Price awareness
Thursday, March 26, 2009 19:50
There is nothing to fear but the fear itself and bad economy and not having the yearly bonus - Kilminster brothers knew what they were talking about.
I’ve been battling with my international representatives about - you know what it’s all about - prices. They believe that, all of a sudden, they are losing the price war against their local competitors. I’ve been discussing the situation with different sources and I must conclude that the price we give is very much competitive, actually we are very close to being a price leader on several geographic markets.
LOST CONFIDENCE
How to reassure a salesperson about the real market situation? To my experience it is not enough to state the facts, because the salesforce refuses to believe them. However that is the only way to start. Next step in finding the lost confidence is to give in to the requests. Am I mad or what?
FOUND UNDERSTANDING
There is a catch of course. I’m only going to match the discount that the representative is giving to their customers. If they want you to drop prices by 10% you can ask them to give similar discount. You’ll notice that sales commission double whammy will give representatives an adequate lesson.
This lesson will work differently based on your company’s compensation structure. Best fit are those organizations that utilize profit margin based compensation. Worst are the ones that have fixed commission, in those situations you are shooting yourself to a foot if you tap this method. In a coming post I’ll tell you another good way to give your sales a wake up call.
