“How much does your product cost?”

Ever get asked that question before you’ve had a chance to deliver your value proposition? It’s becoming more common in B2B sales, but why? The primary reason is that most prospects have already researched your products on the web before you ever step in the door and they don’t want to waste their time if they can’t afford it. It may not matter how good your product or service is.

What if you could reach out to many potential customers using a telesales service and then use the incentive of self-service budgetary pricing to uncover the interested ones? For example, look in the sidebar on this page and you see a link to “Self-Service Pricing”. If you were curious about using a telesales service for your organization but had a certain budget in mind, wouldn’t you want to get an idea of the cost before you engage a sales person?

It works the same way for complex B2B sales as well. Highly qualified prospects that are interested in your products are willing to give you their information in exchange for budgetary pricing…IF they can get it easily and quickly. They do not want to fill out a long form that goes into a marketing email cycle.

For this process to work effectively several key things must be in place. First, a self-service pricing tool must be configured and made available via the web. It must be easy to access and use by the prospect. If the prospect is interested and clicks on the tool, then it must be capable of advising the prospect on selecting a basic configuration. Preconfigured “kits” are useful to guide first time prospects. Remember, the purpose of this tool is not to give pricing; it is to help us uncover interested prospects and at the same time fulfill their basic need.

Secondly, every outbound contact that the telesales group makes with potential prospects needs to highlight the fact that the prospect can get budgetary pricing using the tool. A well-designed campaign may include this message as the formal Call to Action, for example “if you are interested in what we have just discussed, you can price it yourself using our web tool”. This process alone will save you lots of time by having prospects self-qualify.

Third, you must be ready to respond to queries. A recent MarketingSherpa study showed that prospects lose interest after only 5 minutes of waiting. Do yourself a favor if you haven’t already, get a web enabled phone or PDA and be ready to amaze your prospects. When a prospect takes the time to select the items they want to quote you need to be ready to approve it quickly and then follow-up to make sure they received it. Your call will be surprisingly warm because you have truly added value.

How would your sales numbers be affected if you had several inbound, qualified prospects per day proclaiming their strong interest in your products?