Build Value and Defend Your Price

There’s a famous joke about a tourist who asks a local for directions, only to receive the reply: “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.” The same can be said about defending your price – to avoid price objections, you need to start in the right place. And that means building value first.

Many salespeople make the mistake of presenting their solutions too early, discussing price before adequately building value. This approach tends to invite objections, especially the price objection.

So how do you build value? By asking good questions that get the prospect thinking about the drawbacks of their current system.

By building value early in the conversation, you will automatically tend to reduce the price objection.

The rushed pitch vs the value builder

Consider two salespeople from competing technology companies, both aiming to sell a new cybersecurity solution.

The first salesperson, keen to close quickly, jumps in with pricing and technical specifications. Without context or relevance to the client’s situation, the proposal lands flat. The client waves it away – “too expensive” – before the conversation ever really begins.

The second salesperson takes a different path. They begin by asking the client about their current cybersecurity setup – what’s working, what isn’t. Through patient questioning, they uncover a range of hidden concerns: missed alerts, limited visibility across systems, slow incident response times. By the time they introduce their solution, the client is much more interested.­

Here’s how to develop your questions

To build value effectively, you need to guide the conversation toward the specific problems or ‘gaps’ your solution solves. And then make these gaps seem more concerning by discussing the drawbacks they cause.

Here’s how to come up with the right gap uncovering questions:

Step 1: identify the problems you solve

Start by making a list of the issues your product or service is designed to solve. In our cybersecurity example some common challenges might include:

• Security teams overwhelmed by constant alerts and unsure which threats to prioritise
• Lack of visibility across multiple systems, devices, or cloud environments
• Delays in responding to security incidents, increasing the risk of serious breaches

By pinpointing these challenges, you’re laying the groundwork for questions that are likely to resonate with the customer.

Step 2: rotate these into questions

Once you’ve clarified the key issues, rotate them into questions. Then ask these questions early in your sales conversation. For instance:

• “Do you ever feel your security team is buried in alerts and struggling to separate the critical from the noise?”
• “How clearly can you see what’s happening across your entire environment—laptops, servers, cloud apps?”
• “When something suspicious happens, how long does it usually take your team to investigate and respond?”

These kinds of questions do more than uncover requirements – they help the client articulate the value of solving them. And that’s where excellent selling begins. The best way to defend your price is to build value first – you ask great questions that enable the client to recognise the challenge before you offer your solution.

The art of sales negotiation

Once value is established, and you have given the client your price, don’t be surprised if they then want to negotiate. They are trained to do that. Keep in mind, negotiation isn’t about being tough – it’s about being effective.

4 key techniques for defending your price

On our sales and negotiation training courses, we coach participants in the following techniques for defending price:

1. Understand aspiration levels: The person who expects more usually achieves more. Manage the customer’s expectations by responding confidently to pricing challenges.
2. Don’t be a price crumbler: Customers will often challenge the price. They know there’s always the chance of an easy win – and it’s worth asking the question. But your initial response should be to defend the value, not to offer discounts.
3. Trade, don’t give concessions: If you have to make concessions, they should always be exchanged for something of value in return. Beyond price, consider other aspects of the deal that can be traded, such as delivery time, payment terms, or additional services.
4. Raise the value of what you offer: When offering a concession, emphasize its perceived value by highlighting the benefits. Encourage the customer to work for these concessions. The more effort they invest, the more valuable they perceive the deal to be.

Conclusion

Successfully defending your price begins long before pricing discussions commence. The most successful salespeople aren’t those who frequently offer discounts, but those who can build the value of their product or service most persuasively.

Learn more about LDL Sales Training and Negotiation Training.

Learn more about the LDL Fee Negotiation programme – for lawyers and accountants.