Episode #365: How Do We Sell To Idiot Buyers?

Why do capable sales teams still lose deals on price?

Price pushback often isn’t about your solution being wrong — it’s about buyers not seeing the full value yet. Many decision-makers purchase your type of service only a few times a year, while you’re living in the market daily. That gap in experience creates misunderstandings about what outcomes are worth and why.
Mini-summary: Price resistance usually reflects a value-understanding gap, not a value gap.

Value is proven only after delivery. You and your repeat clients already know the outcomes: faster execution, fewer mistakes, and competitive advantage gained in time, not just cost. Even when companies could solve issues internally, they often don’t have the runway — not a decade, not even a year. Your real product is acceleration.

Mini-summary: Buyers can’t fully measure future value today; your job is to make it visible before the contract.

Why do some buyers treat all suppliers as interchangeable?

When buyers haven’t worked with any supplier in your category before, they default to the easiest comparison: price. Procurement teams may reduce complex offerings to spreadsheet rows and columns, overlooking quality, speed, reliability, and total business impact.

Mini-summary: Commodity thinking happens when buyers lack context, so price becomes their only lens.

How do you justify a higher price without sounding defensive?

High price is justified through clear differentiation tied to business outcomes. Typical value dimensions include:

• Quality (品質 / hinshitsu — quality): fewer errors, less rework, higher consistency.

• Speed (スピード / supīdo — speed): faster launch, quicker ROI, reduced opportunity cost.

• Credibility & reliability (信頼性 / shinraisei — reliability): lower risk, predictable delivery.

• After-sales support (アフターサポート / afutā sapōto — after-sales support): sustained performance, adoption success.

• Experience depth (経験年数 / keiken nensū — years of experience): proven playbooks you can’t copy quickly.

• Global scalability (グローバル展開 / gurōbaru tenkai — global rollout): solutions that work across regions.

Price is only one component. In many organizations, time and risk are more valuable than cost.

Mini-summary: Anchor price to outcomes across multiple value dimensions, not features alone.

What’s the most effective way to educate an uninformed buyer?

Listing your advantages at buyers can trigger skepticism. A better path is to lead them to the conclusion through smart, outcome-based questions:

• For quality:
  “If avoiding rework saved your team weeks, what would that be worth in cost and momentum?”

• For speed:
  “If implementation happened earlier than planned, how would that affect revenue or market position?”

• For global use:
  “If this worked in Japan and could scale globally, how would that elevate Japan’s role internally?”

These questions help buyers calculate value themselves instead of resisting your claims. If one angle doesn’t resonate, pivot to another that does.

Mini-summary: Use consultative questions that let buyers discover value in their own words.

Not every deal is worth winning. Some buyers will never respect the value equation, and serving them can drain time, morale, and profit. Strategic sales teams know when to protect their standards — especially if the relationship is short-term or the price offered is misaligned with real outcomes.
Mini-summary: Walking away can be a disciplined business choice when value is permanently unrecognized.

• Price objections usually signal a value-clarity problem, not a capability problem.

• Buyers often default to price when they lack context; your job is to reframe the comparison.

• Differentiation lands best through high-quality questions, not loud claims.

• Sometimes the strongest sales move is to decline unprofitable, low-respect deals.

Founded in the U.S. in 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has supported individuals and companies worldwide for over a century in leadership, sales, presentation, executive coaching, and DEI. Our Tokyo office, established in 1963, has been empowering both Japanese and multinational corporate clients ever since.