Exacting A Price

It starts in the most predictable way: Your prospect asks for a lower price. They know December is a short month. They know you need to close your entire pipeline before the year is out. They understand they have some leverage here.

Of all the possible bad answers, here are three particularly awful ones:

“Sure, how much would you be willing to pay?”

“Let me see what I can do”

“I’ll go ask my boss”

Here is a better one instead:

“Let me be transparent with you: We price and discount based on edition/number of users/term of commitment (insert your own metrics here,) I am currently showing your interest in Professional edition, 10 users, for a term of 24 months. Is that still correct?”

Let’s analyse:

-You’re not committing to anything. Which is Sales for: Nothing is going to backfire.

-You’re being proactively transparent as to how your pricing/discounting matrix works behind the scenes, Sales for: Building trust.

-You’re verifying your discovery and/or possible changes: Staying on top of things. If your counterpart is an organised human being they’ll likely appreciate this.

-Your answer is a question. You’ll come away from this exchange with either new information or at least a confirmation of information you have already gathered and that stuff is worth its weight in gold in the closing process.

Back to our scenario:

We’ll assume the answer to be that nothing has changed for your prospect, 10 users, Professional edition, for 2 years, no change. They may have more users to add later, but these are people they haven’t even hired yet, they can’t add them upfront. Equally there is no mechanism in their company to purchase for more than 24 months. Disappointed?

No, you shouldn’t be. This is proper good stuff. You’re asking the right questions. You are getting answers. The answers are consistent with what you already know. You are collaborating with your prospect. The likelihood of a successful close has just increased drastically.

The very best thing in Sales is a prospect who wants to buy all of your most profitable stuff right now, cash upfront. It’s just that finding them can be a bit tricky. The next best thing in Sales is certainty, and the great thing about certainty is that it can be achieved.

We’ve reached the key step now. The definition of integrity is Doing the right thing(s) when nobody is watching. The next steps and a successful outcome depend on integrity. Yours.

Let’s say you have a discount matrix available and know that you can get 7% for the above scenario. You may not even have to seek anyone’s approval inside your organisation. It is the 22nd of December and you want this deal to close early next week. Here’s what the conversation sound like:

“In line with the edition/number of users/term of commitment of your purchase I can apply for a 7% discount, I will have a firm decision on my side first thing Wednesday the 27th and have email you signature-ready paperwork by noon on Wednesday. Can you commit to returning the signed and completed paperwork by Thursday the 28th close of business?”

Let’s step back for a second:

A word of warning first: In order for this post not to be the length of a novel we are assuming your counterpart to be the ultimate decision maker and signer. Let’s say we’re basing this on existing discovery conducted earlier. This stage would be a very good point to cross check the information and proactively asked whether anything has changed. If this is not the case, you need to urgently discover and document the decision making, approval, signing and purchase processes at their organisation OR at least verify that your discovery in the area is correct. In my experience, if something goes wrong at this stage it likely is in this area. Buyer beware? SELLER beware.

I like to spell things out in gory detail: “So you’ll be in a place where you can print my paperwork off, physically sign it, scan it and email the scan back to me or else you have software available that allows you to electronically sign and return the documents - is that correct?” - This has always worked for me.

Still leaves you with one lingering problem: You’re factually giving away the discount just for the willingness of the prospect to sign by a set date. I’d want to exact a price for that and at the same time drive home the fact that the discount elapses. Here’s what I’d do:

“In order to secure the above conditions, we are encouraged to ask our customers to act as references - if they are fully satisfied of course - in the future. Can you commit to two reference activities in the next 12 months? This might be our Marketing team working with you for a guest post on our blog about your use case, or me asking you to field a few questions from a fellow executive in your industry when closing a sale” - adjust depending on how formally these things are handled in your company. I never ask for fewer than three activities and I’m yet to hear a “no.”

Back to the scenario:

“So I can easily submit my approval for the above conditions, can I send you a short email summarising what we’ve agreed and ask you to reply ‘OK’ so my boss can see we are agreed on all these aspects?” Sweet. You’re almost done. Make sure that email and your paperwork say the discount expires on the 28th of December. It’s Sales for “keeping them honest.”

Prep the paperwork, you can even prep the individual emails, bring the CRM up to date of course. You set up your approvals if needed, BUT - remember integrity - you don’t send out paperwork to the prospective customer before the morning of Wednesday the 27th.

You’re not guaranteed to succeed in our little scenario, but you’ve given yourself an excellent chance.

I look forward to your questions and comments below!

Happy & successful closing always and Happy/Merry Christmas to those celebrating. See you back here on Wednesday the 27th - remember: You’ve a deal to close.

*Or any other Q