This briefing document summarizes the key themes and actionable strategies presented in Jeb Blount’s book, “Selling the Price Increase.” The central premise is that price increases, while often dreaded by sales professionals, can be successfully implemented without losing customers through careful preparation, emotional control, strong customer relationships, effective communication, and skillful negotiation. The book provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the psychological barriers to raising prices, building confidence, crafting compelling justifications, handling objections, and ultimately securing price increases while maintaining customer loyalty.
Main Themes and Important Ideas/Facts:
Part I: Disrupt the Mindset of Fear
- Sales Professionals Hate Price Increases: The book acknowledges the inherent discomfort and fear associated with delivering price increase news. Salespeople often feel like they are betraying established relationships. Blount recounts his own initial dread: “Back at my office, as I started pouring over my accounts, I became sick to my stomach. I’d worked hard to establish those relationships. Many customers had become friends. Raising their prices felt like a form of betrayal.”
- Developing Emotional Self-Control: Managing one’s own emotions, particularly the fear of rejection, is crucial. The book uses the analogy of a strange request to highlight how disruptive emotions can be.
- Developing Obstacle Immunity: Drawing on Jia Jiang’s “100 Days of Rejection” experiment, Blount emphasizes the importance of facing rejection head-on to build resilience. “Emotional discipline in the face of potential rejection is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger you become.” He outlines four keys: being open to resilience, intentionally seeking uncomfortable situations, confidently asking for what you want, and pushing through early pain.
- Stop Worrying, Start Preparing: Worrying about potential negative customer reactions leads to anxiety and inaction. Preparation, including anticipating scenarios and practicing responses, is the antidote. Mark Twain’s quote is used to illustrate this: “I’ve experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which actually happened.” Positive visualization and managing self-talk are key preparatory steps.
Part II: Protect Customer Relationships
- Relationships Matter: Price increase initiatives must be approached with a dual focus: maximizing revenue and retaining customers. Neglecting relationships can lead to resentment and contempt.
- Triggering Resentment and Contempt: Actions like arrogance, neglect, breaking promises, and delivering price increases poorly can damage customer relationships. Building trust and making amends are vital when relationships are strained.
- Wait, I Don’t Even Know You! Instant Resentment: Introducing price increases to new accounts without first establishing a relationship can lead to immediate resentment. The book advises building a foundation through consistent engagement.
- Price Increases When You Have All the Power: While tempting, leveraging absolute power to impose price increases without regard for the customer relationship isShortsighted and can lead to long-term negative consequences.
- Make Breaking Up Hard to Do: Proactive account management, focusing on the customer’s needs and providing value, makes it difficult for customers to switch to competitors.
Part III: Approaching Price Increase Conversations
- Change Your Self-Talk: Maintaining a confident mindset is essential. Negative self-talk undermines confidence and can lead to projecting insecurity. Henry Ford’s quote reinforces this: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.”
- Master Nonverbal Communication: Projecting confidence through body language, tone of voice, and eye contact is crucial. Table 17.1 provides a comparison of nonverbal cues that transmit insecurity versus confidence.
- Choose Your Words Carefully: Language can either build confidence or create doubt. Using emotionally neutral, direct, and confident language is recommended. “The most effective word choices for encoding price increase acceptance are emotionally neutral, direct, and confident.”
- Clarify: When customers raise objections, it’s important to pause, remain calm, and ask clarifying questions to understand the underlying concerns.
- Craft Your Narrative: Developing a compelling narrative that justifies the price increase and highlights the value provided is essential. Different types of narratives include maintaining quality, continuous improvement, future value, past value, and reciprocity.
- One for Many Because Statements: Providing a clear and logical reason (“because statement”) significantly increases the likelihood of price increase acceptance. Even a nonsensical reason with the word “because” can be effective, as highlighted by research: “In this curious finding, they discovered that it was the word because that prompted compliance by signaling that there was a reason to comply.” The book provides a five-step framework for crafting these statements.
- The Formal Price Increase Business Case: For larger accounts, a formal business case outlining the rationale and justification for the price increase is necessary. This should address the customer’s perspective and potential alternatives. “Why give a large account any reason whatsoever to consider doing business with your competitor? Why risk losing a strategic account or millions of dollars in orders over a price increase?”
Part IV: Closing, Handling Objections, and Negotiating
- Closing: The assumptive close is recommended, operating under the assumption that the customer will accept the price increase. Immediate silence after presenting the increase is crucial.
- The Ledge Technique: This technique involves using memorized, automatic responses (“ledges”) to hard objections, providing a moment to regain composure and think rationally. Examples include: “How so?” “Tell me more.” “I figured you might say that.”
- Four Techniques for Handling Price Increase Objections: The R.E.S.C.U.E. framework is introduced:
- Relate: Empathize with the customer’s perspective.
- Explain: Clearly articulate the value proposition and the reasons for the price increase.
- Space and Time (The Ledge): Use ledges to gain control and time to formulate a response.
- Confirm: Ensure the customer understands and accepts the explanation.
- Negotiating the Price Increase: D.E.A.L. Framework: A structured negotiation framework:
- Discover: Understand the customer’s needs, constraints, and objectives.
- Explain: Reiterate the value and justify the price increase.
- Align: Seek common ground and explore mutually beneficial solutions.
- Lock: Secure the agreement.
- Discover: This involves asking open-ended questions to uncover the customer’s perspective and concerns.
- Capitulate Counter: This section likely discusses negotiation tactics, as the other elements of the D.E.A.L. framework are mentioned.
Key Quotes:
- “If you’ve ever had to deliver price increase news to a customer, then you know it isn’t easy. Yet when sold effectively, customers accept price increases, remain loyal, and often buy even more.” – Introduction
- “This is why, in sales at least, you cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought.” – Chapter 12
- “Language is a powerful, neural ‘audio technology for rewiring other people’s minds’ because ‘it allows you to implant a thought from your mind directly into someone else’s mind.'” – Chapter 17
- “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.” – Chapter 20, quoting Robert Cialdini
- “You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality.” – Chapter 21, Sutton’s Corollary
Conclusion:
“Selling the Price Increase” provides a robust and practical guide for B2B sales professionals facing the often-challenging task of raising prices. By emphasizing preparation, emotional intelligence, strong relationships, clear communication, and strategic negotiation, Jeb Blount offers a roadmap for securing price increases while retaining valuable customers. The frameworks and techniques outlined in the book aim to shift the mindset from fear and avoidance to confident and effective execution.
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