How would you address the (often) #1 customer objection which is "Your prices are too high!"

Do not try to justify or explain why you charge the way you charge but better to engage in a conversation and prompt the prospect to share with you their reasoning. Start with some silence and then explore the pricing objection. This will give you a better understanding of the specific concerns behind the sticker shock so you can more easily address them. You also want to probe into the conditions required in order to get a deal done so you can adapt terms or walk away. Here’s a great article with some more tips.

1. I’ll start by saying that if you’re consistently hearing that feedback, your job as a PMM is not just to come up with messaging to handle the objection but also to make sure you’re getting to the root of the issue, really understanding that feedback, and bringing that to the larger pricing leadership group to keep a pulse on how pricing is received and, over time, decide if you need to make a change or stay the course. You’re not always there just to figure out the messaging, your insights can and should be influencing strategy.
2. Getting off my soapbox to answer the actual question. My main advice is to get out of a price conversation and into a value conversation. I think the easiest answer is to focus on the value that your tool provides to an organization. Can you get clear on the ROI that your product provides, what tangible business results and value it brings to teams who use it? And, more importantly, can you make sure that the value you’re citing solves a real world need for your buyer? If you can get that messaging put together and clear, you can use it to have a real conversation with a buyer on how much value someone can get out of using the product, and, in many cases, that helps to bring down the objection around price. I will say, this ROI messaging work needs to be really thoughtfully done, not pulled together in a few hours. It needs to stand up and be credible and sometimes requires you do to real research and business value studies to get to the answer. If you’re in a crunch where you need messaging now and don’t have time to do the full ROI work, my advice would be to create messaging that focuses on how your product solves real pain that your target customer feels and the value props that back up how your product solves those pain points. Start there and then keep building that ROI message.

When faced with the common objection "Your prices are too high!", as a marketer, you can employ the following strategies to overcome this challenge:

1. Address the customer's concerns: Acknowledge the importance of price and show empathy towards the customer's perspective.
2. Highlight product value: Utilize marketing materials and messaging to emphasize the value that the customer will receive from your product or service. Emphasize its quality, features, benefits, and any additional services that come with it.
3. Offer budget-friendly options: If the customer's budget is a concern, suggest alternative products or services that offer similar value at a lower price point.
4. Promote current promotions: If you have any ongoing discounts or promotions, use them as an opportunity to drive down the perceived cost of your product or service.
5. Foster customer trust: By being transparent about your prices and the reasons behind them, you can build rapport and establish trust with the customer. Show them that you are genuinely interested in finding a solution that meets their needs.

Ultimately, as a marketer, it's important to understand that not every customer will be a good match for your product or service, and it's okay to politely decline if the price is not a good match for the customer's budget.

I'd start by evaluating a few things: 

- How have you positioned yourself? Are you positioned with lower-priced competitors? 

- What's your ideal customer and does this customer fit that criteria? 

- Are you actually priced too high for the value you provide? 

Let's take each question in turn: 

How have you positioned yourself?

Positioning is essentially the context that you put around your product. Who are customers comparing you to? How do you compare to those products? When do you win? 

If you're consistently losing solely on price, there's a good chance that you're in the wrong context. Maybe you're putting yourself in a context where the value isn't clear. For instance, maybe your value proposition is that you deliver white glove service but you're competing against solutions that are all self-service. 

What's your ideal customer and does this customer fit that criteria?

Continuing with the example above – let's say that one of your differentiators is that you deliver white glove service. In that case you'd want to target companies that have the right size of team and enough revenue to pay for that service. Otherwise, they won't be willing to pay for something that doesn't apply to them. Is the customer you're speaking with in that segment?

Are you actually price too high?

Here's the toughest one – you need to honestly evaluate if you are, indeed, priced too high. You can do this a few ways, but the best is a pricing and packaging sprint that will include customer interviews to determine which features people value and why, and evaluation of competitive pricing. 

Pricing is one of the hardest parts of a business to get right because everyone (customers included) will have different opinions on how it should be done. The best thing to do is consistent customer interviews including win/loss analysis to give you data to use in making decisions and changes.