When it comes to price, perception is everything.

Shane Decker: Use Value to Sell

When it comes to price, perception is everything.

BY SHANE DECKER

Published in the May 2012 issue.

Want to kill a sale? One of the best ways to do it is to ask a client, “How much do you want to spend?” or “What’s your budget?” These questions put the client in a box. If his wife or girlfriend is with him, and he wasn’t planning to spend more than a certain amount, he doesn’t want her to think he’s cheap. At the same time, he doesn’t want to pay more than he can afford. No matter what his answer is, he’ll resent you for asking, which puts the sale in serious jeopardy.

From the time the client walks in to the time he leaves, there should be two perceived values: the value of the item in his mind when he enters the store, and the value of the item in his mind after you finish your presentation. If the perceived value of the item does not go up by the end of your presentation, you’ll have objections, and chances are you’ll have to negotiate the price because you did not prove the jewelry was worth its ticket. You’ll hear things like:

• “That’s more than I want to spend.”
• “Go get the owner — he’ll give me a better price than you.”
• “Throw in the tax.” If you can’t handle price objections like this, you can’t close the sale. And they’ll leave thinking your markups are high, so not only is it a sale killer, it’s a forever sale killer.

On the other hand, valueadded statements boost the perceived value and they also give the client confidence that it’s OK to spend the money. Why? Because now, they believe that it’s worth it. To be good at this, you need gemological and product knowledge.

Here are some examples of value-added statements:

• “It takes 1 million gem-quality diamonds mined to obtain a 1-carat gem-quality diamond. That is a thousand piles of diamonds with a thousand diamonds in each pile. That’s rare”
• “They say right on TV that a diamond will last forever. Is there anything else about which you can say that: it’s used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a lifetime and can be passed down to the next generation to be enjoyed for another lifetime? ”

We’re not selling commodities, people. We sell life, memories, love, forever, commitment, hope. Diamonds make a silent statement about the wearer and the purchaser. Both my mother and my father are gone. And I remember them wearing their rings every day. You want to talk about priceless?

And then let’s talk about the cutter, with hands as skilled as a surgeon’s, who was apprenticed many years under a master before he was allowed to even touch a diamond over a carat.

The more you know how to use value-added statements in your presentation, the higher the closing ratio because you’ve proved the worth of the jewelry.

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