Your Deal Has 3 Buses Arriving At Once, None Of Them Price

Peeved that a central public transport option on which I once occasionally relied was no longer in operation, I recently read on the madness that is the mass transit planner.

There's a ton of surveys, research and suggestions on what makes for the optimum bus, train and tram network.

Some even cite the importance of getting it right. Whether you want less congesting, polluting cars on the road, more productive workers after a stress-free commute or ferry kids healthily to school.

They have one thing in common though.

The consideration of how much your journey costs for those buying a ticket is bottom of user list of priorities.

There's likely ranges, sure. Who wouldn't like to pay less? A balance between adequate provision today and tomorrow, and corporate fatcats not milking the masses lining their own pockets required.

This is spookily similar to solution selling.

In the transport case, such needs as Consistency, Frequency, and Safety of service always outrank Price as main criteria of users.

Think your prospect cares primarily about price? Then you are either wrong or they're not your customer, or both.

They're like commuters and shoppers and any of kind of traveller getting on some kind of vehicle alongside myriad others during their daily grind.

This matches plenty of research on buyer preferences too, by the way. One probably exists in your very field.

One of the oldest tricks I got taught as cubrep, was to ask on this very question.

Along the lines of;

'if price was not an issue, what would be most important to you about what you buy?'

I even remember at times putting things like my mug of tea on the quote covering where the price was on the desk between prospect and me.

As a canny buyer might always try to lead with 'price', no matter how ludicrous, just to shield themselves.

You can even cite the bus example.

There'll likely be (at least) three other priorities.

And you'll be protecting your margin too.