text: | Dealing With Information SeekersQuintarra Consulting : Sales Management Consulting
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  You answer the telephone and hear the words, "My boss has asked me to get information and pricing on (whatever it is you sell)" and your heart sinks. It sinks because you know that dealing with information seekers is an even greater challenge than dealing with gatekeepers.
  You're faced with two big problems. One, you have questions you need to ask and two, the person you're talking with probably doesn't know the answers.
  Adding to your grief is the fact that the information seeker is expected to bring back answers to her boss, not more questions. So, without embarrassing the person, you need to let her know that what she is being asked to do is no easy task.
  Remember these four rules when pressed to give pricing information:
  Whenever possible, don't discuss price until you've established value.
  If forced to give a price prematurely, only offer a range ("Prices range from $A to $Z.")
  When offering a range, your low end should be your lowest possible price.
  Always add 10 to 20 percent to your high end. It's a lot easier to go back with a lower price than a higher one. If the customer is going to choke on your artificially high price, he'll choke on your real top end price, and you'll lose the advantage of being able to quote a final price that is lower than he expected.
  Now you're back to the technique outlined above "" empathize and confuse. If she persists on just wanting a price, you may have a "price shopper" rather than an "information collector." We'll address the challenges of dealing with price shoppers in a future article.