List price, the discount they're asking for, your margin and your rate. We'll show what it costs you and what it costs the company, before you agree to anything. These are example numbers; type yours over them.
Every point off the price buys something. The question is whether you got it.
Up to about 5% is normal negotiation. Nobody remembers it. Between 5 and 15% is meaningful, and it should buy something specific: a signature date, a larger scope, a reference, a multi-year term. Above 15% you are paying for a decision, so make sure a decision is what you're getting, this quarter, in writing. Above 25%, you're usually paying to be liked, and the customer will remember the number, not the gesture.
Two things sellers forget. The discount comes out of your commission at exactly the same rate it comes out of revenue, so a 15% discount is a 15% pay cut on that deal. And it comes out of the company's margin much faster than 15%: cost of goods doesn't move, so every dollar off the price is a dollar off the margin.
Before you discount at all, ask whether the objection is the price or the deal. A discount fixes exactly one of those. Deal Check tells you which one you have.
I've spent a lot of years helping customers buy complicated technology. For six of them I led partner sales teams at AWS. Before that F5, Red Hat, and a couple of storage companies you've probably forgotten. Before all of that, 20 years as a Marine.
Along the way I've been the seller defending the deal, the partner trying to help, the manager asking annoying questions, and the guy one level up explaining why the forecast moved again.
QuotaBird is where I put the things I've found useful. Most of the tools are free. Most take a few minutes. None of them require you to adopt a new sales religion. Use whatever helps.
Rarely just one of them. Usually a couple at the same time, quietly making each other worse.
The forecast call has become the job. Your manager wants a status on everything by noon, the CRM wants a next step on every line, and the customer is the last person you talk to each day.
The pipeline looks better than it really is. Plenty of opportunities in the CRM, but once you ask about budget, timing and who actually wants the thing, the number gets smaller fast.
The partner likes you, but nothing is happening. Plenty of meetings, maybe a joint deck. Nobody can point to the accounts where the two companies are actually trying to win something together.
The team is busy, but there isn't much rhythm. The forecast call happens. The one-on-ones happen. Nobody is sure what the team should do differently this week to make next quarter better.
The number from above doesn't match what you see below. Leadership has a growth number. Your team has a pipeline. You're the one who has to explain why they disagree without sounding like you've already given up.
A team can be behind plan for a lot of reasons. One seller needs help getting in front of customers. Another is doing fine and wants you to stay out of the way. Someone else thinks the year is already gone. Sometimes the rep is fine and the territory, the comp plan or the pipeline they inherited isn't. The useful part is figuring out which one you're dealing with before you fix the wrong one. That's what the tools here do, one deal, one rep, one territory at a time. It's also most of what I do.
Sometimes a calculator isn't enough. If you're stuck on a deal, an account, a partner, a territory, a QBR or a federal problem, I'm happy to look at it with you. Here's exactly how it works:
If I don't think I can help, I'll tell you.
If it's something that takes more than a conversation, we can figure that out too. I also build fedhoo, a federal market research tool.