Anyone who sells building materials has heard it before.
“Your price is too high!”
That’s never a good sign. If you hear this when the order is being placed, you can kiss that sale goodbye.
Truth be told, that’s probably for the best. No one wants to lose a sale, but it will give you the kick in the pants you need to go back to the drawing board, re-strategize and find a way to get your product to customers without having to compromise on price.
If you keep getting the same complaint, that might seem impossible. But let me assure you that it’s not. Because the problem isn’t that your prices are too high. The problem is that you haven’t made a strong enough case for the value of your product.
The Real Reason Customers Complain About Your Prices
When you get pushback over price from your customers, you might be tempted to give in and shave your price down as much as humanly possible. You’ve probably even wondered if lowering your prices could boost your sales.
It won’t.
See, building materials customers have become a lot more savvy over the years. Builders and contractors aren’t actually looking for the lowest price they can find. They’ve learned the hard way that a low-cost product is a high-risk product. Going cheap on building materials results in callbacks, installation problems and a number of smaller issues that add up to costs and delays.
They’re well aware they could save a few bucks up front by picking products based on price alone. They also know it’s not worth it.
That doesn’t mean they’re willing to blow their budgets recklessly. It just means they want value for their dollar.
In other words, they’re not looking for the lowest price – they’re looking for a competitive price.
How to Overcome Price Pushback
If potential customers are complaining about your price, it’s because you haven’t sold them on the value of your product. They’re still seeing your product as a commodity. A nail is a nail, a shingle is a shingle, an air barrier is an air barrier – nothing is differentiating your product from all the other options available to them.
They’re scoffing at the price of your product because you haven’t adequately demonstrated why buying your product will be worth it. They’re still putting your product in the “generic product” category.
To make those sales, you don’t have to lower your price. Instead, you have to elevate your product above the competition.
How you do that is up to you. It could be a unique product feature. It could be the way you do business. It could be the above-and-beyond customer service you provide. Whatever it is, it has to show the customer why you’re a better solution.
Most building materials companies don’t realize that it’s something you have to do repeatedly. You can’t just show customers that you’re the better choice, you have to constantly remind them of the reasons they bought your product in the first place.
You should always be finding new ways to improve. There’s no shortage of challenges your customers are facing, which means there are a number of opportunities to become the solution they need.
But even if you don’t have any new reasons, it’s important to keep reminding them of the value you’ve provided for them. Research shows we need to be reminded of something three times before it sticks. Most building material companies only really do it once and stop when they get the sale.
That’s simply not enough. You need your value to be part of the customer’s long-term memory. Otherwise, they will forget what makes you and your product so special. Then when it comes time to buy from you again, their first thought won’t be all the times you saved their bacon or kept their projects running smoothly – it’ll be “your prices are too damn high!”
