Short reaction/analysis by Christian Polk of a sales rep offering an on-call downsell (reducing price from $3,500 to $2,500 if paid on the call). The commentator argues on-call discounts are perceived as a ‘salesy’ tactic, erode trust and commissions, work only for a small subset of prospects, and recommends stating price clearly and handling objections instead of offering discounts.
Chapters
If you need some time to think about it, no worries, I'll send you the email. Standard cost is 3,500. But if you're willing to complete payment while I have you on the call here, I can get you set up for 2500. I see what you're saying. If I'm willing to do it right away, then at that point it's, yeah, I see, that's a good sales tactic.
So the issue with that is like, hey, if you do it on the call, like, I can go ahead and save you $1,000. Most people do understand that it is a sales tactic. And like he did right there on the call, he called it out like, hey, that's good sales tactic. And the issue is you never want to be hearing that on a call. The reason why is because their view of what your intent is changes the value of what you say. For example, if they see you using sales tactics, what you say is tainted by the fact that you're there trying to sell them versus if they view you as somebody who's actually there trying to help, the value give is somebody trying to help. The issue is like, some of these tactics can work on a very small subsect of people that were likely to buy. Regardless. Regardless, people say that these tactics work because, like, well, look, people buy well. People would have bought if they didn't have the discount anyways. You never want to do things that are likely to work or could work 20% of the time, 30% of the time, you want to do things that can work 90 plus percent of the time. If you want to be elite at sales, don't use cheesy sales tactics that get called out. Just tell them what the price is and if they have a concern, handle the concern. Don't offer discounts because, number one, you get less commissions. No fun. Number two, they know you're just trying to sell them and using a sales tactic. And they're not going to view you as somebody who truly wants to help them. They're going to view you as somebody who just wants to sell them.
