One of my distributors sent me this message: “My prospect sent me 4 different links to bottles that claim to purify like we do. He’s interested in joining the business but he’s concerned about the pricing being way more expansive than these products on the internet… Advice? -Jonathan”
Thank you for your question Jonathan. First, make sure the price objection is the real objection. Sometimes people will use the price objection because it’s an easy escape. But if it’s a sincere objection, you need to know how to handle it.
You need to follow the Question/Objection Remedy. If you don’t, your conversation will look more like a debate. Your task is to help this person get past their road blocks without entering into a fight.
Most people skip steps when handling a question or an objection and go right into providing an answer (step 4). This is the reason you don’t feel comfortable fighting with your prospects. You shouldn’t. If you follow the steps, your prospect will truly feel like you respect them and want the best for them.
Here’s the formula:
1) Let your prospects talk about their concern, don’t interrupt.
2) Clarify you understood the real question/objection
3) Make the question/objection valid
4) Handle or facilitate handling
5) Return back to where you left before you get the question/objection
So here’s how it should go:
First… (don’t interrupt) let your prospect explain his objection in detail.
Second… (clarify objection) encourage him to explain what are the elements he looked at when comparing the other products to yours.
Third… (make valid) tell him you understand his concern.
Fourth… (handle or facilitate handling) Sometimes products look alike on the surface and it’s only when you dig a little deeper that you truly find differenciators. Before we look at how those other products compare to yours, is there other criterias you or your potential customers would look for when buying a product like this, besides the price?… This question will open the conversation to other ways to evaluate a product and guide your prospect to look at them individually and compare both products. This should help you facilitate handling of this objection and both of you will agree on what makes this product unique.
Jonathan, the following information will help support your discussion. If you personally understand what is your company’s product strategy (i.e. price proposition or value proposition) and why they chose this strategy, you will be better equiped to handle a conversation around the subject. Keep in mind that you will first need to handle the price objection compared to other products he is comparing yours to. Once this is clear, you will need to validate why it’s best to market a superior quality product when you are in MLM. Your prospect is looking at your business and wants to know if he will be able to market those products. Here’s information to help you understand why our company chose to focus on value instead of price:
The following information is to be used after you explained how your product compares. Don’t recite all of this but simply have an understanding of what pricing means and how to lead the conversation… First of all, you know just like I do that any product has a price issue. Someone is going to buy a pen for $2 while he can get one for $0.50. There’s always something that can justify a price. Just like a car that has a steering, wheels and seats can range in price between $15,000 to $1million.
If the product is not worth it’s price, we won’t be able to create a sustainable business. Just so you know, the management team at our company knows how to price products but sometimes we need to dig a little bit deeper to find the reason the product is more expensive than other “supposedly” similar products. Once you do, you usually find that the product is very well priced. The management team at our company has a background of building a half a billion dollar company that is still growing today after 20 years in business. This demonstrates that they can price products properly and create amazing products people need and buy many years later. Hence sustainability of the business.
Now, we also need to understand that the products are not the cheapest in the market. I don’t want to market the cheapest products because my reputation is at stake. I want to represent the finest products and have customers for the long term. When I built in my previous company, the products were similar in price. And still today, I have people purchasing the products because they couldn’t find those benefits elsewhere. This is what I mean by offering superior quality. You create a business and an income that last.
In other words, when representing a brand, you need to look at all the factors influencing your success. A value proposition proved to be the best strategy within our industry’s 60 year history. It’s always best to cater to a smaller, more educated and loyal customer base than a volatile one if your goal is to create long term financial freedom. Having to constantly replace customers who are looking for the best price each time they run out of product is not the best way to create freedom for you. Our value product strategy creates a strong customer base who buy from us based on quality they can’t get elsewhere.
I look at this just like if I were to represent Ferrari in the automobile industry, or Ritz Carlton in the hotel industry. Our company is a superior quality brand that I can put my name behind.
The problem in MLM is most of the time you are told that everyone will want to buy your products. You then try to get everyone to buy. It doesn’t make sense. The first thing you should be doing is identify your target market and promote to that group. You’ll have much more pleasant conversations with interested prospects. That was step #1 of me getting about $2,000 worth of volume from customers each month.
Here’s the transcript of a speech that Paul Zane Pilzer who’s a nobel prize winning economist gave a few years ago on Quantity VS Quality Demand:
When you have a product experience, you usually go back and ask what else can I get that will give me other health benefits. At that point you become a consumer of quantity demand.
And eventually you will shift from quantity demand to a higher quality. Because once you believe in something you want better things. If I tell you about vitamins and minerals, first thing you want is the cheapest out there. When you go buy something, someone tells you about a new thing to buy, new article, clothing, new TV, new toy, you want to buy the cheapest version you can the first time, do you?!
You’re going to hear a lot about vitamins and minerals and the first thing people are going to say is I want the cheapest way to try this. Quantity. And if it works for them they want more, more and more. And for those who become consumers where are they going to end up? Highest quality.
So you have to decide in the wellness industry, and I don’t mean just for you but for anyone entering the wellness industry where do they want to be. Do you want a long term business or do you want a business where when you introduce a consumer they want to say goodbye and shifts to a Lexus away from Nissan or shifts to Nissan away from Dutsan.
If you’re gonna be in the business for the long term, you right away have to grab the highest quality product because A) you’ll keep your customers and B) other customers from other products will come find you. And that’s the good part about quality.
The bad part about highest quality is we all know the reason, the highest quality means the highest price. It cost stuff to make these things, the quality, the manufacturing, on and on.
So that quality and quantity are very important for everyone to understand in starting out in a new industry and you could draw the parallels between anything you bought when you first try to buy the highest quantity product, the lowest price and then you want the highest quality product.
If we go back to our initial positive health experience. When I bring a new customer to the wellness industry and show them they can have more energy. They’re gonna want to have even more energy. You take a 50 year old and he feels like he’s 40 what’s the first things he does. He turns to you and says I want to feel like 30. I want to feel like when I was playing football in my 20s.
There’s no limit. And ultimately their bodies and cells are going the other direction, they’re aging. So we may take the life span very quickly and I hope for you to reach 100 or 120 years old. If you live to 120 what do you do. You have that many grand children, grand grand children that you want to live longer and longer and longer and more important have a high quality of life.
If this information has been helpful to overcome the price objection, leave your comments below and share with your friends on Facebook!
Stephane