THE PRICE TAG should exude integrity. I have accounts where the price on the tag is the price it is sold for, and no one can discount it. If they do, they make up the difference out of their paycheck or they’re terminated. There are brands and vendors that put their own price tag on, and if the store negotiates the price, the manufacturer can pull the brand from their store. The manufacturer and the retailer believe in that price.
Owners, when you’re on the floor, lead by example and sell by the price on the tag.
If you believe in your price, so will your sales team.
And if a client comes in and says to a sales associate: “I’ve shopped here a long time. If you go get your owner, he will give me a better deal than you are,” don’t come out and cut off your salespeople’s legs in front of the client.
If you believe in your price, and if your sales team believes in your price, so will your clients.
Your price represents:
1. Integrity on the tag
2. Quality of product
3. Craftsmanship
4. Platinum, gold and silver
5. Diamonds and lab reports
6. Service, pre-sizing, clean and polish, diamond setting
7. Design and fabrication
8. Guarantees, warranties and trade-in policies
9. Integrity of brand
10. Professional team, well-trained staff and service
11. GIA-trained selling
12. Fair pricing to everybody
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If your client doesn’t believe in the price, it’s going to be hard to close the sale. This is where salesmanship is so important — making the value meet the price or vice versa. To do this, you need to use value-added statement salesmanship. For example:
- It takes 1 million diamonds mined to get a 1-carat.
- Some timepieces take a year to build by hand.
- When they mine platinum, they remove 8 to 10 tons of Earth’s crust to obtain 1 ounce of platinum. Wonder why a semi-mount is $3,995?
You should have 10 value-added statements for every brand in your store memorized to use in your presentations to change the client’s perceived value of an item. These would be great sales meetings. When you do this in a presentation, price objections go down and perceived value goes up. In the client’s mind, if it’s worth it, it raises the closing ratio and you become more profitable as a company because it allows you to sell the item for the price on the tag or extremely close to it.
I keep telling you to believe in your prices. Christmas is coming. The client buys anyway. Be profitable.
When the client believes in the price and purchases it, they walk out satisfied knowing they got an awesome product, a fair price, and that you have integrity in your pricing.
It’s not about being pushy, it’s about professionalism and knowledge of product, and putting integrity in as a value as it’s supposed to be and being profitable. Clients can find discounts anywhere. How much was it marked up to be able to have 70 percent off?
They’ll say it’s cheaper down the street. That doesn’t mean it’s higher quality: Cheaper means cheaper. Don’t fall into the traps they use to make you give a lower price. Always believe in integrity.