Sending a salesperson to pricing training is like sending a student driver to a course about manufacturing automobiles. Does a student driver really need to know how a transmission is built? Or do they need to know how to shift gears without stalling? Does a salesperson really need to know how segment-level price sensitivities are calculated? Or do they need to know how to respond when the customer demands a discount?
Pricing training is for pricing people. What salespeople need is sales training.
Of course, there are lots of options for sales training…dozens or even hundreds of different methodologies. But there are three basic types of sales training that can naturally lead to better pricing outcomes:
- Value-Based Selling. This type of sales training is largely about aligning, in a compelling and differentiated way, the value of your offerings to the value the prospect is seeking. It’s a natural counterpart to value-based pricing methodologies and can help lock-in value (margin) well-ahead of any discussions about deal pricing.
- Change-Based Selling. This type of sales training focuses on creating an organizational imperative around fixing the problem your offerings address. It’s a great approach for most types of enterprise-level sales where there are multiple internal groups involved, and can help neutralize price comparisons and RFP-type procurement processes before they even begin.
- Procurement Sales and Negotiation. This type of training can be a big hit with sales teams because it teaches them all of the tricks and techniques that procurement professionals use to beat them up on deals. The revelations can be extremely eye-opening and will usually give salespeople far more confidence, reduce their fears around losing deals, and lower their tendencies to cave to discounting pressures.
If you choose the sales training wisely, you’ll not only get greater participation and engagement from your sales team, you’ll also achieve your objectives around getting them to price and discount more effectively. Because certain types of sales training are all about maximizing perceived value, negotiating with confidence, and making price a non-issue, learning how to sell in these ways just naturally leads to better pricing outcomes.
And better pricing outcomes are what it’s all about, right?
