How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors : Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee

274 Pages·2005·1.83 MB·English

by  Lawrence L. Steinmetz

HHooww ttoo SSeellll aatt
MMaarrggiinnss HHiigghheerr
TThhaann YYoouurr
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Winning Every Sale
at Full Price, Rate, or Fee
Lawrence L. Steinmetz, PhD and William T. Brooks
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Praise for
How to Sell at Margins Higher than Your Competitors:
Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee
The two giants in their fields have collaborated to produce a straight-
forward, no-nonsense blueprint for anyone involved in the selling process.
And make no mistake about it, any interaction you have with a client or pa-
tient is a “sale.” The only question is whether you’ll have to settle for a cut
rate fee or get the fee that you really deserve. You must read this book.
—Nathan Wei, MD
Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center of Maryland
A revolutionary manual for improving and protecting your margins. Stein-
metz and Brooks combine to give us this unique playbook that will allow
us to WIN. Business and sales professionals will continue to reference the
teachings and tools to perfect their game.
An absolute must-read for business leaders and sales professionals. Stein-
metz and Brooks combine practical, real-world illustrations with great vi-
sual teaching techniques to provide a road map for selling at higher margins
than the competition.
Larry Steinmetz and Bill Brooks combine their talents and years of prac-
tical experience to give your business the edge over the competition. It
contains the recipe for protecting your margins and is so practical that you
will find it at your right hand much more than on your bookshelf.
—Joseph Neidig
Vice President of Human Resources and
Administration
Red Spot Paint and Varnish Co., Inc.
The chapter “Why You Really Shouldn’t Mess with Price-Buyers” alone
justifies the cost (and time) for this book.
—Mike Pierson
President
Beckwith & Kuffel, Inc.
In my industry, the low price provider is king—but thanks to the hard
work of Dr. Steinmetz and Bill Brooks, I’ve never even had to consider
cutting my company’s prices. Instead, we’ve broken away from the pack as
“the only choice” regardless of price. No matter what you sell or who you
sell it to, you owe it to yourself to read this book!
—James A. Canale
CEO and President
Net2 Technology Group, Inc.
This book is the definitive work on full-margin selling for executives, sales
managers, and salespeople alike. It is, undoubtedly, the ultimate source for
selling at full price, fee, or margin.
—Jim Taylor
CEO
Thomas Group
Finally, a book that allows salespeople to understand the impact of “cutting
prices” and how to increase sales margins! This is a must-read book for all
sales personnel, especially those who want to “make it up in volume.”
—Robin Wall
Vice President of Sales
Dearing Compressor & Pump Co.
A practical handbook for CEOs, general managers, and sales managers
struggling with how to meet competition in the marketplace and at the
same time preserve the profit margin required not only to stay in business,
but prosper over the long term.
—Edward E. Newcomer
Chairman of the Board
E. E. Newcomer Enterprises, Inc.
We constantly preach the importance of margins as we have far greater po-
tential to positively influence that outcome, than gross sales revenue itself.
A few points on the top line translate to huge gains on the bottom line. Bill
Brooks’ insights to help us get there have made a huge difference.
—James MacDonald
President
R. F. MacDonald Co.
This book reminds us to consider customer relationships in the context of
a marathon, not a sprint. It shares our company’s philosophy that building
partnerships with customers and offering great service is vital to success. It’s
not just about winning customers . . . but keeping them for the long haul.
—Chuck Burns
Area Vice President
First Citizens Bank

HHooww ttoo SSeellll aatt
MMaarrggiinnss HHiigghheerr
TThhaann YYoouurr
CCoommppeettiittoorrss
Winning Every Sale
at Full Price, Rate, or Fee
Lawrence L. Steinmetz, PhD and William T. Brooks
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 by High Yield Management, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
ISBN-13 978-0-471-74483-2 (pbk.)
ISBN-10 0-471-74483-2 (pbk.)
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Preface
T
his is the thirteenth book I’ve writ-
ten. Every time I write a book, I wait until it’s almost time for page
proofs before I write the preface because I like to reflect on what the book
really is about in order to say a few succinct statements about the book for
the prospective reader.
For this particular book, I am especially mindful of something I wrote
in the preface to my first book in 1992. I wrote:
The perspective I got for this preface came from a vacation I took just a
week ago. I happened to read a piece of advertising literature of a small
(albeit international) manufacturing company in one of the better-known
ski resort towns in Colorado. The first paragraph of that company’s liter-
ature proudly boasts: ‘We are not just running a business, but living a
lifestyle.’ I’m sure the people who are running that company are proud of
that statement; genuinely believe that one need not be too serious about
running their business—that if you produce a good product, the product
will sell itself and one need not worry about the vulgar details of operat-
ing a business in a business-like fashion. Another interesting part of this
manufacturer’s literature is that the enclosure with this literature com-
pared this company’s prices with competitors’ prices and—you guessed
it—this company’s prices were lower than their competitors’. That’s right.
They allegedly have a superior product and, furthermore, can sell it at a
price lower than their competitors’ and (surely?) make money doing that.
Once you’ve read this book, you will appreciate the sarcasm in the above
paragraph. I revisited that Colorado resort town just last week to check out
how the business was doing. At no surprise to me, it has vanished without
a trace. I pointed out in the original book that one cannot run a business
successfully via a series of propitious accidents or in a cavalier manner. We
make that point again in this book: Business is a game of margins, not a
game of volume. Whether one is running a manufacturing company, a
wholesale operation, a distributorship, a retail store, a construction com-
pany, a financial institution, or a professional service organization, all too
many people operate these enterprises with the idea that one can sell at
prices (fees, rates) lower than their competitors and still be successful. Oh,
if it were only true—and that easy. That is not to say that one cannot have
vii
viii Preface
fun running a business or professional organization. Or that there is no
time for a good quality lifestyle. But the basics of running a good (suc-
cessful) business are not founded on a “fun first, the business (practice) will
take care of itself” attitude. Too much water has gone under the bridge
throughout history proving the point that a serious, professional manner has
to be established at the helm by those running the operation.
Fortunately,historygivesusmanylessonsinthegoodandthebadprac-
ticesthathappeninrunningabusiness—admittedly,mostlybad,butthere
are also good examples. The common threads that underpin the good and
successfulexamplesarewhatwehavechosentopresentinthisnewversion
of my original book. We have expanded it in many ways. We have added
chaptersonthingssuchasthecardinalsinsofsellingandhowtotellwhen
a customer is lying about having a sweeter deal “down the street.” I also
added a chapter on how the salesperson can “hang in there” under intense
pressure to cut the customer some kind of deal on the price. These addi-
tional chapters particularly enhance the book because, based on my expe-
rienceconsultingwithcompaniesandconductingmorethan2,000seminars
on this subject since writing the first book, I have found these issues to be
themorevexingproblemsformostsalespeople.Fortunately,giventhetime
period since publishing the first book, I have developed material that pro-
vides solutions to many of these problems.
The original book and this book are about how you sell things at prices
higher than your competitors—not how to give things away. The organi-
zation of this book is much like the original book and essentially runs as
follows: We start with FACTS—and the facts are that most companies do
go broke and business is a game of margins, not a game of volume.
The second dimension of this book has to do with UNDERSTAND-
ING. Selling at prices higher than your competitors requires an attitude and
an understanding on the part of the salesperson. Some of that understand-
ing includes the following: People (customers) don’t buy on price alone.
Furthermore, there are five factors on which one can compete in selling a
product or professional service, and price is only one of the five. Quality,
service, sales capability, and ability to deliver the product or professional
service to the customer, when they need it, where they want it, and on time
are the other factors. Each of those remaining four is far more significant
than price. Another bit of understanding is that buyers really need and like
a lot of things—and low price isn’t necessarily one of them. Sales reps who
intend to sell at prices higher than their competitors need to get inside the
customer’s head and understand how their customers’ needs and likes can fit
with their ability to command a higher price than competitors.