grrr

Sr. Account Executive

Offering concessions at quarter close

At the end of every quarter there always seems to be a negotiation between the Sales Rep and the Customer, as well as the Sales Rep and Sales Execs. Specifically about the value we're willing to accept as a business in exchange for a timely close.

What are some strategies that have worked really well for everyone to achieve the deal before the end of quarter without devaluing your product by using concessions.

Bit of a broad question, but really appreciate any and all feedback!

📈 Closing

24 comments

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salesnerd

WR Officer

Head of Growth

A poor salesperson drops their price to get the deal done. I'm not saying I've never done it (I absolutely have) but it's the worst way to motivate a client to sign a deal.

Instead (and I'm not reinventing the wheel here) you motivate them to move based on something they said that just so happens to align with your timeline.

If you have an onboarding timeline, lay it out clearly so they move on your timeline.

The issue arises if you haven't done this clearly from the beginning. Honestly, it sucks to have to be like "if you sign by EOQ I'll drop the price more" but if it works... it works.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

Account Executive

Yeah but lets be honest. I see a lot of enablement from leadership on this front. “What can you push to close this quarter?”

grrr

Member

Sr. Account Executive

The culture is totally top down. I'm almost always negotiating with leadership about why we should not drop our pants for a deal to close on a quarter end timeline.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

Account Executive

Preach! Thank you

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

This. So much this.

slaydie

Big Shot

Account Executive

Yup! definitely a top down thing that runs across the board. It always boggles my mind how in the last few weeks of the quarter is suddenly ok to drop prices and do anything to get the deal done....

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

GreenSide

Politicker

Sales manager

Time kills deals. If I can close something and concentrate on other deals, I'm going to do that every time.

grrr

Member

Sr. Account Executive

I feel this as well.

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

Always, so!?

GreenSide

Politicker

Sales manager

Always? No. But if I get the sense that it will help, you bet I will offer it.

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

That's perfect 👍

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

Account Executive

Hopefully, there is a target go-live date. Chart everything that needs to occur during the lead time to the deployment so that they need to sign before the end of the quarter in order to successfully accommodate the target go-live date they’ve chosen.

grrr

Member

Sr. Account Executive

Yeah, I'm totally with this. Almost always it's my leadership steamrolling a timeline we've established with "can we pull this forward and close it this quarter?" which pains me but it's a difficult proposition to reject.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

Account Executive

Agreed @grrr

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

That's essential. 💯

Accidental_Sales_Guy

Politicker

Account Executive

I've made the mistake of offering discounts for an EOQ close when the prospect has legitimate reasons for holding off. The prospect then feels like they're paying a premium later, or knows they can wait til my next deadline for a better deal.

The approach I'm working on is isolating & removing all objections before offering a discount (while channeling my inner Chris Voss):

"Why do you see value in our product? How will this help your business?"

"Seems like our system will solve X, Y, Z pain points to help you achieve your 2021 business goal A. Am I totally off-base there?"

"What else is preventing you from rolling this out?"

If it's a legitimate objection, the prospect should convince you why waiting is best for their business. A good seller should respect this and walk away with a mutual action plan to hold the prospect accountable to that ideal start date. Your leadership will appreciate your due diligence and the predictability of this future deal.

Their only objection may be price, but this is hard to determine for sure until you've verified there are no other objections to fall back on (i.e. timing, executive buy-in, competitors in the mix). Eliminating the other common objection surprises gives you some control back with pricing being the last hurdle, and now you know a discount is a value to the prospect.

amyhyoung

Politicker

Vp ops

To give perspective from the other side of the table... As a buyer myself, I admit if a vendor offers me a discount one time, I will be expecting discounts in the future. One vendor (who I really like and am still a customer of) asked me to add additional seats to our account and said if I sign by Friday (EOQ), he'll give me a discount. But now I am always expecting a discount whenever I need to add new seats. Although I am now a sticky customer, so maybe it's a win win.. depends how you want to see it.

grrr

Member

Sr. Account Executive

Absolutely love this! Thank you. I just shared this with my colleagues.

Plnths

Good Citizen

VP of Sales

Ditto on timeline and leadership always defaulting into discounting (which is a shame but everybody wants to hit their targets at any cost, right?)

I've found that focusing on the key pain points (if you've got solid costs associated with them) in your rebuttal to discounting request works fairly well. Something in the spirit of "every day you're not implementing the product, you're losing X man hours, Y dollars, or extending the TTM/project timeline by Z days, can you and your organization afford to do this?" Pretty much just a permutation of the onboarding/deployment conversation but if you can get the tangible costs in front of the decision maker, you may be able to move the needle.

grrr

Member

Sr. Account Executive

Makes sense. Appreciate your input, and always strive to be able to use discovery that uncovers this level of ROI.

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

Very true and logical

TheSauceySalesmen

Executive

SR Enterprise AE

Get ahead of it as much as possible!

I've worked at orgs before that offer discounts if a client can sign within x days/months of the proposal being issued.

I've heard it called an "EDI" (Early Decision Incentive), Early Customer Rewards, bundled incentive if you sign by X Date.

Basically you give the client a pricing incentive upfront (which you bake in) and offer them by X date. Sometimes we'll do it a month or 2 before the quarter ends.

This gives us more than enough time to try and close them without lowering the price

IE
Product A $200k
B $100k
C $100k
D $100k
If you can sign by April 15th we can offer %20 (from $500k to $400K)

I've found this gives you a ton more wiggle room and more importantly time.

Salespreuner

Big Shot

Regional Sales Director

Rightly explained