Latest / Sales Leadership with Fexingo: Quota Carriers, Sales Managers, and Revenue Teams / How Sales Reps Can Handle Price Objections Without Discounting
Transcript
- Lucas: So the buyer sits across from you — or stares into the webcam — and says the thing you knew they were going to say. 'We love the product. But your price is way too high for us right now.' Luna: And most reps feel that knot in their stomach, because they know the next move is either discount or lose. Lucas: Exactly. And the research — I'm thinking of the Challenger Sale data from CEB, now part of Gartner — shows that about 60 percent of B2B buyers say price is their top concern. But when you dig into it, price is rarely the real objection. It's usually a cover for something else: perceived value, internal politics, or just fear of making a bad decision. Luna: So if it's a cover, how do you get the buyer to reveal what's actually going on? Lucas: That's the framework for today. There's a specific technique I want to walk through. It comes out of the Challenger playbook, but I've seen it work in practice a lot. It's called 'teach, tailor, take control.' And I want to give you a concrete example from a deal I watched unfold about 18 months ago. Luna: Okay, I want to hear this. Who was the rep and what was the product? Lucas: Rep named Mariana — she sold an HR analytics platform to mid-market companies. Price point around $75,000 a year. She was in a final-stage deal with a regional insurance firm, about 900 employees. The CHRO loved the product. Their CFO, though, flagged the price as 20 percent over budget. Luna: Classic. The champion wants it, but the economic buyer pushes back. Lucas: Right. So Mariana's first instinct, she told me later, was to offer a 15 percent discount to get it through. But her manager stopped her. Instead, they role-played the 'teach' move. Mariana went back to the CHRO and said, 'Let me show you something you probably haven't calculated.' Luna: I love that. What did she show them? Lucas: She pulled data from their own pilot. The pilot had been running for 60 days, and she'd tracked a specific metric: the average time to fill a role had dropped by 11 days. Then she calculated the cost savings per hire — the agency fees avoided, the productivity loss avoided — and showed that the platform would pay for itself within four months. She didn't just say 'ROI.' She showed a line-by-line projection tied to their own numbers. Luna: So she taught them something new about their own business. That's the 'teach' step. What's 'tailor'? Lucas: Tailor means you take that insight and you connect it directly to the buyer's specific priorities. For this CHRO, one of her big initiatives was reducing turnover among early-career employees. So Mariana added a second projection: showing how faster hiring with better data reduced bad hires, which in turn cut first-year turnover by an estimated 12 percent. She made the value personal to the CHRO. Luna: And then 'take control' — that's the part where most reps get squeamish. They're afraid to be pushy. Lucas: They are, but taking control doesn't mean being aggressive. It means guiding the buyer to a decision. Mariana said to the CHRO, 'Based on what we've shown, the platform pays for itself in four months and directly supports your turnover goal. The only question is whether you're comfortable making a decision now or if you need more time to run these numbers with your CFO.' She didn't ask for the order. She framed it as a choice between two paths forward. Luna: And how did the CFO react? Lucas: The CFO came back with one more objection — 'the budget line is still $75,000 and we allocated $60,000.' So Mariana didn't discount. Instead, she offered a phased payment structure: $60,000 upfront, then $15,000 at month nine, tied to a milestone on hiring speed. The CFO accepted that same day. Luna: So she protected the overall deal value while addressing the cash-flow concern. That's a textbook example of not discounting. Lucas: Look, there's a reason this approach works. Behavioral science — Dan Ariely's work on anchoring — shows that when a buyer says 'too expensive,' they're anchored to some internal budget number. Your job isn't to beat that anchor with a lower price. It's to replace the anchor with a different frame: the cost of not buying. Luna: And the cost of not buying is almost always higher than the price — if you can prove it. But here's my pushback: aren't there situations where discounting actually makes sense? Like a strategic account you need to break into, or a product that's still finding product-market fit? Lucas: I think there are exceptions. If the deal gives you a reference account that will open a vertical, or if you're buying market share in a new region, a strategic discount might be justified. But even then, I'd want to structure it as a volume commitment or a longer-term contract, not just a price cut. The moment you discount without getting something in return, you've trained the buyer that your price is negotiable on every future deal. Luna: That's the slippery slope. Once you discount once, the next rep who calls on that account inherits a lower price expectation. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why the 'teach, tailor, take control' framework is so powerful. It doesn't just handle the objection. It actually strengthens your relationship with the buyer by showing you understand their business better than they do. Luna: Before we go deeper, I want to mention something that actually relates to this idea of proving value. You know how we keep this show ad-free and focused on real tactics? Lucas: Yeah, and it's because a small group of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big thing, but it covers the hosting costs and lets us keep doing deep dives like this without sponsors dictating the content. Luna: Right. And if these conversations have helped you handle a tough call or rethink a sales approach, that's exactly the kind of listener support that keeps it going. No pressure at all — just wanted to flag it. Lucas: Back to the framework. So we've covered 'teach' and 'tailor.' The 'take control' step also includes something called the 'pocket of value' technique. Have you heard that term? Luna: I have not. Tell me. Lucas: It's from a sales researcher named Tim Riesterer at Corporate Visions. The idea is that in any deal, there's a specific, discrete value that the buyer will immediately recognize as important — a 'pocket.' Maybe it's reducing a specific cost, or speeding up a process that's causing complaints. Instead of selling the whole platform, you find that one pocket and you make it the centerpiece of your value argument. Luna: So for Mariana, the pocket was the hiring speed improvement. That was the concrete, measurable outcome the CHRO could feel. Lucas: Exactly. And once you've identified that pocket, you can build the entire negotiation around it. When the buyer says 'too expensive,' you say, 'I understand. But let's look at what fixing your hiring speed is worth to you. If we can reduce time to fill by 11 days, that's X dollars. The platform costs Y. The math speaks for itself.' Luna: That's a much stronger frame than 'we can do 10 percent off.' Lucas: It is. And it works because it shifts the conversation from cost to return. The buyer stops thinking about what they're spending and starts thinking about what they're gaining. Luna: What about the rep who's early in their career and doesn't have the confidence yet to hold the line on price? They might feel they have to discount to close. Lucas: That's a real challenge. And I think the answer is preparation. Before the call, calculate three things: the cost of the problem you solve, the time to payback, and the risk of not solving it. If you have those numbers ready, your confidence goes up naturally. You're not bluffing. You're bringing facts. Luna: And if the buyer still says no? After you've taught, tailored, and taken control? Lucas: Then you have a real objection, not a cover. Maybe the budget truly isn't there this quarter. In that case, you can explore a delayed start, a phased rollout, or a pilot with a smaller scope. But you still haven't discounted. You've found a creative path forward. Luna: I want to go back to the psychology for a second. Why does 'too expensive' come up so often as a first objection, even when the buyer knows the value is there? Lucas: Partly it's a negotiation tactic — buyers are trained to ask for a lower price. But partly it's loss aversion. The pain of spending $75,000 feels more acute than the gain of solving a problem, unless you make the gain feel tangible and immediate. That's why the pocket of value is so effective: it makes the gain concrete. Luna: So it's about reframing the decision from 'spend money' to 'invest in a solution that pays back.' Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing: never answer the price objection on the first ask. If they say 'too expensive,' don't jump to a discount. Ask a question: 'Help me understand what you're comparing it to?' or 'What would make this a fair investment for you?' That buys you time to pivot into teaching. Luna: That's a great tactic. So we've got the framework: teach, tailor, take control. Plus the pocket of value. Plus the rule of never discounting on the first ask. Lucas: And if you practice this, you'll find that the number of deals where you actually have to discount drops significantly. The buyer either sees the value and buys, or they're honest about why it's not the right time — and that's fine too. Better than a discounted deal that you regret later. Luna: I think the key takeaway is that price objections are often a signal to sell harder on value, not a signal to cut price. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And to everyone listening — next time you hear 'your price is too high,' take a breath. You've got a playbook now.