Offering a discount is one way to make a sale, but discounting can also reduce your organization's bottom line. By following these top tips, you can stop discounting and start charging full price for your goods or services.
Build Relationships
If you want to stop discounting, then all stakeholders need to be invested in your company. Without this investment, many stakeholders will not hesitate to push for discounts, as they do not understand or care about the impact that discounting has on your organization's bottom line. Engage stakeholders and build relationships with them so that they care about the future of your organization.
Give Sales People the Understanding They Need
One reason why sales people give discounts is because they do not fully understand the value of the product they are selling, and therefore they are not able to communicate that value to the buyer. Your mission to stop discounting must involve educating your sales team about the problems that your products or services solve. Once sales people understand buyers' needs more clearly, they can offer customized solutions that precisely meet those needs without having to resort to discounting to close a sale.
Understand the Customer's Buying Process
Too many sales people set an arbitrary date for closing a sale without taking the time to understand the process that customers go through before deciding to buy. Rather than offering discounts as the forecasted close date approaches, sales people need to understand what buyers really need to help them decide on a purchase. Do they need more information? Do they need more time to consider the purchase and discuss the decision with colleagues? By understanding the stages that buyers pass through on the way to a purchase, sales people can stop discounting your goods and start offering support to buyers where it is needed.
Offer Customized Solutions
One reason why your organization has not yet been able to stop discounting could be that your products or services aren't exactly what buyers want. You can offer more flexibility to buyers in a variety of ways, such as allowing them to combine a personalized combination of services into a custom package. This can make your offerings more attractive to customers and help your organization to stop discounting in an attempt to close sales.
Communicate Value
Be sure you are clearly communicating the value of your goods or services to prospective buyers. Each customer perceives value in a different way, so your sales team needs to be able to listen to customers' needs and explain how your products or services can meet them. The sales process should be a conversation rather than a strict sales script so customers feel listened to and valued.
By following the above five tips, you can stop discounting and start receiving full value for your products or services. Take action today to start improving your bottom line.
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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