The Teckki Says

This is a multipart series on websites that will discuss what pages common to many websites should contain. This article discusses the Price Page(s).

If you are selling something, eventually your potential purchasers will want to know costs. Bury the price, and you bury the sale. If there is anything a purchaser dislikes more than anything, it is the surprise of something that costs more than expected. However, there are few things sellers hate more than exposing their prices too early in the selling process, or divulging price information to a competitor.

Many sellers will agree that if you reveal your price too early, you expose yourself to comparative shopping. After all, you may not have had the chance to explain the benefits and answer questions that justify the price. An upfront price lessens the opportunity to justify your case.

Putting out pricing information also helps your competitors. For competition that has been in the business for a while, they know where to undercut you. For those who may be jumping into the business, all they know is to undercut you. To your prospects, neither makes a difference.

I am one who believes in posting pricing, and I began to include it on my website years ago. Upon doing this, I was surprised to find that my colleagues were also looking, and they were amazed. I am sure that they felt that I would drive away prospects, as well as expose myself to competitors. I don’t know how many competitors used my pricing as benchmarks, but I do know that prospects who called me became no longer available once I sent them to my website to check out services and prices. I was fine with that, because that is part of what I designed my site to do.

I don't feel I've lost much, if anything. This resolved a problem I spent years trying to correct. I used to spend days preparing estimates based off of spectacular sales meetings, building rapport and fostering relationships, along with identifying the customer’s needs and providing solutions to fulfill them. I asked the budget question and what they expected to pay, and the answer was that no one has a budget and no one knows what websites cost - until I gave them a price. Then they were experts. What I found was that the number was important all the long.

The web is a medium where comparison and lower pricing are generally expected. You can be wowed by dazzling sites, and clients expect everything to look great, but buyers expect it to be cheap, or at least cheaper than can be found in the offline world. If "lowest price" is not your targeted market, then let them know that upfront. In a world where the lowest price wins, not displaying one is tantamount to having the highest.

Eliminate price as a deal breaker. Your website should serve as a filter as well as an informational and selling tool. If you direct people to your site, all of the things they want to know should be there – who you are, what you do, what you have done for others, and of course, well, price. Those who know what they might pay, and still choose you, have found something else they like about you. The negotiations change to how you will get it done. You also don't have to make the client regret the price by eventually telling him that the things he thought he was getting were put back on the shelf the minute he agreed to the deal he ultimately got.

I recently got a call from a prospect who was almost sure she would buy from me. It's easy to get excited and feel that you bagged the sale. However, I referred her to my website, where a few days later, I got a call saying that they had found another provider. Price may have played a role, but I know I saved hours of meetings, proposals and modifications, and sales speeches trying to emphasize value, only to lose out because of price.

Missed potential sales cost, but lost sales attempts cost much more!