Mark Piccles is the sales director at B2B Sales in Wrexham and has kindly provided the following article for thebestofwrexham.

 Nothing in business happens without a sale, so pay heed to his words of wisdom! -

Time and again I see companies and salespeople desperately dropping price in a bid to boost sales, and though I’m sure this occasionally has merits in a B2C market, I have yet to be convinced that discounting is a sensible long term strategy in the B2B marketplace.

In fact, and I know I’m going to ruffle a few feathers here, I actually believe it’s a symptom of poor salesmanship. With this in mind, one definition of good selling is “When your new client goes away wowed and delighted with what they just bought, and above all else they payed your price, not theirs!”

As salespeople our job is not merely to shift product, but to sell the right product, to the right people, for the right reasons and all importantly to maintain profitability. A long time ago as a rookie rep selling generic pharmaceuticals, I was naively happy to give away valuable margin, so long as I got the order. Things now are very different, as I refuse to sell anything to anyone if I’m not convinced it’s right for them, and since they realise the value we bring to the table, they have to pay my price. If they’re not prepared to pay my price, then they clearly don’t appreciate the value we bring them, and so consequently they would be the wrong customer and we should not be selling anything to them in the first place!

Sales people should never be merely product shifters. They should realise that the price they sell at, has a direct bearing on their profitability. Selling on price alone is frankly lazy, and makes no commercial sense, since you can rest assured that if a client buys on price (rather than the real value you bring them) then as soon as your competitor goes cheaper (and they will), then your new client will drop you like a hot potato. Someone will always be cheaper than you, so when you sell purely on price you are opening the door to a whole host of problems...don’t do it!

Mark Pickles is the Sales Director of B2B Sales Solutions www.b2b-sales.