Latest / Sales Leadership with Fexingo: Quota Carriers, Sales Managers, and Revenue Teams / How Sales Reps Can Use the Contrast Principle
Transcript
- Lucas: You walk into a car dealership. The salesperson shows you a sedan for thirty thousand dollars. Then they show you the SUV next to it for forty-five. The sedan suddenly feels like a bargain, doesn't it? Luna: Classic contrast. And it works more often than we'd like to admit. Lucas: That's the contrast principle in action. In sales, the order you present options can completely reshape how a prospect perceives value. And today I want to talk about how you can use it ethically—without feeling like you're manipulating anyone. Luna: Before we dig in, I want to say something. If this episode helps you rethink your pricing conversation, and you get a coffee's worth out of it, you can buy us one at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, listener support keeps this show ad-free and independent. We appreciate every single one. Now—let's talk about how contrast actually works in a B2B sales context. Luna: So give me a concrete example. I don't want theory. Lucas: Okay. Imagine you're selling a SaaS product. You have three tiers: Basic at ten dollars per user per month, Pro at fifty dollars, and Enterprise at a hundred and fifty dollars. Most salespeople start by showing the middle option—Pro—because they think that's what most customers will buy. Luna: Right. And that's exactly what the prospect expects to see. Lucas: But if you lead with the Enterprise tier first—a hundred and fifty dollars—then show the Pro at fifty, that fifty-dollar price tag looks reasonable. The prospect's brain does the math: 'Well, compared to a hundred and fifty, fifty is totally fine.' You've anchored them high. Luna: And the Basic at ten dollars looks like a steal. But you probably don't want them to pick Basic, right? Lucas: Exactly. The goal is to make the Pro tier feel like the safe, sensible choice. I've seen companies increase their average deal size by twenty to thirty percent just by reordering their pricing page. It's not magic—it's psychology. Luna: I remember reading about a study where they asked people to put their hand in ice water. One group did it for a few seconds, then a longer time. The second group did the longer time first, then the short one. The second group reported less pain overall—because the contrast made the short dip feel like nothing. Lucas: That's Daniel Kahneman's work on the peak-end rule and anchoring, essentially. The contrast principle is a close cousin of anchoring. Once you set a high anchor, everything else looks reasonable. But there's a catch—it only works if the prospect perceives the high option as legitimate. Luna: Meaning you can't just throw in a ridiculous gold-plated tier that nobody would ever buy. They'll see right through it. Lucas: Exactly. I had a client once who tried to use a 'platinum' tier that was three times the price of their next tier with almost no additional value. Prospects laughed at it. The contrast backfired because the anchor wasn't credible. You need the high option to have genuine value—maybe more users, premium support, advanced features. Luna: So it's not about tricking them. It's about framing value in a way that highlights the relative advantage. Lucas: Right. And here's another nuance: the contrast effect is strongest when the options are presented simultaneously, not sequentially. If you show the enterprise tier first, then later in the conversation bring up the pro tier, the effect weakens. The comparison needs to be immediate. Luna: That's why a pricing page with three columns works so well. The eye goes left to right, but if you put the most expensive on the left, the middle option looks like the sweet spot. Lucas: Some companies even put the most expensive option in the middle, but studies show that left-to-right reading order matters. You want the high anchor first. But there's a debate: some research says the middle option gets chosen most often regardless of order, as long as the extremes are clear. Luna: I've heard that called the 'compromise effect.' People avoid extremes, so they pick the middle. Contrast and compromise can work together. Lucas: Let's talk about when contrast fails. If your prospect has done heavy price research—if they know exactly what competitors charge—the anchor loses power. They have their own reference point. So contrast works best in complex sales where the value is harder to compare. Luna: Like enterprise software where there's no simple apples to apples comparison. Lucas: Exactly. Also, if you're negotiating a deal and you've already given a discount, you can't then reintroduce the original high price as an anchor. That feels manipulative. The contrast principle works best before any numbers have been thrown around. Luna: So timing is everything. You want to set the anchor early, before the prospect has formed their own opinion. Lucas: Right. And you always pair the high option with a clear justification. 'This enterprise tier includes dedicated account management, custom integrations, and 24/7 phone support. That's why it's a hundred and fifty dollars per user.' When you explain the value behind the price, the anchor feels earned. Luna: What about when the prospect says, 'That's way too expensive, I can't even consider that'? Lucas: Then you haven't done your job of building value. If they reject the anchor outright, you can't force it. But you can use it as a diagnostic—it tells you they don't see the value in that tier. So you can ask, 'What would need to be different for that option to make sense?' Sometimes that opens a real conversation. Luna: That's a great way to handle pushback. It's not defensive—it's curious. Lucas: Let me give you a quick case study. A few years ago, a mid-market SaaS company selling project management software had three tiers: Free, Professional at twenty-nine dollars, and Enterprise at ninety-nine dollars. Their average deal size was stuck around thirty-five dollars per user. Luna: Classic middle-tier trap. Lucas: They redesigned their pricing page. They led with Enterprise at ninety-nine, then Professional at twenty-nine, then Free. They also added a feature comparison that made Professional look like it had ninety percent of the Enterprise features. Within two quarters, average deal size rose to fifty-two dollars per user. Most people picked Professional, but now it was compared to ninety-nine, not to Free. Luna: So the same price point, but framed differently, suddenly feels like a deal. Lucas: That's the power of contrast. And they didn't change a single feature or price. They just reordered the information. Luna: I want to push back a little though. Doesn't this work better in early-stage conversations? If a prospect is sophisticated—say a procurement team that negotiates hundreds of deals—they'll see through it. Lucas: That's a fair point. Sophisticated buyers are more likely to have internal benchmarks. For them, contrast still works, but you have to work harder. You might need to anchor against the cost of their current solution or the cost of doing nothing. 'You're spending X on legacy software. Our enterprise tier is a fraction of that.' Luna: So you're still using contrast, but the anchor is their current situation, not your price list. Lucas: Exactly. And that can be even more powerful because it's personalized. The contrast isn't between two options on a page—it's between their pain and your solution. Luna: I had a rep friend who used to say, 'Show them the Ferrari, then sell them the Honda.' He meant you show the premium option first to make the standard option look reasonable. Lucas: That's exactly it. And the Ferrari has to be a real car—not a photo of a concept car. It has to be something someone might actually buy. Luna: Alright, so if I'm a sales rep listening right now, what's my one takeaway? Lucas: Before your next pricing conversation, look at the options you present. Are you leading with your most common option? If so, try leading with your highest-value option instead. Just reorder your pitch. See what happens. Luna: That's a low-risk experiment. Worst case, you revert back. Best case, you close bigger deals. Lucas: And if you want to go deeper, I'd recommend reading Kahneman's 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' for the psychology behind it. But for a quick win, just change the order. Luna: I'm going to try that in my next negotiation. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. See you next time. Luna: See you.