Sales discounts will always come up when trying to close a B2B client, however if not handled well, sales teams run the risk of creating a culture of recklessly giving sales discounts that
- hurt profitability
- make your product look cheap
- and eventually destroy the brand
Another Approach to Sales Discounts
I train B2B Digital Sales teams to only entertain sales discounts at specific points in the sales process.
1. Not before you’ve had a chance to build and communicate the value of the product and confirm it will solve the client’s problems.
2. Not before the client agrees that your solution can solve their problem and selects you for consideration.
The questions typically come like this in the sales process:
Client: Are your rates negotiable? Or do you offer sales discounts?
Me: No.
Many times, the client clearly did not expect that response, but I’ll quickly follow up with:
Me: Our first priority is to ensure our proposal will solve your business challenge, then we can look at the costing.
Client: If we can’t negotiate the cost or if you don’t offer sales discounts then it will be difficult to do business with you.
Me (going for the close): Are you saying you like our proposal, and agree it would solve the challenge, and you are considering us for the project or you’ve selected us for the project and would like to discuss costing?
If the client says no, sales discounts or cost negotiations are off the table because there is no reference point or justification for it.
Client: Well, yes but we can’t select you if we don’t agree on the cost.
Me: Thanks for selecting us. Which part of the costing would you like to review?
Give Sales Discounts with a reason
Learn to tie your discounts to logical or emotional reasons e.g.
- first time client
- repeat client
- in exchange for a referral
- for a longer term contract
- for additional services
- for upfront payment
- or as value add
Avoid offering discounts with no clear reason.
It is important to charge your client enough to allow you deliver an outstanding service. Anything less is unfair to your client. 🤝✍🙂 – Ibukun Onitiju
What do you think?
1 thought on “How to give Sales Discounts without losing”
This sounds brilliant. Well put sir