Handling "It's Too Much Money" Objections in Home Sales

Prefer To Watch: Here’s The Video

If you are selling home improvements or are selling in the home I’m sure in the close you have come across “That’s too much money”. What does that mean and how do you handle it?  It could mean two things one you haven’t built the value of what you are selling or they can’t afford it.

Please watch until the end to see how to handle both reasons.

Isolating the Objection to Money

The good part about hearing that is you can isolate the objection to the money quickly and easily. That’s always the first thing you are trying to accomplish in any close. To isolate the objection to the money. When you are selling something to someone I believe that people buy when two questions are answered. Do I want it and can I afford it? If the answer to both questions is yes they buy. In the sales presentation if you make them want it and in the close if you make it affordable to them they buy pretty easily.

So usually the first thing you have to do in closing is to isolate the objection to the money and then handle it. That’s why you always hear people say you need to bring it to the money in the close.  So when I hear “it’s too much money” I’m glad because it’s really easy to say “So other than the money is this what you want” or “Are there any other reasons other than the money that you don’t want this?” and they yes I  have isolated it to the money quickly and easily.

Building Value to Avoid Sticker Shock

The main reason people say it’s too much money is that you haven’t probably price-conditioned them or built the value during your sales presentation. This is 100% in your control and your responsibility. They are sticker-shocked and may not see the value of what you are selling.  If you built the value correctly they should be surprised at how low the price is. If you are selling something for 15k ideally they think it’s worth 18 or 20k so when they see the price they think they are getting a bargain.

The opposite is that if they thought it was going to be 10k and you show them 15k it is going to be hard to sell them. If you price-conditioned them correctly they should not be sticker-shocked and have a general idea of what it costs before you give them the price. You should have a specific section of your presentation where you are conditioning them to the price.

Changing the Customer’s Perception of Price

Here’s an important point. Price is a perception the customer has based on information they may have gotten and you can change that perception if necessary by being more credible than the information that created that perception. What information creates the perception of price the customer has? The information could be other estimates, a guess, or something their neighbor told them.

When you get there they could have three perceptions of the price. No perception, the right perception, or the wrong perception. If they have no perception you can create it, if they have the right perception you just have to reinforce it, and if they have the wrong perception you have to change it.  The first thing that helps is to get an idea of where their perception of the price is so I know what I have to work at. That’s why I always start this section by asking do you have any idea how much new windows cost and whatever they say I always say” Windows can be confusing because they all look the same white with some glass in the middle but you can see the same size window priced from 3-400 a window all the up to $2000 a window.

What causes the difference in price is the materials they are constructed of and how they are made. 3-400 a window is probably too low and $2000 a window is probably too high. If you are interested you can see by this cost vs value report or from home advisor that the national average cost of a window would be about $1500 a piece.” Here you should have some type of third-party pricing literature to help give credibility to what you are saying. The better sales reps can get by with just the strength of their credibility because the customers believe them. When you are new having another source to back up what you say can help.  If you are selling cabinet refacing you might say that why people buy refacing is that instead of spending 80 to 100k on a full-blown kitchen remodel that you can make it look like you got a brand new kitchen but it would only be a third of that cost.

At this point, the person has got to be thinking that your windows are going to be around 1500 a piece and a kitchen refacing job will be about 30k. What price conditioning does is it gives them an idea of the price without specifically telling them how much it’s going to be. You need to condition them to the price. If it’s flooring or something that is priced by the square or linear foot line it's out. For example, carpet can run from 2-3 a foot up to   10 square feet. So your 2000 square foot room could run you anywhere from 4000 to 10,0000  depending on the type of carpet and how you install it.

When the Real Issue Is Affordability

Even though you have a specific step to price-condition them you really are price-conditioning them throughout your entire sales call. For example, you can build value when you show them the product such as if you are showing them a feature you’re your commitments sound like “ now obviously it is more expensive to do it like this but if you can afford it is this what you want?  

Or when you are selling your company and talking about your warranties and then follow up with  a comment like “If you hire since we have been around for so long you know we will stand behind our warranties. How would you feel if you spent 10k on an HVAC system then when you needed warranty work you realized the company was out of business and you had no warranty? All these things are planting seeds and building value. Now all of a sudden the customer is thinking well if Ron told me the average windows were 1500 a piece and with everything he is showing me and how professional he is these are probably going to come in at 1800 a window. Omg.

Now when you show them the price at 1300 a window they will think it’s a good deal. The point is that you create the perception of value and what they think it’s worth is directly related to how good of a job you do. If they think whatever you are selling is worth 5k at the end then it means you did a $5000 presentation. If they think it’s worth 20k at the end then it means you did a 20,000 presentation. You control and are responsible for what they think it’s worth at the end.

Whether they think it’s worth it or not is up to you. Imagine it’s like you are talking to an alien from another planet and trying to explain why one car costs 20k and the other one costs 100k. If you do it right they will understand and not think you are ripping them off with the 100k car. So if you do it correctly ideally what you should be hearing when you deliver the price is “Wow that’s actually less than I thought it was going to be but I still can’t afford it.” In that case, you have built the value and when they say it’s too much money what they mean is that they can’t afford it not that it’s not worth it.

Mastering In Home Sales Closing Techniques

Then you would be at the second reason people say “it’s too much money” which just means they don’t think they can afford it. This is much easier to handle in the close.  That’s why to be sure, whenever they say it’s too much money I always isolate the objection “so other than the money is this what you want? then when they say yes I try to clarify the money by saying “So When you say it’s the money do you mean it’s more than you think it’s worth or just more than you can afford? Hopefully, they say it’s just more than they can afford and then you need to learn how to work the payment so you can make it affordable to them. The easiest way to do this is to get the gap “ when you say it’s more than you can afford how much too much is that monthly payment” Then you know where you need to be and go from there. When the issue is affordability you are always now talking about the payments. It’s a payment gap you are closing. You are not talking about the whole price anymore.