensive. I don’t know if we’ve got that in the account right now.” I’ll reply with “I totally agree man it is expensive. What isn’t nowadays? Sign this and sent us a deposit.”
That’s the way that you want to start framing this particular problem. It’s not an objection from your customers. An objection is when they say “okay well how is it that we’re going to be able to convert followers from Facebook, into leads?”
Until they understand that process, that’s an objection. That’s a valid objection of something that you haven’t covered. You could be the best salesperson in the world, deliver the most comprehensive in-depth value driven pitch ever, and the customer could still turn around to you and say “this doesn’t seem like it’s worth it. I don’t know if we’ve got this kind of money”.
That’s their problem. Money is their problem. Their money is their problem. Their money isn’t your problem. So if they come around to you and say that it seems very expensive or it seems like it’s a lot of money, you agree with them.
Yes it is expensive. Yeah it is a lot of money. I don’t doubt, that you don’t have that in the account right now.
Sign here. Give us the deposit.
What they want to do is voice their opinions. It’s kind of like that final resistance that kids use, before doing what their parents tell them to do. When you say “we’ve got to go put your shoes on, we’re going to get in the car” and they kind of wait around. Teenagers are really good at this. They do everything they can to lengthen the process, where they still feel like they’re in control. They feel like they need to give that final bit of resistance before succumbing to your level of control. That’s what that problem is.
That’s what the customer is saying when they say “this is pretty expensive.” When a customer does say to you “wow this seems really expensive” a lot of sales coaches will teach you to do one of two things
First turn the objection or secondly (and I’ve even seen some coaches do this) back down and negotiate down your price. Neither of those two are an option. Partly because it’s not an objection. Someone saying that this is expensive or it’s a lot of money or they don’t know if they’ve got the money in their account right now – is not an objection. It’s a problem and you solve problems in a very different way.
If someone said to you “oh I don’t know if I’ve got the right kind of laptop to be able to view the pages” agree with them. That’s a problem and it’s something you’d be able to solve!
“Well actually you don’t need really a laptop because we’re going to be building it. But also I can help you find the right kind of laptop. You don’t even need something that’s spectacular.”
Or if the customer said “my iPad is so slow at loading pages. It won’t even load the sales page.” you say “I agree. iPads suck don’t they? Their bandwidth is really really bad. Anyway sign here give us a deposit.”
They’re giving you a problem and they want you to solve that problem. This is not necessarily a case of them saying can we reduce the price? That’s a very different question.
First, customers will never say that. And the reason they won’t say that, is because they don’t want you to reduce the work that you’re putting in. If a customer does say to you “this $25 000 it seems a little bit much, I was wondering if we could bring the price down a bit?”
Again, you can agree. The key to getting the deal or the key to getting an agreement – is to agree. Of course yes we can bring the price down. What elements of the delivery or the proposal do you want to get rid of? If you want to bring this down to $25 000, we can get rid of the sales page, and the sales email automation. We can get rid of all of that and you’ll just be left with $20 000. How does that sound?
They won’t want to do it. They’ll say “we kind of wanted to keep all of it but pay less” and you go “oh I’m really sorry we can’t do that.”
It is expensive. Sign here.
The difference is knowing when to sell and when to close. And when the customer is telling you this seems a little bit expensive, I’m not sure of we can afford this – you agree with them. You say “I totally agree. What’s not expensive in today’s day and age you know?”
“Everything seems to be running at a high premium price, especially premium products. Anyway, sign here. Send us over the deposit and we can get started today.”
You’re moving past the turning the objection stage and you’re helping them understand, that you have a lot of people tell you, that this is a big investment. You understand the level of trust and commitment that they’re putting into this project. You’re planning on putting in more than that. You and your team are going to put in more, than the money they’re putting in, because you’re going to walk away with more than $25 000 worth of value.
But here’s what a lot of people do. The mistake people make, is that when the customer says that it seems very expensive, they’ll go back to selling. They’ll go back to talking about the value you’ve got. They’ll talk about amazing landing page sequences and how they’re going to drive leads and they’re going to drive sales. They’ll talk about building out your sales automation process and obviously we’ve got consultation and design and blah blah blah blah blah.
None of that matters.
What you need to be working on, is agreeing with the customer. You need to say “yeah I agree it is expensive. Sign here send us over the deposit.”
Some sales coaches will teach you to ask “how important is that to you, to the closing of the project?”
“Well it’s pretty much the only important thing.”
You’ve dug yourself into a hole that you’re unable to get out of. Rather than trying to turn the objection or be clever or work around it or worse – go back to selling (which is the absolute last thing you should be doing).
By the way, when you’re at the sales stage and someone says to you “yeah this sounds great. Send us over the proposal.” That’s the closing stage. You don’t sell anymore. That’s the stage where you tell them to send over the deposit and sign here. Tell them we can get started on this today.
When a customer is saying to you, that they don’t know and this seems a little bit expensive, don’t go back to trying to sell them again. Because it’s still going to be expensive when they get to the end. They’re still going to be unsure if they’ve got the money. When you go back to that final closing stage, instead what you need to say to them is “yes I agree it is expensive. What isn’t today right? Anyway sign here. Here’s the deposit.”
What you need to be doing is getting them over that line, and if they need to make up a story about how there’s hardly any money in the bank, or they’re not entirely sure, don’t go back to asking questions. Don’t say to them “oh…but you told me you had $25 000.”
Don’t worry about any of that. When someone says it’s expensive I agree with them and then say we can get started today. Here, sign here. Give us the deposit. I can even take a payment via credit card.
The deal that you need to be working on is being in a hurry to help your customers (thanks Uncle G). You need to be in the position where you’re saying to your customers that you know this is expensive. You’re taking as much risk as they are. This is why you need to sign today and pay today, because I’m going to be able to fix whatever is broken in your business and we will take whatever is broken in your business and fix it.
I’m going to give you solutions and results. But going back over that is not going to change anything. Most customers are going to say “Wow that’s fantastic. Thanks very much. Let’s go ahead. That’s brilliant.” That’s going to happen 99% of the time. Here’s what’s interesting, when you start making offers to customers, and you know you’ve got a bunch of people in your email list or in your address book.
You start to think “I really should be emailing my customers and asking them ‘do you want me to send over a proposal?'”
They’re going to be fine with it that you’re taking control of the situation. It’s a bit like dogs. They can smell fear they can smell hesitation, they can smell anxiety. But if you’re confident you say “yeah, it is pretty expensive. But you know premium products are. Anyway sign here give me the deposit”.
Most of the time people are willing to sign. If your price is crazy over and they say “WOW! We were expecting $10 000 not $25000” then that’s your fault, because you haven’t qualified them enough. When a customer tells you that your produce seems very expensive, that’s not an objection. You don’t need to turn it – you need to agree with them and then continue that closing process. Give them the deposit invoice. Give them the card machine or you PayPal details. And get them to sign a contract.
