Understanding the inconsistencies in how people approach pricing can be the key to positioning our services more effectively.
Let me begin with an experience rather than a theory.
The pricing chisel #
There is a particular kind of dissonance that stays with you. A business adviser; someone who had, in the same room not long before, encouraged business owners to raise their prices when capacity was tight, sat down with me one-to-one, interested in New Era’s lead generation services. And out came what I can only describe as a crude, blunt pricing chisel. This, despite knowing that capacity was tight.
I have treated this not as a grievance but as a lesson. Because what it illustrated is something that pricing research consistently confirms: when someone shows inconsistency around price, it is rarely about the actual numbers. It is about the underlying motives that drive their decision-making and those motives don’t always align with what they say publicly.
The business adviser who tells others to charge more, but haggles when buying himself, is not a hypocrite so much as a human being. In the open market, both buyer and seller are trying to achieve the best price possible for themselves at that point in time. Understanding this is the beginning of navigating pricing conversations with clarity rather than frustration.
Why pricing resistance is almost never about affordability #
Harvard Business School Professor Elie Ofek, researching consumer behaviour and pricing psychology, found that perceptions matter far more than numbers in purchasing decisions. Consumers are not always rational decision-makers and can be influenced by various pricing cues, with pricing resistance almost always rooted in perceived value rather than actual affordability.
Behavioural economics reinforces this. Psychological, social, cognitive, and emotional factors all play a role in economic decisions, which means that the person who says “that’s outside my budget” is frequently telling you something quite different from what the words suggest. They are not necessarily saying they cannot afford it. They may be saying they are not yet convinced it is worth it to them.
That distinction is one of the most useful in all of sales and marketing. The question is never “should I lower my price?” The question is “do I understand what this person genuinely values?”
The advice worth being cautious about #
Before navigating buyer behaviour, it is worth addressing the question of whose opinions we seek and trust.
If we ask for feedback on our pricing from someone who is not a natural buyer of our services, we should be cautious about what we receive. Their idea of what our service is worth is filtered through a perspective that has no skin in the game. Their enthusiasm for our business and their view of what it should cost may be genuine and genuinely unreliable.
The adviser who encouraged higher prices in public was not wrong in principle. But his behaviour in a private purchasing conversation revealed the gap between his general position and his specific motivation when he was the buyer. It is a useful reminder to scrutinise not just what advisers say, but who they are in the context of what they are saying. Do they have an axe to grind? Or, in this case, a chisel to wield?
Three patterns worth recognising #
Pricing inconsistencies, once you know what to look for, are remarkably consistent in their form.
The first is the pattern behind the protest. The client who claims your rates are outside their budget but posts regularly about luxury purchases is not telling you they cannot afford your services. They are telling you they have not yet been persuaded those services are worth their money. This is a value proposition challenge, not a pricing challenge. Adjusting your rates does not solve it. Strengthening the perceived value does.
The second is emotional language around money. When someone uses words like “uncomfortable,” “nervous,” or “hesitant” about your pricing, they are revealing that their resistance is emotional rather than logical. What is the underlying concern? Wasting money on something that doesn’t deliver? Making the wrong decision in front of colleagues? Being sold to rather than helped? Understanding the emotion underneath the objection is considerably more useful than negotiating the number.
The third is selective price sensitivity. The person who haggles over your hourly rate but never questions what they pay for similar services from another provider is showing you a positioning problem rather than a pricing problem. They don’t perceive your value as comparable to the alternative they are already accepting without negotiation. That gap is the thing to address, not through discounting, but through clearer communication of what makes your approach different.
What motivates buyers, and when to look for it #
The good news is that you do not need to diagnose a buyer’s core motivation from the first conversation. In fact, attempting to do so too early is more likely to produce a premature and incorrect conclusion than a useful one.
In early conversations, listen for clues in how a prospect describes previous experiences, or which aspects of a competitor they emphasise. Present your services in ways that address multiple motivational factors initially: reliability, results, relationships, innovation, then refine your approach as patterns emerge.
Sometimes the clearest signal comes from which parts of a proposal generate genuine excitement, and which are received with polite indifference. That contrast tells you more than any direct question about priorities ever could. Consistent reactions across multiple interactions reveal what a prospect values far more reliably than anything they say explicitly in a single meeting.
Objections as intelligence #
The reframe that changes everything is treating pricing inconsistencies not as obstacles but as data.
Each objection reveals something about what the buyer truly values. Each hesitation gives you a clearer picture of the gap between what they believe you offer and what they need. Each piece of emotional language around money tells you something about their underlying concerns that a more direct question might never surface.
When you understand that the pricing chisel belongs to a specific kind of buyer; one motivated by something other than the relationship-first, sustainable, patient approach that New Era’s work represents, it becomes easier to hold your position without defensiveness. Not every prospect is an ideal client. Recognising that early is a kindness to both parties.
As Jon Miller wisely noted: “Knowing who your customers are is great but knowing how they behave is even better.”
The behaviour is the intelligence. And the intelligence, gathered patiently across multiple conversations and interactions, is what eventually allows you to position your services with clarity, serve the right clients well, and spend less time being chiselled.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
