I'm working on a big proposal right now with my sales engineer for our most complex solution. He works across the business units at my organization so is more used to deals of this size. I trust his product knowledge, and to an extent I trust his sales judgement (if not his social skills/emotional IQ). He put together a proposal and smack dab on the first page he has "quote valid for 30 days".
(For context, my ASP is about $10k. This quote is for $90k. Monthly quota is about $50k).
I've seen this in situations where you are selling a physical good and the price could reasonably increase. And I've done this myself (much shorter timeframes actually) when a potential customer haggles on the price for a smaller deal. "You are approved for the discount through 5pm EST Friday" etc etc. But I've never really done it as an opening salvo like this when we have yet to get into negotiation.
For a deal of this size, where if I'm being frank the prospect was interersted but not exactly hot to trot, it sort of seems like contrived urgency that could backfire. But maybe I'm overthinking it.
They are not going to look at this as a discount (at this point it's not), so what could my potential answer be when they inevitably ask "why does it need to expire in 30 days?"
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