Don't Be Defensive

Organizations must understand the factors driving the cost-
versus-risk decision so they can better manage them.

--Converge whitepaper

Equipping salespeople with the right verbiage can be critical in raising average selling price. Case in point: how to de-commoditize something without sounding defensive. In technology markets, seldom is the value of a product or service intuitively obvious to the non-expert. In fact, the more advanced a technology the simpler it often looks, which often equates to cheaper. If you’re not careful, explaining why there’s value down there, hidden somewhere under the hood, can get really geeky and defensive.

One way to quickly turn the conversation is to bring up the topic of risk. Rather than make it an argument justifying cost, make it a discussion about something everyone already understands -- the inherent tradeoff between risk and reward. That way nobody has to lose.

This is a tactic taken in a recent white paper for one of my clients in the electronic asset disposition business. Talk about a commodity -- this is a market in which many customers expect to pay nothing or next to nothing. After all, don’t recyclers get paid for scrap? Why should the companies giving away their used stuff also have to pay?

By turning the focus immediately to risk, rather than cost, the defensiveness evaporates. Customers can pay as little as they want, depending on how much risk they wish to assume. They just need to know what they’re getting themselves into.