“How Much Is It?”
What to Say When the Call Opens With Price

Eight out of ten information calls open with a price question. Answer it wrong and you lose a potential Black Belt.

Why do most callers open with a price question?

That isn’t a buying signal, and it isn’t a red flag either.

Think about what the caller actually knows about your school. Nothing. They have no vocabulary for any of it. Not the programs, not the ranks, not the schedule, not the difference between you and the school four miles away.

Treating that reflex as a real question is the first mistake. Answering it is the second.

They aren’t price shopping. They’re just shopping, and price is the only thing they have.

What does quoting a price actually cost you?

You lose that comparison not because you’re expensive, but because they’re comparing the wrong things.

We never say “We charge $497 a month.” Not on the first ask, not on the fourth not ever. Tuition is a conversation that always happens in person, after they’ve walked the floor, met an instructor, and watched their kid have a good time on the mat.

That isn’t avoiding. It’s communicating in the proper order so they understand what they’re paying for.

What is the phone call actually for?

That’s the whole thing. Not “answered all their questions.” Not “was really friendly.” Not “gave them plenty of information.” An appointment.

An appointment that shows up, ready. Everything else on the call is in service of that, which also settles most arguments about what counts as a lead in the first place.

What do you say when they ask how much it is?

1. 1st askIgnore it. Don’t acknowledge it, don’t apologize for it. Keep going with the script.
2. 2nd ask“It depends” and continue.
3. 3rd ask“It depends on which program we get you started on” and continue.
4. 4th ask +“We have a variety of different courses for people with different budgets...” then redirect to the free lesson.

Callers who ask once are normal. Callers who ask four times are rare, and they’re rare almost entirely because of how you handled the first three. That’s important to understand. If you are frequently getting asked about price more than once in a call... it’s you not them.

First time: ignore it

Not rudely. You don’t acknowledge the question, apologize for skipping it, or explain why you aren’t answering. You continue with the script.

Most callers never ask again. They asked out of reflex, you moved, and they followed. If you’re good at this, you can ignore the second one too.

Note that this logically makes sense. If they ask about price and we respond with “Great! My name is ____. Who am I speaking with?” it’s perfectly logical to want to know their name as you continue the conversation. Wouldn’t it be weird otherwise?

Second time: “It depends” and continue

Two words, then your next scripted question, immediately. No pause. No trailing off to see whether two words were enough.

Third time: name the variable, then continue

Verbatim, do not reword

“It depends on which program we get you started on” and continue.

This answer is true, and it moves toward the appointment instead of away from it. You aren’t dodging. You’re telling them the honest reason a number would be meaningless right now.

Fourth time and up: variety, then redirect

Verbatim, do not reword

“____, we have a variety of different courses for people with different budgets, and our tuition prices are both reasonable and competitive. Let’s go ahead and set up your first free lesson, and then I can sit down with you and give you all the course information...”

And if they push once more, the script gives you a pressure-release valve:

Verbatim, do not reword

“If all you’re worried about is the price, our least expensive course we have is only [YOUR LOWEST-PRICE PROGRAM] a month. However, let’s go ahead and set up your first free lesson...”

Two things about that last one. You name your least expensive program (and even better the average monthly price after all discounts, paid in full discounts. etc..), not your standard one. And the sentence doesn’t end on the number. Like all of these continue the script.

Why does “and continue” matter more than the words?

Read the ladder again and count how many rungs end with those two words. All of them.

Most staff learn the four responses and skip the part that makes them work. They deliver “It depends,” then wait. Ninety seconds into the call they’re three rungs up a ladder they should never have climbed.

The responses are not the technique. The momentum is the technique.

Isn’t refusing to quote a price just dodging the question?

Somebody always raises this, so let’s settle it.

You don’t yet know whether the 7-year-old needs the twice-a-week class, whether the family is enrolling one child or three, or whether the adult on the phone ends up on the mat too. Nobody quotes the surgery before an examination.

The free lesson is the exam. Get them to it, then have the enrollment conversation with real information in front of you.

How do you practice handling the price question?

Two errors sink this, and school owners commit them in order.

Error one: no script. Somebody improvises on the most valuable sixty seconds in the business, then the owner wonders why the show rate is bad.

Error two, the expensive one: a script poorly trained on. It’s printed. It’s by the phone. It got read aloud once in a staff meeting. The owner now believes the problem is solved, which is what makes this error worse than the first one. Reading a script isn’t training on a script.

Step 3 is where most owners want to start, because it feels like the real thing. Starting there is how you end up with someone who has been “trained” for six months and still quotes a number on the third ask.

Watch what you ask for when you train someone. Nobody ever asks me how to answer the phone. They ask “how do I answer if they ask about price?” The price question is the part that gives you anxiety, so it’s the part you want to drill, and drilling it first is punching your staff in the face before they’ve learned to block. The full protocol is in the Standard Training Protocol.

When is someone ready to answer the phone alone?

“He seems comfortable with it” isn’t a standard. Comfort is a feeling, and it shows up long before competence does.

The different-school requirement matters more than it looks. Your own team goes easy on you because they like you and they already know the answers. A stranger doesn’t.

Does this actually work?

Which should settle any question about what your program director is capable of.

What to do this week

1. Put the script next to every phone in the building, visible, where anyone picking up can see it. Not in a binder, not in a drawer.
2. Call your own school from a number your staff won’t recognize and open with “How much is it?” Ask three times. Write down exactly what you get.
3. Run one Step 1 session with one staff member. Twenty minutes, out loud, no objections, until they don’t need the paper.
4. Put role plays on the schedule as a standing block, not as something you’ll do when things slow down. Things don’t slow down.
5. Write down your certification standard and make it countable. A training standard nobody can fail is a training standard nobody passed.

You can’t out-market a bad phone call answer. Every dollar you spend on advertising walks through a call at some point, and at most schools most of it walks back out because somebody quoted a number to a stranger who didn’t know what he was buying.

Let’s get this right and create more Black Belts!