When a customer demands a price on the phone, the most natural thing is to give them a number. The sales book behind the booklet says plainly not to: “do not give him a final figure on the price at which you will supply.”
The reasoning concerns the mechanics of the conversation, and once you see it, the refusal itself sounds different.
Many business owners know the feeling of giving a customer a price on the phone and never hearing from them again. This chapter is about the moment just before that.
The booklet opens with a test that runs against expectation. A call that gets as far as quoting a price counts as a failure, because it spent the only card it held and got nothing for it. Here the customer is the one pulling the call there.
A final figure closes the conversation both ways
According to the source, when you speak in generalities, without facts or firm figures, the customer has to come back. You keep the last chance at their business, and you have committed yourself to nothing.
A final figure on the phone does the reverse. If it is too high, the conversation ends there. If it is low, it becomes a ceiling, and every negotiation starts from it and moves downwards.
Picture an owner who named a price on the phone, after which the customer vanished. He never learned what sank the deal, the price itself or the scope the customer had in mind.
The opposite is the same owner giving a range and offering a meeting. At the meeting the scope turned out to be half of what he had assumed, and the deal closed.
The two versions differ in when the decision gets made. In the first, the customer received a number and decided alone, without knowing exactly what they would be paying for. In the second, the decision waited for the meeting, where he could find out what the customer needed.
What the refusal rests on
When the customer presses, the source offers a full sentence, and it is built with care. The booklet gives you the wording. What matters here is what the sentence leans on.
The refusal in the source rests on a professional duty to be precise. Policy and the seller's convenience play no part in it. It tells the customer that a vague figure would damage their interests, and a professional does not let a customer make a mistake he can prevent. That is what lets you refuse without sounding evasive. The refusal protects the customer from a decision taken on a wrong number.
You can feel the difference on the other end of the line. Someone who hears that the business gives no prices on the phone senses that something is being hidden. Someone who hears that an imprecise figure would hurt them understands that somebody is looking after them.
A reply that is too general is a mistake of its own. Telling a customer that it depends on a lot of things, and stopping there, is true and unhelpful, and it sounds like dodging.
What the refusal costs
The source does not pretend that the refusal costs nothing. It says plainly that you will lose a few customers. You could not have won them anyway, since all they are considering is the lowest figure.
That admission carries as much weight as the wording does. Some people want only the cheapest number, and no choice of words would have won them. So the refusal loses no customer you could have closed. Whoever leaves because of it is exactly the person the source says you could not get in any case.
From the lowest price to the best deal
The chapter closes with a distinction in wording that changes where you stand. In the source's words: “you did not say the lowest price. You said the best deal.”
Someone who asks how much it costs is talking about a number. Someone who is told that you will get them the best deal has been moved onto ground where you have something to sell. Those are two different fields, and you choose which one is played on. The move hides nothing from the customer. It only requires you to decide what the call is about.
Picture an owner who tells a customer that his aim is for the customer to avoid paying for things they do not need. He has committed to no number, and he is already talking about the deal.
The booklet gives this chapter two exercises, one to build and one to analyse, plus self-check questions. It also gives the exact wording from the source for the moment the customer presses.
The next time a customer demands a price on the phone, remember that the number you give now sets everything that follows.