It's Oh So Nice To Raise Your Price: Jeb Blount Shares How

Professional Sales Tips you'll learn today on The Sales Podcast... The only book on how to get higher prices from your clients Clients will accept your price increase but not be happy If the price increase is small just do it and defend it You need scripts to articulate why the price increase Explain why it's fair  Your customer needs to feel like they are getting good value Related episodes and posts Jeb Blount Shares How To Use MLP to Negotiate Better Sales Get On The Sales Gravy Train With Jeb Blount Price increases are the fastest way to increase your bottom line...if you can keep your customers Eight different narratives for explaining the price increase Your job is to expand and retain your business as a salesperson Salespeople are great at discounting and terrible at discussing price increases Mature companies may not discount as much What is the risk of losing customer? A lot of companies do have CPI provisions for annual price increases It makes sense to slowly and regularly raise prices Salespeople are afraid to raise prices Companies are afraid of raising the prices and losing the client. They don't want to "awaken the sleeping giant!" Red/Yellow/Green your customers. Green is a solid, long-term contract Yellow is borderline Red is a potentially lost client if you irritate them If a customer says they won't accept the price increase I can learn how I'm letting them down. Most of your customers are in the danger zone. Clean up your pipeline and accounts. Clients get amnesia when the scheduled price increase kicks in that they agreed to years ago. Have tough conversations early. Have guts and confidence. Get your message in order. Salespeople are great at discounting and terrible at discussing price increases." Pull out your calculator and show them the value. Your price increase comes right out of the back pocket of small business owners. It's your job as a salesperson to stand your ground and make that sale. Most salespeople just walk away because they know they haven't earned the price increase. Jeb uses a fit matrix to scatter diagram his customers. Easy/hard to work with, high/low profit. He'll ask for a 100% price increase on the low-profit, hard-to-work-with clients. What's surprising is how few of your customers go away. Customers hate being fired. You need to know where you fit in the life of your customers. Ideally you are adding more value than what you charge. You need to be tooting your own horn. You need to stay in front of your customers. You lose because you take your customers for granted." What is your messaging and method to stay in front of your customers? Do quarterly business reviews, especially if you're a small cog in their system. Get feedback from the customer so you know how you're doing. Pick up the phone and have a conversation. Do that maybe once a month. Just touch base to stay top of mind. You lose because you take your customers for granted. Just manage the account. Sales Growth Tools Mentioned In The Sales Podcast Get his book, "Selling the Price Increase: The Ultimate B2B Field Guide for Raising Prices Without Losing Customers"