Over time, her average discount rate was consistently less.
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2025 6:30 am
Think about it. In business negotiations, we have rules and constraints like operating margins, payment terms, legal requirements, and we often come to the table with complex discount and approval matrices for our products and services. As a sales rep, when it comes to negotiating, you know what these parameters are and you do your best to work within them. But what happens when we become too familiar with these constraints?
The Curse of Familiarity
Back at Salesforce, one of the reps on my team, who had been with the organization for a number of years, was negotiating a licensing agreement.
Having been through many similar deal and negotiation cycles, he knew that under most circumstances he had the ability to offer a 25% discount on a particular product line. Over time, he would often let customers quickly negotiate him to this position before pushing back. Not surprisingly, most of his deals tended to conclude with these parameters.
On the other hand, one of my newer reps, less familiar with china telegram data selling the very same product line, operated under a different set of directives. Her goal was simply to maximize the revenue and payments of each opportunity. She operated under the assumption that a 10% discount was more than generous and negotiated to that end with her clients.
In a negotiation, we’re often encumbered by our own experiences and knowledge of a what a good deal looks like.
This applies not only to prices for goods and services but also to secondary constraints like delivery timelines, and terms and conditions. We also (especially in North America) tend to negotiate with an innate sense of fairness, even though our clients are often unaware of what our business constraints are.
The Curse of Familiarity
Back at Salesforce, one of the reps on my team, who had been with the organization for a number of years, was negotiating a licensing agreement.
Having been through many similar deal and negotiation cycles, he knew that under most circumstances he had the ability to offer a 25% discount on a particular product line. Over time, he would often let customers quickly negotiate him to this position before pushing back. Not surprisingly, most of his deals tended to conclude with these parameters.
On the other hand, one of my newer reps, less familiar with china telegram data selling the very same product line, operated under a different set of directives. Her goal was simply to maximize the revenue and payments of each opportunity. She operated under the assumption that a 10% discount was more than generous and negotiated to that end with her clients.
In a negotiation, we’re often encumbered by our own experiences and knowledge of a what a good deal looks like.
This applies not only to prices for goods and services but also to secondary constraints like delivery timelines, and terms and conditions. We also (especially in North America) tend to negotiate with an innate sense of fairness, even though our clients are often unaware of what our business constraints are.