SALES LEADERSHIP SUCCESS: How to End Unilateral Discounting

In today's Sales Leadership Success newsletter, you'll learn a simple technique for putting an end to costly discounting in your sales team.

Plus, if you're thinking of hiring a salesperson, there's an invite to today's Linkedin Renegade RevOps show at 2pm UK time, where you'll get insights into the pitfalls of hiring salespeople - and how to avoid them.

Good selling! ????

1). Putting a Stop to Unilateral Discounting

Discounting price should not be a concession. Period. All too often, though, it’s our first concession. This?Forbes article ?from Sandler CEO David Mattson explains why that’s totally unnecessary . . . and how a simple Sandler tool can empower you to raise your prices (that is, hold on to more margin and more commission) without raising your prices.

Our experience is that lots of salespeople “wing it” when it comes to doling out concessions during negotiation discussions. Very often, they destroy the selling organisation’s margin in the process – and drive senior management to distraction.?

More importantly, they limit their own earning potential and the organisation’s potential to deliver value, and they make long-term business relationships harder to sustain.

To address this challenge, we’ve created a simple, powerful tool that makes it far easier to hold on to list price during negotiation discussions. Meet the Negotiation Matrix, a simple, powerful tool that helps you to prepare for requests for concessions from prospective buyers – and makes “winging it” a thing of the past.?

Its core idea is a startlingly simple and effective one: exhaust all the possible non-cash concessions before you agree to a price concession. That’s far easier to do once you’ve filled out the two sections of the Matrix. See the example below:

As you can see, the Sandler Negotiation Matrix helps you to prepare, ahead of time and in writing, a private concession worksheet.

This document (for your eyes and your manager’s eyes, not the buyer’s) outlines the specific concessions you are willing to give during the negotiation, starting with the non-monetary ones.

The moral:?You can prioritise smart concessions that don’t carry an immediate financial hit over knee-jerk price discounts that do!

2). Thinking of Hiring a Salesperson? Join Today's Linkedin Live Show!

If you're on the hunt for a new sales hire, make sure you join me and Dionne Mallens in today's Linkedin ??Renegade Sales Live?? show at 2pm UK time (Monday 5th August 2024).

During the 30-minute live broadcast, you'll learn:

? The true cost of a bad hire and why most business owners have the wrong mindset around recruiting and hiring salespeople.

? A structured approach for selecting job candidates, including how to build an effective job profile.

? How to identify great candidates using the so-called SEARCH formula.

Too many business owners leave hiring to gut feel only to find out later that the unicorn mega-closer they thought they hired is anything but.

If you want to learn more about effective recruiting and hiring, register for details >>> HERE .

3). Sales Insights to Power Your Week

Here are three quotes to fuel your motivation for the week ahead:

"Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service." - Brian Tracy ( Brian Tracy International )

“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.” – Mary Kay Ash ( 玫琳凯 )

"You don't compete on price. You compete on relationships" –? Patricia Fripp Presentation Skills Expert

Don't forget, take the Sales Growth Readiness Quiz!

Are you ready to scale your sales success? Do you know what’s standing between you and a sales team that delivers profitable, stress-free revenue growth?

Take the Sales Growth Readiness Quiz to find out. Simply answer 24 questions and you’ll get a personalised report showing you where you need to focus to start accelerating your sales growth.

>>> TAKE THE QUIZ NOW <<<

Until the next time, good selling!

Your friends in sales and marketing,

Dionne & Tom