Deep dive: the price objection
Price is the objection founders fear most, and the one they handle worst, because they take it at face value. "It's too expensive" sounds like a budget problem, so they reach for a discount. That reflex destroys margin and credibility at the same time, and it usually solves a problem the prospect never had.
Price is the biggest smokescreen of all
The price objection is the most common disguise in selling. Far more often than not, "too expensive" is not a statement about budget at all, it is a value objection, an urgency objection, or a trust objection wearing the most socially acceptable mask available. Saying "I'm not convinced this is worth it" feels confrontational. Saying "it's a bit pricey" is easy and polite, so that is what comes out, even when the real issue is that the prospect cannot yet see the value, does not feel the urgency, or does not fully trust that you will deliver. Discount in response and you confirm two things at once, that your price was inflated and that your value was never the point. You have made the deal cheaper and yourself less credible, and the underlying doubt is still sitting there untouched.
Isolate before you defend
The move is to isolate the objection before you respond to it. The cleanest isolation question is a version of this, "Totally fair. Is it that the number is genuinely above budget, or that you're not yet sure it's worth it?" That single question splits the objection into its two possible realities, and they demand opposite responses. If the answer is that it is genuinely above budget, you are now in a procurement conversation, an honest negotiation about scope, terms, or phasing, and that is a real and workable place to be. If the answer is that the value is not yet clear, you are in a value conversation, and no discount on earth will fix it, because the problem was never the number.
A sharper version isolates everything else out at once, "If price weren't the issue at all, is this the right solution for you?" A yes tells you the only remaining blocker is the number, and you can deal with that cleanly. A hesitation tells you the price was never the real objection, and you have just saved yourself from discounting your way into a deal that would have stalled anyway on a doubt you had not yet found.
Reframe from cost to cost of inaction
When the real issue is value, you do not defend your price, you reframe the comparison. The prospect is weighing your price against zero, the cost of simply carrying on as they are. Your job is to make the cost of staying the same visible, and to do it with their numbers, not yours. "Out of interest, what does another two quarters of this problem actually cost you?" Anchor the reframe on figures you pulled out of them in discovery, so the arithmetic is theirs and not your pressure. Done with invented numbers it is fear-mongering and they will know it. Done with their own figures it is simply showing them a calculation they had not finished, and it moves the question from "can I afford this" to "can I afford to keep paying for the problem".