Author Archive | Mark Hunter

When you feel as if a customer doesn’t like your price, you simply need to remember they only fail to see the value of what you are offering. As long as you remember it is your job to help them see the value, you will increase your odds of success dramatically.

s much as we can’t dwell on the past, we do need to spend a few minutes doing an autopsy on the lost sale and learning from it. If we don’t learn from each sale we fail to close, then we’re committing ourselves to a pattern of losing more sales. Take the time to answer these […]

Every customer has a price range where they are willing to make a decision without any further thinking. I refer to this as the Price Tolerance Ratio – also known as the PTR. I am pleased to be one of the first to educate people on this. Since explaining this concept, we’ve seen salespeople and companies […]

Short questions get you long answers. Long questions get you short answers. It is up to you as to the approach you want to take, but if you want to actually learn something about the customer’s needs, you will get there quicker by asking short questions.

The more confident and comfortable you become in your pricing – including your price increases – the less likely you will be to devote precious effort and energy to worrying about your pricing. That effort and energy is better spent on showing your customer how the value of your product or service meets their needs […]

If you can’t land the customer at the profit margin your business plan is built upon, then that particular customer is not worth having. Think I’m crazy? Run the numbers over the long-term and you will see what I mean. To avoid being in the situation where you feel desperate to get a sale “at […]

Salespeople love to complain about buyers. One of the complaints salespeople share the most is that buyers never seem to make up their mind. Just about the time it looks like they’re going to make a buying decision, they suddenly hold off. Yes, there are times when a buyer legitimately can’t make a decision. Many […]

The “Price Investment Ratio” (PIR) is the amount over the minimum amount a person would have to pay for something. They are willing to pay it to feel confident in what they are buying. You might say the PIR should really be the CP – the “Confidence Premium.” There are no two ways about it […]

“We’re forced to close because the bank will not loan us the money we need.” Phrases like this have been heard too many times the last several years, and yes, it’s unfortunate, but here’s my perspective: “Companies don’t fail due to a lack of financial capital. They fail due to a lack of intellectual capital.”

Now more than ever, you need to stay tightly focused on your goal if you expect to keep your level of sales motivation up. It becomes far too tempting to start chasing after the latest trend when things are not happening at the rate you expect them.