Selling 9th Edition by Stephen Castleberry,John Tanner

Exercise 2

Jesse Fernandes joined Plaxico, a major provider of engineering services in the plastics industry, straight out of college in sales support. After a couple of years of working on proposals and bids, she moved into the field, calling directly on manufacturers who could use Plaxico's services. Things went well-the territory she took over had not been worked very hard, so she was able to show some significant increases in the first year.
But shortly after the first of the year, she began to get the same e-mail from client after client. "Jesse, please explain your firm's pricing to us, line item by line item." After the fifth such e-mail, she forwarded it to her manager, Marty.
As soon as he saw the e-mail, Marty picked up the phone and called Jesse. "Looks like you've got Notelli Associates moving in," he told her. "Their strategy is to tell customers our prices are higher and prove it by showing a line-item comparison. But actually, it's how they define each line that differs, and when you add it up, we're less expensive by some 15 to 20 percent."
"How do I prove that we're not more expensive?" asked Jesse.
"It's hard because they won't show the client a full price list. To make matters worse, we also have filed a lawsuit against them because they keep telling clients we're going out of the environmental engineering business."
"Oh, that explains why I've gotten that question a few times recently."
How do you respond to the pricing issue if you can't actually prove Notelli is lying until a customer tries them and then realizes it is more?