If you want to make more money from the backend on your book sales then one simple method is to increase the price of your products, courses and services. If you are selling (for example) information based products with a high ticket then you may wish to make sure you cam handle any price objections that occur.

Here are 3 powerful ways to do this:

1. Ask the person

This is quite a bold approach that can be very effective. In response to someone raising a price concern, you reply:

“Mr Jones we never offer the lowest price in the market. Why do you think that even though we aren’t the lowest priced provider that so many people buy from us?”

The person will then usually reply along the lines of quality, service and so forth. Whatever the person offers as the reason, you respond:

“Mr Jones, you are exactly right and…” and then you can add in any additional reasons that are appropriate and move into re-selling the benefits of your high quality, service etc as described above.

2. Talk the difference

In response to someone telling you that, “You’ll have to do better than that, XYZ offered a similar product me a much lower price!” a method to pursue is:

“Can I ask you how much cheaper?”

On many occasions the person will tell you the price (or perhaps an even lower price than they really have been offered as a negotiation ploy!) and you can work out the difference between the two prices.

Then sell the benefits that the person gets for the difference:

“Mrs Jones, the difference is only £400. For that investment you get…” and sell the benefits that your product and service offers over and above the competitor.

3. John Ruskin

John Ruskin was a prolific writer in the 19th century. I have two of his quotes printed onto cards that I sometimes show to people when they are attempting to haggle over price. The quotations are:

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money and that is all, but when you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the thing that you’ve bought isn’t capable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

The common law of business prohibits you from paying a little and receiving a lot – it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder it would be as well to add something for the risk you run, and if you can do that you can afford to buy something better”.

“There is hardly anything in the world today that some man cannot make just a little worse and sell just a little cheaper, and the people who buy on price alone are this man’s lawful prey”.

John Ruskin, English art and social critic, 1819 – 1900

Mr Ruskin (God bless him!) has overcome many a price concern with his wise words. Not many people are comfortable with being someone’s “lawful prey”!

As you negotiate with other people in the course of promoting and selling your books and information products you are almost guaranteed to get people who will quibble about price. I always negotiate so would always expect other people to do likewise. However, I make sure I have a few killer techniques tucked up my sleeve to maximise my profits. And when you have read this article, so will you!

1. The instant reverse

This very bold (and somewhat cheeky) technique often shocks the other person and overcomes their price concerns. Here is how it works:

John: “That’s expensive!”

You: “John, that is exactly the reason you should take it!”

John will usually look a little shocked and confused at this stage and you continue with anything that sounds logical! E.g

“John, you want the best value at the best price, don’t you? Well you’ll never get a better chance than today!”

2. The trim

With this technique you commence lowering the specification of your product and service to meet the person’s price concern.

“OK Jane , it looks as if I am going to have to trim the specification to meet your price requirement. What aspects of the proposal could you do without?”

The thought of having to lose some of the benefits of your product or service is often enough for a customer to re-think their price concern!

3. The add to

Sometimes the person wants to think they have got a better deal than the average individual (a great opportunity to stroke their ego), and adding something to “sweeten the deal” can satisfy this desire. This does not have to be expensive. Think about what you can offer that has a perceived high value to people but a low actual cost to you.

4. Scratched record

This technique is named after the tendency of the old fashioned vinyl records to jump when the playing surface was scratched and repeat the same part of the song again and again.

With the scratched record technique you just firmly and politely keep repeating your price position and the reason behind it in slightly different ways e.g.

“The price is because the specification meets your needs exactly”

“In order to give you what you really need we need to supply the specification that costs X price”

“I appreciate your point John however this price guarantees our ability to give you the specification that’s right for what you need”

With firmness and persistence you will be able to wear down many price concerns in this way.

If when you are pitching a book concept, proposal or related idea and the person that you want to persuade begins to express objections (or as I prefer to call them concerns) then this can be very, very good news!

I appreciate that this seems counter intuitive as you would probably prefer that the person sits their in rapt admiration as you eloquently explain your idea, closely followed by their immediate acceptance. Get real! This is very unlikely to ever happen and actually the fact that they are verbalising some objections or concerns could be very good news!

Firstly, they may be genuinely considering your idea and as they are thinking about it some possible hurdles spring to mind. This does not mean they are rejecting the idea, it could mean that there are just some practical considerations to be addressed.

And secondly as you will see in a moment, far too many people give up at the first sign of resistance leaving those of us who are comfortable handling concerns with the business!

There are a number of ways to deal with concerns when they are expressed. The first important point is that you mustn’t panic. It is quite rare for any proposal to go through to completion without the person you are attempting to persuade expressing at least one concern!

The fact that the other person has raised a concern does not mean that they are not going to go ahead. Relax- the proposal is not lost!

Professional persuaders understand that people raising concerns are just part of the persuasion process, and they prepare to handle them with persistence. This puts them into a different league.

A piece of international research into the reaction of salespeople to customer concerns when making proposals revealed that:

• 44% of salespeople gave up after receiving the first customer concern
• 22% of salespeople gave up after receiving the second customer concern
• 16% of salespeople gave up after receiving the third customer concern
• 10% of salespeople gave up after receiving the fourth customer concern

This leaves just 8% of the salespeople still selling after the fourth concern.

The other startling conclusion from the survey is that 73% of the customers voiced five or more concerns before being sure enough to go ahead!

Combine the figures together and the research tells us that just 8% of the salespeople will win 73% of the business that’s available. If we apply this data to authors making proposals then we can see that being able to handle concerns and being persistent will put some clear blue water between yourself and the majority of authors whose proposals will never get off the starting blocks.

It is therefore vital that unless you want to join the ranks of the persuasion no hopers that you need to get really superb at handling people’s concerns. Being able to do this will place you into the top few percent of all of the authors competing against you.

Truly great persuaders enjoy eating concerns for breakfast!

As stated earlier I view people expressing concerns as a good sign. They can mean that they are really starting to think about going ahead and are starting to consider the practicalities involved.

Or they can indicate that there is some aspect of the proposal that the person is seeking more information about. You can reframe all expressed concerns as being requests for further information. The customer is looking to you to answer this request.

Initial Response

How you initially respond to the person’s concern is important. You want to appear calm, professional and unruffled but also grateful and even delighted that they raised the concern. For example, after hearing the person express a concern say,

“That’s a good point. I’m glad you brought that up.”

“That’s an important point and I thought that might be your initial reaction!”

“I’m really glad you raised that point”

Once you have initially responded in this manner you can then move onto handling the concern in a variety of ways.

Drill further into the concern

It is often necessary to drill further down into a concern to understand it more fully.

You can ask, “I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for raising that concern. Can I ask what it is?”

This will result in the person expanding upon what lies behind the expressed concern so that you can deal with it more effectively.

So rather than get concerned about concerns – learn to love them!

How to Destroy People’s Concerns about Going Ahead With Your Proposals - Before They Even Happen!

If you are taking a holiday to an exotic and tropical location the common wisdom is to visit your doctor to get inoculated against various illnesses and diseases. You don’t wait to catch yellow fever or typhoid, you get inoculated against them.

In the same way, you can inoculate some concerns both before you make your proposal and during it. Most of us can anticipate the concerns that people are likely to express. If specific concerns are raised fairly frequently in response to your proposal it can be effective to nail these either before or whilst you are making your proposal – rather than passively waiting for them to emerge. Get on the front foot!

There are two ways to do this:

Don’t make the same mistake…

People don’t like to make mistakes and they don’t like to look stupid. The fear of making mistakes and looking stupid can be one of the reasons that customers don’t want to proceed with purchasing. We can use this same concern to kill off specific concerns both before and during the presentation or discussion of your proposal.

Let us assume that you predict that people may express a concern that your new book or information product is quite technical and therefore may be perceived to be complicated. You can inoculate against this by saying:

“Mr Smith, some people make the mistake of thinking that as my book / product is so cutting edge that it may be complicated and difficult to understand. What they find is that in fact the straightforward step by step structure makes it simple to understand and use.”

No-one wants to make a mistake do they? So our customer, who does not want to make a mistake, will immediately decide that your product is simple to understand and use!

Another variation upon this is, “Mrs Smith, some of my most satisfied readers initially made the mistake of thinking that our new cutting edge information product must be complicated. What they have found is that in fact it’s clever and carefully planned structure makes it simple to understand and use.”

Don’t be a whiner!

There is something about a whinging and whining voice that people really dislike. Remember the last time you heard a small child (or even a fully grown adult) use a whining tone of voice. Its effect is similar to fingernails being dragged down a blackboard. Cuts right through you, doesn’t it?

You can use this to great effect to inoculate against concerns. Using the same example as previously, here is how this technique works:

“Mr Smith, when people first hear that our new information product is cutting edge they say (Now use your very best whiny voice for the next sentence), ‘It’s so complicated to understand!’“

The vast majority of people have such a dislike of a whining tone of voice that they will instantly move away from ever having had such a concern about your information product themselves. They don’t want to be associated with that horrible, whiny voice!

Inoculating against concerns is a very powerful way of making sure that commonly expressed concerns are killed off deader than a Dodo before and during your proposal presentation.

Take some of the concerns that people may bring up in response to your proposal and devise some ways to inoculate against these. Remember that you can use them before you make your presentation and during it when discussing particular elements of your proposal.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that there were three secrets to being an influential communicator. There is much for an author to learn from these principles and how we can apply them to become more influential. The more influential we can be, the better able we are to persuade people to buy our books and other products and services.  For as another famous Greek philosopher (Plato this time!) said:

“Persuasion is the key to power!”

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