One of the hardest situations for an inexperienced salesperson to handle properly is having to reply when asked How Much Does It Cost? They tend to become flustered and try to justify the price, but the funny thing is, the most common reasons for the "how much?" question is because the prospect doesn't know how else to compare your solution to what they are doing now or against a competitor. When all things seem equal, buyers default to what they know, price.
I actually had this same conversation with a new salesperson last week. Let's pretend I wanted to buy coffee mugs for a give-away product. I don't know much about mugs, in fact, to me a mug is a mug. I'll narrow it down to a colour (maybe a style) I like then buy the least expensive one. Makes sense as a consumer right?
But someone who sells coffee mugs may take me through a set of questions that make me look at it totally differently and help me justify a higher investment based on a variety of factors I never considered. For example, style A which is less expensive has a lot of reported handles breaking, do you want your clients to spill coffee all over and burn themselves? Style A also does not insulate well, which means your coffee gets cold quickly and you can burn your hand if you don't pick it up by the handle. It also has a tendency to wash the logo off after 10 dishwasher cycles.
All of a sudden spending an extra 20% on a better mug makes sense. The "how much?" question is often posed because they prospect doesn't know what else to ask. It's our job as sales people to help them understand the questions they should be asking so they are comparing all vendors the same.