When is the best time for your team to discuss budget and pricing? Is it during the demo call, even earlier in the deal cycle?
Our team did the research, and we found some major differences in win rates depending on when budget and pricing were discussed.
Here is what you should know:
1. Discuss budget in the first call for highest win rates
💡 Checkout that 49% win rate vs 7% for no mention!
2. Discuss pricing in the first call for highest win rates
💡 When pricing is discussed during the first call, win rates are 10% higher than when it’s bought up on the second call, and 20% higher than when it’s brought up on the third
3. Top performers discuss pricing later in the call
💡 Closers are discussing pricing after the first 40 minutes of a 1-hour call
Ok, now you know the secrets. So how can you use Gong to help you put these into action?
First, create Trackers:
Trackers let you track how groups of keywords show up in your conversations. Gong already has default trackers for budget and pricing. As a best practice, add any custom pricing or budget terms that your team utilizes to make these even more relevant. For example, using key terms from your BANT script and key pricing terms, such as license types, or enterprise vs standard subscriptions will ensure your trackers are specific to your company’s needs.
Next, understand when pricing is coming up during sales conversations:
a) Across your entire team:
-
- Filter for calls where the Budget and Price tracker appears. [Calls Page]
- Optional: Add the sales stage in CRM section to ensure Budget is qualified early (discovery or introduction calls)
- Bonus: use the CRM stage Closed-Won to filter and hear only the winning talk tracks from your team
b) On Individual Calls
- Use Points of Interest (left navigation bar on a specific Call page) to see when in the call budget and pricing are coming up (remember that the majority of top reps are talking about budget after 40 minute mark of their call)
- Drill into those key moments of the call to understand how your reps are delivering, and hear how customers respond
- Comment on the call to coach your rep in real-time
c) Be alerted automatically
- Create a filter to surface Budget and Pricing [instructions below]
- Set up a call alert so that you are alerted when key pricing discussions are mentioned
- Once you find the right calls to listen to, review the talk track on the calls page
- When you find an exemplary call, add this call or snippet of the conversation to your Budget and Pricing library folder so the rest of your team can learn from it
Lastly, compare how your top performers are talking about Budget and Pricing
- Stats for Trackers: See what your top reps are doing during their conversations. Some question to consider:
- What percentage of calls do your top reps bring up Budget and Pricing?
- What percentage of calls do your bottom reps bring up Budget and Pricing?
- Take a look at the calls where your top reps talk about budget. Pinpoint their talk track and share it with the team
- Use this to coach your direct reports in 1:1s or team meetings
Bonus Option 1
Deal Review: Leverage Gong in your 1:1s and Deal Review meetings
- Look to see when budget and pricing came up in a deal cycle [Account Page]
- Was it brought up early enough in the deal?
- Are there any risks with how pricing was delivered? Search for “list price” versus “Investment”
- Use these indicators to coach your reps for future deals and to improve
Bonus Option 2:
Open API: Leverage the API or the Gong for Salesforce App to trigger escalations based on certain events
If you know budget and pricing should be brought up during the first conversation with your prospect, you can trigger alerts if pricing is brought up too late, not brought up at all, or, even better, if your reps are leading with “list price” or discounts when discussing pricing.