Stop Selling Costs—Start Framing Investments
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Brooke Greening: if you are shy about your pricing, if you are nervous about your pricing.
That is going to come across and that is going to make it more difficult to be able to make those sales. So you have to be confident in the prices that you have set.
And if I can encourage you, the more you talk about your pricing and your investments, the easier it's going to be.
The more you say it, the more confident you are about it. It gets easier. It just becomes second nature.
When I say that I coach my team in regards or our clients in regards to talking about that investment, I'm saying that in the beginning of those conversations, like in the first two or three minutes, you're gonna help them to know we are gonna talk about the investment today.
Scott Greening: If people have taken the time to meet with you, you're going to at least give them a ballpark.
I know Hello. Welcome to Sippin' and Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. I am your host. Question, answer and matcha maker Scott Greening, and I'm alongside my wife, who is the sales pro and matcha drinker. And we're gonna be thinking through some anonymous sales questions that have been shared.
So we're gonna dive right into it. Today's question comes from price shy. In Atlanta, we love the fake pseudonyms, so anytime you guys wanna throw in creative names like this, that is great. But price shy Acts asks us. That's a lot of ss And Price. Price Shy asks us.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: When do you discuss pricing? Do you put it on your website all the time?
Have a slide deck and the sales call. Hello?
Brooke Greening: Alright, I love this question. Thank you for asking this. Price Shy in Atlanta. Here is the deal. We're gonna have a little bit of a mindset before I dive into how I do my pricing, because this happens all the time. But I just want to encourage you, if you are shy about your pricing, if you are nervous about your pricing.
That is going to come across and that is going to make it more difficult to be able to make those sales. So you have to be confident in the prices that you have set. That's the first thing. Now I'm gonna tell you in regards, 'cause you say, do I put it on my website? Do I do it in a slide deck? Where do I do it?
The very first thing I do and that I coach my clients is we tell them in every sales conversation we're gonna be having, we are going to be talking about the investment. If I can encourage, it's good to change some of that wording. Price. Cost is I'm just taking it from you, you're giving it to me, and then I'm gonna give you something in return.
An investment is when they are going to be getting some real valuable things out of it. And I truly believe in regards to what we offer, that those are investments and a lot of times in regards to the service-based industry, what you are offering. Is an investment for them. So you can take those words and switch them a little bit.
That helps as you say it as well. But yeah, I would just, we always,
Scott Greening: oh, go ahead. Sorry. Jump in there. I would just say,
Brooke Greening: go ahead.
Scott Greening: Went grocery shopping earlier today and like at the grocery store, like you're looking for the best price, you're looking for the Yes, for the least cost and a lot of time when you just frame it in that terms, it's a race to the bottom.
Yes. We have made investments in our company that we have believed would move things forward and help us out and grow. And so we're willing to spend more money because we believe that it's coming back and I'm not sure what. Business is price shy, as in, but for most things you are making a, an investment.
An investment in either quality of life or your business or some other thing. And so if you can shift that language, it can be helpful. I.
A hundred percent. And it helps you too because it gives you that confidence of I am helping, I am going to be able to help make a difference in your business or in your life, whatever the case is.
So that's the first thing. Just make sure if we're not confident in it, it completely gets reflected. The next piece is, you said, where do I share it? I share it everywhere because I truly believe. The decision should not be in regards to what that investment is. People are very smart, they're very savvy.
They want to know things before they even start talking with me, and I wanna make it as easy as possible for them. So do I have it on my website? Yes. Do I have it on my LinkedIn profile? Yes. Do I have absolutely everything? Not necessarily. 'cause I don't know exactly what they're going to want as we start having that conversation.
But if there is something that I have that's very scalable, that's easy, that's exact. Same investment every single time it's out there. So just as an example, my sales accelerator lab, which is a four week small group coaching, that's 9 97. It's on my LinkedIn, it's on my website. It's there. If someone's I don't really wanna do.
Group, I'd rather do one-on-one. It's right on my website. It's 4,300. It's right there. But then when we start going into fractional or we start going into me training teams the beginning investment is there so they can have an idea of what it looks like, but it's gonna start changing in regards to how many team members they have or how long they want the retainer to be.
But it gives people a good idea so that when we have a conversation, they're not going to be surprised by what we're gonna be talking about. Because it's never fun dealing with sticker shock. You want to be able to do that. Yeah.
Plus I would and I would just,
Brooke Greening: yeah,
Scott Greening: go ahead. I would just reach out to the, like the future price shy in Orlando who finds this question in a couple of years that pricing is not guarantee, it's subject to change.
Her sales lab might be more expensive in the future. Jump in while the price is good
Brooke Greening: well, thank you, Scott. That's true. But I think also
Scott Greening: No, but the pri
the principle is true. Like we're very upfront. Yes. When things are set, like there's a set price, we share it, we don't hide it and that's what it's.
Brooke Greening: And I think also it can help you for those who are coming and talking to you, because I'm always talking in regards to how do we have these sales conversations. When someone has looked at your website and they start to see what the beginning of that investment's going to look like, and they've now set up a call with you, we're already moving forward.
Whereas if everything is hidden and behind this black mystery curtain. Nobody really has any idea. And so it can get frustrating and they may not want to schedule a call at that point 'cause they don't even know if it's gonna be a good fit. So the more you help them to know what it's gonna be like to work with you, what that investment is going to look like, by the time they actually have a conversation with you, you're just helping it along that way as well.
In regards to when you're doing, you asked about a slide deck and things like that. Yes. To that as well, because it helps in regards to as you're having that conversation, and it can give you that confidence in the beginning, because what happens is if there's nothing for them to look at and there's nothing concrete, there's nothing stopping you from giving it like a 20% discount or a 50% discount just because you feel like maybe it's too expensive.
That gives you the credibility to, if you pull it up on a side deck to say, and this is what that investment is, and then you're not like trying to figure out, well, what did I tell them? Or where are we at? It just helps you to do that. And if I can encourage you, the more you talk about your pricing and your investments, the easier it's going to be.
I was just thinking about a time when I was working in the senior living communities.
Scott Greening: Hey, it's Scott here, letting you know that this podcast is brought to you by our company Building Momentum Resources. If you're listening to this podcast, chances are you're a business owner or a sales professional who genuinely wants to be good at sales, but maybe it still feels harder than it should.
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If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start having sales conversations that actually convert, we're here to help. Alright, let's get back to the episode. Brooke's probably about to say something way smarter than I ever could.
Brooke Greening: I was just thinking about a time when I was working in the senior living communities. Every year we had price increases due to like inflation and whatever was going on. It was guaranteed that the residents were going to spend more than they did the year before. And we would get our new pricing to us.
And I would always like gulp because it's usually a significant amount. 'cause that's just the way that it worked. And the longer I was there. The more I saw how it continued to increase. So if I, when I was there by seven years, I knew the difference between the very first time I talked about it and where we were at, and it wasn't price gouging, it wasn't anything like that.
It was just our prices will change at some point. And then especially if you're working on maybe increasing the investment of people working with you, that can start to get scary. The more you say it, the more confident you are about it. It gets easier. It just becomes second nature. But when we're really cautious about ever talking about it, that's when it comes across as iffy or not as confident, and they are going to see that, and that is not going to give them the confidence to move forward with you.
Scott Greening: Let's say we talked about the. Like set price.
Brooke Greening: mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: Can you talk about, 'cause I know you do this too and we do it some on our website and in other things, but things that aren't set price? Yeah. So like our private corporate group sales training that you do.
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Brooke Greening: Sure I have in regards to where it starts, but it depends in regards to how many team members are gonna be a part of it. And so when they go to the website, they can see that it's like 6,900 for two people, and then it's gonna go up from there in regards to how many people are in that team.
And so we have to be able to have that conversation, but it gives them an idea of where it's at and. When I say that I coach my team in regards or our clients in regards to talking about that investment, I'm saying that in the beginning of those conversations, like in the first two or three minutes, you're gonna help them to know we are gonna talk about the investment today.
If you're not saying what the investment is yet, because we don't know what they need yet, but as you start going through that conversation and we've understood their problems and we can start to realize how we can help them, then that is when we bring that investment piece in to help them see that.
So I tell them in the beginning of the sales conversation, we are gonna talk about the investment. I am not giving an investment 'cause I don't have any idea what they need yet. And towards the end of the conversation, we are actually giving them a ballpark, or if it is a set investment, what that is, so that then they can start to know, are they able to move forward with us?
What objections are we facing? They have to know if they do not know their pricing, it's very hard for them to move forward. Because it they don't like, I don't do that if someone's talking to me for an hour and I, it's a great conversation, but I don't actually have any idea what that investment is going to look like.
It's gonna be hard to get me on another call. 'cause I just, I need to know there's a certain, there's a certain price and investment that we feel comfortable with in that we don't. And so you have to tell him.
Scott Greening: And I know you've you make it a commitment of yours and you tell your coaching clients on that.
You recommend doing this. If people have taken the time to meet with you, you're going to at least give them a ballpark. I know like for us the sales side is pretty easy 'cause we have some pretty defined product offerings in that. Yes. On the marketing work that you do as a StoryBrand guide.
There's a little bit of like custom nature to projects, and so when you're not always a hundred percent sure on what that final price would be like how do you include the price? In that, 'cause I know that you still encourage that, like how do you handle that type of situation if you're still like trying to calculate, okay, we talked about a lot of things.
They want a website and there's like I'm not sure how many pages it's gonna be or what all the other tools and stuff are gonna be, and so that might impact the pricing. How do you handle that type of situation?
Brooke Greening: I think it's always important to still give them a ballpark, and so you can also say, as I've worked with other clients and we've done these types of works, this is the investment that they were making to give them an idea of what it looks like.
But I would highly encourage that we don't end the call if it's still super vague. We actually say, Hey, if this is really what you're wanting to talk about, can we talk about this a little bit more so I can understand exactly what it is that you're looking for? So I can give you a good idea of what that ballpark is.
Then I'm gonna create a proposal for you. But, and then we're gonna be reviewing it in person. That would be that process because if it's vague to you on the call, the follow up is gonna get all sorts of wonky. So I would encourage, don't get off the call if it's vague. If they truly wanna know and if they're truly trying to figure things out, ask some more questions to get a good idea of what it is that they're looking for, and then you can compare it to someone else that you've worked with in the past so that they can have a good idea or so.
Then you can say, okay, then the next time is we're gonna set up a conversation and really nail down exactly what you're looking for.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I know we've worked at various times and we always have to make sure that it stays current with where we're at on, on that. But we always have a menu of services.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: So that if you get in one of those conversations, you can pull that out.
Brooke Greening: Oh, a hundred percent.
Scott Greening: Maybe not.
Brooke Greening: Yes.
Scott Greening: Maybe not put it on the screen, but you've got it. That, that you're referencing it and saying, oh yeah.
Brooke Greening: Yes.
Scott Greening: Like this is what the price is for a three page website.
Every additional page after that is about this. And, there might be a little bit of variation but we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna get pretty close on price.
Brooke Greening: And I agree. That's a great reminder. So if it's something set and you can show it in a slide deck, that's awesome. But if it's not something, you need to at least have a good idea.
'cause you don't wanna have to think about, what did I tell them? What were we talking about for the investment? You just want it to be. Very clear of okay, these are the things that it is. And so you've you need to have a product catalog for your business. It doesn't have to be huge, but you need to be able to have it so you can do that.
So the first thing is you wanna be confident in it. The second thing is, if it's not built, if you don't know exactly what those pieces are, that's what makes the conversation really difficult too. So you wanna make sure you've got those pieces. Yeah.
Scott Greening: Alright.
Brooke Greening: My husband would agree with that a hundred percent.
'cause sometimes I would come downstairs and I'd be like, this is what I did. And he is w what are talking about? And I was like, whoops, I forgot to look at it. So go do it again.
Scott Greening: I wasn't gonna throw you under the bus with that. No, it's throw yourself under the bus. We can
Brooke Greening: yeah.
When you're building your own business, those are things you have to put together.
And if you don't have 'em, it gets pretty complicated pretty quickly.
Scott Greening: Yeah. All right, Price-Shy in Atlanta, we hope that this was helpful for you. I was in Atlanta this earlier this year and had a great time. Some good shrimp and grits and some different good southern staples that I can't get up here in Pennsylvania that was great. But thank you. Keep the questions coming if you find this content helpful. We always appreciate the shares and the likes and the comments and all the good things. Have a great day and we'll talk to you next time.
