Machinery industry salesman must see: The secret of not letting customers counter-offers - multiple quotes

Whether selling third-rate sales of products or first-class sales of concepts, they all have to return honestly to the stage of bargaining with customers. Prior to this, it was sales to get the value of the product, and now it was the customer who took the price of the product.

How can we not allow our customers to care less and get a dark day on the price issue? Brian Dietmeyer, CEO of strategic negotiating company Think! summed up a method based on his many years of experience: multiple quotes.

What are multiple quotes?

The meaning of multiple quotes is to give customers three options, not just one. If only one plan is provided, customers will instinctively think about counter-offer. If you give a quote for three options from low to high, the customer's attention will shift from “I want to counter” to “What is more appropriate?”. The customer will begin to think, “The third option is too expensive, the first one is not enough value, or the second is the most appropriate”.

How to apply multiple quotes?

However, the multiple quote method is not foolproof. The customer may ask for the option to buy the highest offer with the lowest quote, and induce you to itemize the unit price for each item. Do not do this! This gives customers the opportunity to bargain by item.

In addition, customers may also ask you to lower the price of the second option. In this case, you have to learn to exchange. Either remove some items that are less important to the customer from the program; or let the customer provide something that is useful to you in exchange, such as introducing you to other parts of the company. In any case, the principle of negotiation is: unless there is exchange, it is not easy to cut prices.

In fact, the price reduction will make customers unhappy. If you easily reduce the price, it will make customers feel that your offer is very moist and reduce your trust and respect. And if you use the exchange method, you will not lose their own interests, but will make customers believe you more.

In Dettemer's view, the greatest benefit of multiple quotes is to transform sales and customers from opposing parties into the same camp. When you offer multiple options, customers feel that they are actively making choices, rather than passively engaging in price wars with you, so the negotiations will be more cooperative. Dettemeyer said that this method, he tried it out.