How do you respond to a question like this?

Lee Gallerano

I’ve been working with a prospect and have conducted both a discovery call and a demo. We had some excellent discovery during our initial call and even more during the demo. The customer then requested pricing for budgetary purposes, which I provided (though I’m unsure if that was the right move). I received the dreaded response below. Do you have any suggestions on how I should reply? How can I avoid this situation in the future?

Thanks so much for the details. We will regroup internally to discuss our approach and I will let you know how we would like to move forward.

Ralston McCracken

Lee,

What was your read of the prospect's level of interest after both the discovery call and the demo? Did your discovery help them to determine their needs and pain points and perhaps lead them to a higher level of realization of their critical issues that must be addressed? To what extent did your demo enable the prospect to understand how you can uniquely solve their pain and thereby deliver value to the prospect's business? IMO, the answers to these questions will guide you to your next steps, which also might be influenced by whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. One scenario (optimist) could be that both the discovery and the demo were valuable and now the prospect does need to time to regroup and decide, especially if a number of your competitors are/were involved. Being impatient and rushing the prospect at this stage could jeopardize your deal unnecessarily - patience is a virtue! An alternative scenario might be driven by your (pessimistic) view of events so far and that you need to do some recovery, including sharing a prioritized list of required capabilities with the customer. All of the above can be either enabled or overcome by the presence of a true Champion - if you have one, treat that person as a member of your sales team and both plan and execute with them with the goal of presenting your value proposition to the economic buyer.

Tim Caito

Great summary of potential scenarios Ralston! I'm in strong agreement with your thoughts and recommendations. Lee, you might consider a follow up that sits right in the middle of Ralston's optimistic or pessimistic scenarios, potentially making it just right either way.

After consultation with your Champion if you have one, consider sending an email summarizing your discovery and value. Fill in the details following this flow...

• Thanks for the update. Here's a summary of what we discussed so far and how our recommended solution fits.
• You indicated these were the outcomes you were looking for... <insert 2-3 bullets from discovery>
• We agreed these were the required capabilities you need to put in place to achieve those outcomes... <insert 4-6 decision criteria from discovery>
• You indicated that if addressed well, you expect to see these success meteics <insert metrics from discovery>
• We shared how we deliver on those required capabilities with our... <insert bullets summarizing our solution>
• We also showed you things we believe we do uniquely better than our competitors <insert relevant differentiators>.
• And we shared proof to back up our ability to deliver on the value we proposed.
• This summary is what our proposed solution and pricing were based on. We look forward to the potential of further conversation to refine your view of the outcomes, requirements and metrics you are looking for, so that we can further refine our recommended solution.

The idea is to give them a written reminder of all that you talked about to put your proposed solution in the context of their full need... and avoid conveniently incomplete recall of just your price point. Make sure they compare you solution against both their need and how your competitor meets that need (not just their price). By the way, this discovery summary is an ongoing best practice coming out of all discovery calls. We don't have to wait til the "Don't call me, I'll call you" note!

Lee Gallerano

@Tim Caito / @Ralston McCracken - this is great feedback and gives me a good direction to go. I like the approach of summarizing the mantra. Thanks so much for your feedback!