Deal Advice

George Haywood

Hey,

This question would be good for the upcoming deal clinic; however, I have a customer meeting 2 days prior that I would love some advice on.

Scenario:

I'm working on a net new logo opportunity - We have won technically and are well aligned to the business pain, and the CISO has chosen us as the winning vendor. However - We are replacing the existing solution because they are becoming a cloud-only offering - the customer's specific requirement is to remain on-premise (regulatory).

The customer has 1 year remaining on their existing solution contract, and we have offered to "buy out" the remaining year as a one-time discount against the price of our solution.

I have already given the customer a ballpark pricing range for our solution based on their requirements, which the customer confirmed they are happy with. I have a meeting next week to discuss the buyout's value and how we can work that into our commercial offering.

Question:

How would you run this meeting? I want to anchor them at a price point within the range we agreed on earlier in the engagement before agreeing to any buyouts. Still, I have not been in this scenario before, so I want to ensure I am not leaving any necessary $$$ on the table.

Any advice on a talk track or approach for this meeting would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Patrick McLoughlin

George thanks for the question. I would do this! Make sure the meeting starts with confirmation my solution delivers the business and technical outcomes the customer expected.

Second, it sounds like you offered the "buyout" of the existing contract as a pricing discount. Did you trade anything for that? Signature this year?

Once you have confirmation of the business and technical outcomes you should be able to ANCHOR on the price since you say they were acceptable of the ranges you originally provided. As an additional bonus your company is providing a buyout and in return you expect contract signature before year end.

In conclusion confirm the business and technical outcomes before discussing price. Once the business outcomes are validated your price will fall in line, do not let customer separate business value from price. Because you have offered the "one-time" discount I might say, "and in addition to driving the business and technical outcomes you were looking to achieve we have agreed to this one-time buyout with the expectation we complete the deal before year end, (or something else you believe is worth the discount, do not give anything without something of value to you in return). Best of Luck, Paddy Mac