price

Price is always a sticky subject.

In most cases, sales people have been trained to slide over answering the inevitable, and often first question about price,  until the value of the sales proposition has been established with the potential buyer.

That is the way it was.

Now, we all seek information on specification, availability, options and list price using the net, all information that in  an earlier time, the salesperson could dole out as the sales process evolved. Therefore the decision is often almost made before a salesman has the opportunity to become engaged in  the process. 

When your sales prospect types  “Widget  prices” into Google, because that is their last question, the top 10 results, which is all most of us look at, are the ones that have  “widgets from $100” or  “Worlds cheapest widgets” in the headline.

You have just  lost control of the conversation if you are not there.

Web sites are different to face to face, the emotion, the human interaction and the potential that humanity brings to the process  has been removed, and you need to replace it with something that creates the opportunity for a conversation.

If you are on the web to sell, and the product is such that potential customers will ask the price early in the game, don’t be afraid, be proud, and put your pricing up front, along with your value proposition, so at least you might get a chance to talk about it.