It's amazing how often prospects talk about price being the issue. But when you dig a little deeper, it's almost never the real issue.
One of our clients was talking with a prospect that was referred to him and lived out of town. The client was going to do some work as a result of an insurance claim, and the prospect wanted to get a bid from him before she gave him the insurance paperwork. When he asked why, she said, "I want to see what you're going to give me first."
He explained that by getting the paperwork first, they could get closer to the number the insurance company gave her. So she went through the process, got them the paperwork, and he sent the estimate. It ended up being about a thousand dollars out of pocket for her.
She told him, "This is exactly why I didn't want to give you my insurance papers. Now you're just playing the insurance game. I looked it up on the internet, and you can do this job way cheaper."
Our client talked to the person who had referred the prospect to him. She shared, "She's doing the same exact thing to me. She keeps looking everything up on the internet and finding it cheaper."
He went back to the prospect and let her know, "Obviously this isn't going to be a good fit. I'll give the paperwork and check back and you can start this process over again with another roofer."
Suddenly she texted him back. "Hold on to the insurance paperwork. I'll see what I can do and give you a call." She ended up using them despite the thousand dollars out of pocket.
That one thousand dollars became less important once she realized she might have to go through the entire process again! Price wasn't the real issue.
Why does anyone go to the internet to research price? If you've been burned before, especially by price, you can become overly sensitive. She wasn't trying to beat him up over price—it was just a defense mechanism against shady salespeople. I'm willing to bet either she or someone close to her had been burned before and felt taken advantage of.
If you haven't figured it out, you can always find things cheaper on the internet. But price is just a defense mechanism. If you don't know how to buy something because you don't purchase it frequently, you have to default to something you understand. And price is often the easiest thing to default to.
So the next time a prospects starts really digging into the price, dig back and find out what the actual underlying issue is. Chances are pretty good that price isn't the real issue.