Selling to Your Own Wallet

John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello again. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. Once I was advising a professional services provider on engagement options that she was preparing to deliver to a prospect. We talked about the client’s needs, wants, and values, the three options that made sense in light of what it seemed the client valued, and the pricing of those options.

John Ray: [00:00:25] The pricing of all three of these options were significantly higher than what she had originally envisioned and well beyond what she’d ever received for any client engagement. “I’m not sure I would pay that much,” she said. “Who cares what you think?” I replied, “You’re not the one writing the check.”

John Ray: [00:00:48] The point I was making was that she was guilty of selling to her own wallet. As it turns out, she hadn’t had a deep enough value conversation with the prospect. Selling to your own wallet invariably occurs when you haven’t had that effective value conversation with the client. And as we went along, that’s what my client and I realized about her experience.

John Ray: [00:01:15] Your conversations have turned more on what the prospect has asked for, your service and how you do what you do. When it comes time to put together engagement options, then you find out that you don’t know that prospect as well as you’d like because you didn’t have the patience to ask friendly yet probing questions which reveal motivations, values, hopes, and fears of the client.

John Ray: [00:01:42] You haven’t discovered, for example, that if this guy doesn’t complete the project you’ve been discussing with him very soon, his wife may cause him to end up on a missing persons list. This situation actually happened with me, establishing value in the mind of that prospect and justifying my pricing was clear, but only because I’d had the patience enough to diagnose the domestic motivation, you might say, behind his desire for my services.

John Ray: [00:02:13] Selling to your own wallet often happens, as was also the case here, when you are proposing prices much higher than you’ve ever received for your services. It’s the professional services provider’s version of the high wire. And the higher the price points, the further off the ground that wire seems. You’re standing on the ledge about to walk out on the high wire and your legs are frozen. The wind is kicking up and your stomach is churning. You’re deathly afraid of that first step you’ll take when you slide those engagement options across the table to the prospect. You’re afraid the shock of their reaction to your pricing will blow you right off the wire.

John Ray: [00:03:00] Here’s the power of an effective value conversation. It arms you with confidence. That tight rope feels like it’s only a foot off the ground. A fruitful value conversation enables you to keep subsequent discussions around price aligned with the clearly perceived value that the client has already disclosed to you that you’ve diagnosed and the two of you have discussed. It takes away that queasy feeling in your stomach. It also taps down the notion that you’re gouging someone.

John Ray: [00:03:39] When you utilize value pricing, you’re establishing the value profit, if you will, the excess of value the client receives over the price paid that the client will receive from your involvement. It’s clear both to the client and in your own mind that there’s a rationale for your price, which is very clear. You feel confident in the value of the work you’re doing and the client profits as well. That’s what it’s all about, right?

John Ray: [00:04:11] I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. You can find the episode archive of this series at pricevaluejourney.com You can connect with me by emailing john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.