Sell Total Cost Of Ownership To Every Prospect

Sell Total Cost Of Ownership To Every Prospect

ARE YOU SELLING TCO, OR TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP, TO YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PROSPECTS?

Many sales people are faced with the problem that their products and services are the highest quality, and therefore their prices are also the highest.

You may face this problem in many of your prospects, but you cannot get into a bidding war. You must realize that you cannot close every sale. Some prospects are easy to close, some are hard, and some are impossible. Many sales people believe that great sales people can close anything. But this isn't true. Good sales people know how to get maximum value out of the products and services they sell.

Provide Value to your clients

Ensure your clients and prospects understand the value that you bring them. Make them understand their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Sometimes the value your company brings is in your quality of goods. Many times it is in the service and attention you give as a sales person and as a company. Sometimes it is in both of these.

Whatever your value, ensure that your clients and prospects are aware of this value, and ensure when they look at the price of anything they buy, they also take into account the total cost or the TCO. It is up to you as their advisor to make them aware of this. Be sure your prospect is totally aware of the value you bring, and is complete aware of the TOC for each of his major purchases.

The most productive sale for you comes from the prospect who values what you sell and what kind of company you are. The very difficult sale comes from prospects who do not value what you are selling and who you are. They only look for the cheapest up-front cost. TOC does not factor into their buying equation. And in the long run, these types of people will be your worst nightmare of a customer.

You have to know how to weed out the prospects who are just asking for proposals. They probably only want to compare your prices with the incumbent company’s prices. These prospects never buy value or TOC. They will never see the value you are delivering.

You need to decide which prospects will be your clients. The ones who always buy the lowest price will usually become your worst clients in the long run. They will usually take up much more time than they are worth.

Beware of the Gatekeeper Trap

Another very important factor is to ensure that you are talking to ALL of the decision makers and influencers in your prospective account. Don’t get caught dealing only with gatekeepers. These are the purchasing agents, financial people, HR, and other gatekeepers. They can say no to your proposal but can never say yes. That will doom you to price wars forever. But, more about gatekeepers in another article.

Sell Value at EVERY chance

You will find that some prospects do not really know what they want or need. And in particular, they really do not know what they value. You may be able to influence their buying criteria. The important thing is to understand why they are buying and what problems they are trying to solve, and can your solution solve their problems.

The real key here is to sell TCO and show your prospect what the real costs of ownership are over time. If your prospect does not buy into TCO, then you should thank him and move on to your next prospect, because you know that this prospect will probably lose you money in the long run.