There are only two things happening if your losing on price.
- You’re selling to the wrong person/company
- You’re doing a terrible job selling
Apple charges $100 extra dollars to double it’s iPhone storage memory (16 to 32 GB). It charges $200 dollars to quadruple it (16 to 64). Android phone memory sells for about $50 bucks for 64 GB. Apple is charging 4 times as much as Android — and they’re getting it.
Smart phone memory has never been so cheap. It’s come down almost 75% in the last 5 years, but Apple hasn’t lowered it’s prices.
Why?
Because they are selling to the right people AND they are doing a good job selling. When you sell to the right people and you sell well, price IS NOT AN ISSUE. Hundreds of millions people are paying MORE for iPhones that cost substantially more than Android. Price isn’t an issue for Apple.
To avoid getting bogged down in narrow, price only discussions you’re going to have to elevate your game.
Know who your customers are:
It’s critical to know where your product fits best and who benefits the most from it. Don’t waste time selling to buyers who you can’t deliver the value to or who aren’t good fits. Selling to the wrong customer profile will almost always deteriorate into a price discussion. Almost everyone would buy a Porsche if it were cheap enough.
Your doing a terrible job selling:
This is the bigger problem of the two. If you’re selling to the right buyers and you’re constantly struggling on price, it means you’re not selling well. It means you haven’t demonstrated a value that warrants the price. It means the customer doesn’t see how spending that kind of money is worth it. It means they can’t see a justifiable return. It means you haven’t done your job.
You want to stay out of price wars sell to the right buyers AND sell better. Build value that’s worth the price your asking, focus on outcomes, know how you are affecting the business or the buyers world and make it worth it.
OK, there is a 3rd reason you are losing on price. The price is too high. If that’s the case lower the price across the board, add more value via features, uses, etc. or just top selling it. If the price truly is too high, that’s an entirely different problem that must be addressed company wide. Most of the time however, the price isn’t too high. You’re just selling to the wrong people and not doing a good job at selling it.