Are your reps discounting to win deals?

Probably.

But why?

It is easy to blame their negotiation skills. It is easy to say they crumbled under pressure.

But the real reason is much simpler.

They discount because they do not cold call enough.

The Scarcity Mindset

Discounting happens because your salespeople need to sell to most prospects they meet.

They have no choice but to bend over backwards.

They simply do not sit enough meetings to hit target. They might have a target of five closed deals a month but they only sit six inbound meetings.

Do the math. They have to close almost every single one of them to survive.

If they lose one deal they miss their commission. If they lose two they are on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

This scarcity creates desperation. And as we discussed in Stop Begging for Meetings, desperation smells terrible to a buyer.

When a prospect senses that you need the deal they will squeeze you on price. And you will say yes because you have no other options.

The End of Quarter Scramble

If the inbound leads do not convert your reps are left scrambling around at the end of the quarter.

They start offering 20% off. They start throwing in free implementation. They hope it is enough to keep their job safe.

They send out desperate contracts hoping for a signature. We highlighted why this approach fails in The Death of the Sales Proposal.

Price should be a confirmation of value not a Hail Mary pass to save a bad quarter.

The Abundance of Cold Calling

The more prospective meetings you have the easier selling becomes.

Cold calling gives you those meetings if you do it with volume and skill.

The only thing your prospect has over you is the choice to spend their money.

But if you have a full pipeline the dynamic flips.

If you have 30 qualified meetings in your calendar you do not care if one prospect asks for a discount. You can say no. You can walk away.

You have choice.

This is the mindset we build in our Account Executive Training. We teach reps that the ability to walk away is the strongest negotiation tactic in the world.

Fix the Upstream Problem

Next time you see your reps giving away a large percentage of your profit margin do not run a workshop on "price objections."

That is a band-aid on a bullet hole.

Teach them how to cold call.

Your sales problems are all coming from upstream and the top of the funnel.

If you fix the pipeline the negotiation fixes itself.

Live a life of abundance.

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