You have to believe in your product. You have to feel like you are doing your customer a favor by getting her to use your products and services. If you believe that you have the very best product that money can buy, then and only then will you be a great salesperson.

I am always amazed when people tell me they cannot succeed in sales for one reason or another. And of course price is always the number one barrier, and I mean always. And we’ll get to that in a minute but there are always other factors. Excuses like:

• If we only had (whatever it is your company doesn’t have) then I know I could bring in a million dollars more a year.
• If we had a better website we would attract more customers. Or if we had a better brochure. (Honestly, a brochure?)

And now thanks to Covid:

• I used to do all my business on the golf course, or over lunch or dinner, or at the Haka lounge. If I could still do that I could sell more of our product and services.

Really is that all you’ve got? You can’t sell unless you can buy someone a cheeseburger? What about the product, does that count for anything?

The value, the customer experience, the reliability, the technology, the quality, the reputation. None of that matters. All that really matters is if you can buy your customer a ham sandwich, or better yet take her to a sushi bar, or a real bar. Now that’s a lovely picture. This isn’t Mad Men and it isn’t 1959. There is a whole new world out there. There are many better ways to find the right customers, approach the right customers and sell the value of your products and services to the right customers.

Okay now that we’ve got that out of the way. Here are some of the best ways you can sell your products beyond that nasty little issue of price.

Be prepared to meet the price issue: Look, we all know it’s coming. It is the one point that all buyers always fall back on. They are incentivized by how much money they save. Think about that for one serious minute. They are paid extra for buying the cheapest product they can find. Isn’t that ludicrous? But it’s true. Even the Department of Defense is looking for the cheapest parts to build the most important weapons that keep the world free. So our job as salespeople is to give that buyer a reason to fail. If the buyer is getting paid a bonus on how much money she saves the company, buying something that is more expensive is actually going against her best interests. Yikes. That means you as the salesperson better be giving her an incredibly great reason to buy your more expensive products. They have to be superior and you have to demonstrate and convince her they are. 

Believe your product is the best: Always believe you have the best product. If you don’t believe this and if the product you sell is not the very best on the market today then you need to go find another company with a better product to sell. Life is too short to spend your time apologizing rather than selling. And when you have the best product, sell it and sell it hard.

Know the value of your product: Make a list of all the reasons your product is better. Identify all of the product values that make your product superior to anyone else’s What makes your company and its products so much better that you actually believe that you are doing your customer a favor by letting him buy your products! So much better than any customer who does not buy from you is a fool.

Demonstrate the true total value of your products and services: Demonstrating by example is the key here. You have to point out the flaws and problems he will have if he buys from the cheapest, and in most cases inferior, competitor:

• Give examples of how much it will cost her company when the product doesn’t get there on time.
• Give real examples of the consequences if the product is scrapped when it arrives at her company.
• Give examples of what happens if the product fails once it is part of an expensive assembly.
• Give examples of the ramifications if the product fails out in the field. Now that’s a real horror story. This means her company has a serious black mark against it.

Get it? Find ways to show how much better you are than price. Let them know the true costs of going cheaper and in all cases, I repeat all cases, going with the best product representing the best value is always cheap….er less expensive in the long run. It’s only common sense.