The conversation that should happen before you name a price

The typical sales call runs in a predictable order. The prospect describes a problem. The expert, recognizing the problem and knowing exactly how to solve it, gets enthusiastic and starts describing the solution. A price follows soon after. From that point the deal is roughly a coin toss.

The problem with that order is that the price arrived before anyone knew what the result was worth. The expert priced on their own costs and their own hopes. The client had no context for the number, so the number became something to push back on.

The value conversation puts the steps in the right order. Before any price, and often before much solution talk at all, you ask a series of questions designed to surface what solving this problem is actually worth to this specific client. Not “what’s your budget,” which simply asks the buyer to price your work for you. The questions are about consequence. What is this problem costing you now. What becomes possible once it’s gone. What happens to the business if it’s still here in a year.

Picture a SaaS company losing a measurable slice of recurring revenue every quarter to customer churn. Until that figure is spoken aloud, your fee is an abstract cost the client evaluates on its own. Once the figure is on the table, your fee no longer sits alone. It sits next to a much larger number, and the comparison does most of the selling for you.

This helps the client as much as it helps you. A price presented without context invites haggling because the client has nothing to weigh it against. A price presented next to a quantified outcome invites a decision instead, because now there’s something real on both sides of the scale.

It also protects your time. If the value conversation reveals that the problem isn’t worth very much, you’ve learned that before writing a proposal rather than after. Some prospects aren’t a fit, and asking value questions surfaces that early, while it’s still cheap to find out.

This is the stage most experts skip, and skipping it is why so much good work gets sold at uncertain prices.

The free Value Conversation Question Bank in the tools section gives you a starting set of questions to use on your next call. Get the tools