4 Effective Responses When a Prospect Asks for a Discount

“Look, we really love your product, but it’s outside of our price range. Can you offer any discount?” Offering discounts can be a great way to speed up a slow-moving deal. But if you’re adjusting price before negotiations begin, you’re doing a serious disservice, both to yourself and to your product. Instead of caving right away, there are four tried-and-true responses you can give to turn the conversation around in your favor. What’s Wrong with Discounting Immediately? So, what’s wrong with discounting immediately. Like I said, discounting isn’t always a bad thing. It can speed up deals and give you leverage for reducing the service you’re offering. But there are three very real problems to offering a discount before negotiation has taken place. A. Devalue First, your buyer subconsciously devalues your service. After all, if you’re really going to deliver the ROI your pitching, why do you have to immediately discount the price? B. Forfeit’s Power Second, the instant you propose a discount, you lose some of your negotiation power. You lose this negotiation power as you’ve taken the price, your biggest variable for negotiation, off the table. C. Shifts the Focus And third, discounting shifts the focus. In the buyer’s mind, you’ve shifted the conversation from the value that is being exchanged to the emotional topic of money. Rather than the buyer thinking about the impact that your service is going to have on their business, they’re now thinking about what is going to cost them in the opportunities they will lose from this lack of cash flow. So with those three things in mind, it’s important that negotiations on price and discounting happen towards the end of the sales process rather than at the beginning of it. That being said, if a buyer does request a discount too early in the process, there are a few things you can do. And that brings us to the four word-for-word responses that’ll deflect, turn the tables, and even give you the selling advantage. So response number one is… 1. The Value Probe The Value Probe. The first and easiest way to deal with a buyer bringing up the idea of a discount is to say this word-for-word: “We can definitely have a conversation about the numbers. But first let’s make sure that we’re on the same page about our service being a good fit for your needs…” So, what does this response do? First… It Reframes the Conversation You buy yourself time to reframe the conversation. Right now the buyer is focused on price alone. But at this point in the sales process, you need to be demonstrating value. What do you offer that your competition doesn’t? And most importantly, how does it solve your buyer’s problem? This is the perfect time to focus on that instead of the expense. Second… It Let’s You BUILD on Your Value It also gives you more time to build value before the numbers do eventually get discussed. What additional benefits do you offer that you haven’t talked about yet? What value can you bring to the table that the buyer isn’t already aware of? Alright, let’s look at response number two… 2. The Obstacle Identifier The second way to deal with your buyers asking for discounts is to answer your buyer’s question with a question. When your buyer asks if you’re able to discount you can ask: “That is a fair question. Do you see price being a major obstacle in this conversation?” This immediately makes the buyer reconsider if they really want to discount or if they want to get the deal done. It also pushes the pressure back on the buyer to justify why there should be a discount in the first place. Bonus tip here. Notice show I said “that’s a fair question” before I responded with my question? The point of this extra step is to acknowledge to the buyer that I have heard them,