Selling the Price Increase

17Message Matters

You've targeted your account, set the stage, made the appointment, and prepared for your price increase conversation. Now you must deliver the message. This is the moment of truth.

It's just you and your customer. The price increase, future orders, and your account are on the line. When discussing price increases with customers, the message – what you say AND how you say it – matters.

Confidence Is the Key Ingredient

“It worked!” The twenty-something sales rep exclaimed during a session of the Selling the Price Increase Master Class I was teaching.

Coming into the course, Arianna had been struggling with price increase conversations. Her customers were pushing back hard, shutting her down, threatening to buy from her competitors, and generally winning the conversations. She had been shaken by these experiences and was exasperated by how badly the interactions were going for her.

In our course, just like in this book, we begin with a discussion of how the fear of rejection causes sellers to approach price increase conversations with trepidation and how their insecurity negatively impacts the outcomes of these conversations.

Following the session on disrupting the fear of rejection, I'd tasked the class with choosing five customers to approach with price increases. The objective was to build obstacle immunity by facing their fear of rejection head on and practicing relaxed, assertive confidence in spite of it.

Prior to the exercise, we role played and practiced ...