If you can beat the competition based upon price, and still make a profit, then it probably is a good idea to look for prospects that care mostly about price. However, the best overall strategy is to figure out what your strengths really are, compared to your competition, and then look for prospects who want these. This takes a lot more work than just focusing on price, but can be much more profitable.

Whenever you advertise a sale, you attract people who care mostly about price, and you will conclude that the price is what matters the most. If you advertise on some feature that differentiates you from your competitors, then you will hear from people who care about that.

Thank you for your comment.
Carl Ingalls

I’ve enjoyed the HPS system so far. The way conversation is initiated by speaking plainly, without persuasion, is what I consider a “magic key”. It is surprising the effusiveness that the prospect displays as a result.

That’s the first step. I’m still fumbling with questions they might have, trying to be non-persuasive, staying focused, detaching, etc.

Part of this is just being new.

Some of it is also because many, many of our prospects are price oriented. The first question they ask is “sure, how much?” I give them a price point and begin disqualifying from there.

We are designed to be price competitive, although we also have the best product on the market. Nevertheless, we never sell the benefits of our product as much as we do price. We view price as a major benefit, I’d say. Much of our marketing literature (95%) is about price, sales, savings, etc.

This approach can seem to have 0 effect sometimes. Literally. People who call would have seemingly called anyway, but they just get the sale price this time.

Granted, overall studies show that sales do produce better months for us.

I guess my overall question would be, given that we sell more during specials and sales, would you recommend we look for prospects that are ready to buy based on price benefits? Or should we look to emphasize the other benefits like quality and quality of service?

It would be easy enough to have an offer that listed our sale that month, for example, but that combines HPS with persuasion more than feels natural. BTW, we are not selling big machines or insurance policies, just widgets, ya know?

Thanks!

Yes, you can meet with a Type 2 prospect, and yes they can eventually become a Type 3 prospect. Each can happen, but they are not necessarily related. The problem with spending your time with a Type 2 prospect is that you are not spending your time with a Type 3 prospect. Someone who truly is practicing High Probability Prospecting will find the Type 3 before you do, and will get the sale.

Salespeople who pursue Type 2 prospects have an inflated opinion of the value that these prospects place on the premature attention they received. They believe that they should have an advantage for being there first. However, it doesn’t work that way. Instead, the salesperson who calls at the right time, when the prospect is ready to buy, has a huge advantage over the one who calls too early, before they are ready to buy.

Carl Ingalls

In the end the people that actually buy are the ones that decided they were going to buy it before the demo or meeting with the salesperson. They were either going to buy your product or the competitors product.

Sales organizations who claim to qualify prospects tend to go for Type 2 prospects. This would fall under solutions selling.

A question I have is can you meet with a Type 2 prospect and can they eventually become a Type 3 High Probability prospect?

In many organizations marketing and sales management push the sales staff to meet with Type 2 Prospects for their own forecasting etc..