Closing Sales Deals

Most businesses think they have a pricing problem. What they actually have is a value leakage problem. The price you set and the price you pocket are rarely the same number. That needs to change. Finance has the data, the mandate, and the cross-functional view to lead the pricing agenda. Here are 10 signs your pricing is leaving money on the table, and what Finance should do about each one: 1️⃣ Your gross-to-net price is invisible during negotiation Problem: Sales reps agree deals without seeing what the business actually pockets. Solution: Build a gross-to-net waterfall and make it visible in every commercial review. 2️⃣ You discount to close almost every deal Problem: Your opening position isn't credible, and your margin isn't managed. Solution: Analyse discount patterns by rep, customer, and segment. Show the marginal cost of every concession. 3️⃣ You price based on cost, not value Problem: Cost-plus tells you what you need, not what the outcome is worth. Solution: Model value-based scenarios and push the team to justify pricing on outcomes, not costs. 4️⃣ Your best customers pay the same as your worst Problem: Your highest-value relationships are almost certainly underpriced. Solution: Run a customer profitability analysis and make the case for differentiated pricing. 5️⃣ Sales owns pricing without Finance in the room Problem: Discounts feel free when there's no margin visibility. Solution: Establish a pricing governance structure with Finance as a standing member, not a reviewer after the fact. 6️⃣ Contract renewals happen without automatic price-ups Problem: Prices agreed years ago silently hold. Solution: Own the renewal calendar and flag every contract where price hasn't kept pace with inflation or scope growth. 7️⃣ Your pricing varies wildly across the sales team Problem: Two reps, same deal, different price, that's a governance problem. Solution: Set and enforce price floors. No discount beyond a defined threshold without Finance sign-off. 8️⃣ You compete on price because you can't articulate value Problem: Racing to the bottom is a symptom. Solution: Quantify the value delivered to existing customers and arm the sales team with the numbers to defend the price. 9️⃣ New products launch at the same margin as old ones Problem: You're funding R&D without capturing the return. Solution: Set minimum margin thresholds for new launches and gate approval on pricing strategy, not just cost structure. 🔟 Nobody owns pricing as a strategic capability Problem: Pricing sits between sales, finance, and marketing, so it belongs to no one. Solution: Finance should step into that gap. The best CFOs don't just report on margin. They protect it. Which of these is your biggest pricing leak right now? ♻️ Like, comment, and repost to help more finance teams ---------- 🧑🏼💼 I am a Partner at Implement Consulting Group 🗣️ Reach out to talk about how finance can drive value

A rep told me she's been closing deals by giving 15 to 20% discounts. Not because prospects asked. Because she didn't think they'd say yes otherwise. I told her "You're training prospects that your price isn't real. And you're killing your margins and confidence." Here’s something I want you to think about… When you rely on discounts, you're not solving a pricing problem. You're covering up a value problem. Prospects push back because they don't trust the value yet. When you drop your price, you confirm it wasn't worth the original number. So what do you do instead? Build trust before price comes up. First, build a case study library. Most reps can't tell good stories about past clients. They know they've helped companies but can't articulate HOW. Schedule one hour interviews with your team who's done the work. Record it. Walk through specific situations. The company. The problem. What they tried before. The solution. The result. When a prospect brings up a concern, connect it to a real story. "You sound just like Company X. They had the exact same challenge. Here's what happened..." Stories are proof. Proof builds trust. Trust justifies premium pricing. Second, lead with your guarantee. Build it into your pitch. Example for Executive Search as that what this rep sold: "We're not the cheapest. We're typically 20 to 30% more expensive. But we offer a 12 month guarantee. If the placement doesn't work, we replace them at no cost." You've reframed the conversation. It's not about price. It's about confidence in the outcome. Third, disqualify price shoppers early. When someone says price is their number one concern: "Just to make sure we're aligned. We're typically more expensive by XX%. If price is your primary factor, we might not be the right fit. What do you think?" You flipped the script. They have to sell YOU on why they should work with you. Either they say "Actually price isn't the only thing. We care about quality too." Great. Real conversation. Or they say "No it really is just about price." Perfect. You saved weeks chasing a deal you'd never win. Fourth, use their business as an analogy. "In your business, are you the cheapest option?" Usually no. Mid tier or premium. "If a competitor came in 50% cheaper, what would they have to cut?" Cheaper materials. Less experienced people. Worse service. "Exactly. Same in our world. If someone's dramatically cheaper, what do you think they’re CUTTING out?” You just used their logic to justify your pricing. Fifth, know when to walk away. If you've shown value, told stories, offered a guarantee, explained ROI, and they're still pushing for a discount? They're not your customer. The right clients choose you because you're the obvious choice. Not because you're cheap. — If you found a ton of value out of this, you don’t want to miss my LIVE sales coaching call, for free: https://lnkd.in/g3CP4v2q

Pricing Psychology in Luxury: Shaping Perception, Creating Desire In the luxury market, price is far more than a number. It is a signal that shapes how consumers interpret value, exclusivity, status, and brand stature. For any brand aiming to operate at the top of the market, understanding the psychology of pricing is essential to protect equity and elevate the customer experience. Below are four key psychological strategies that influence perception and drive purchasing behavior in luxury: 1. Anchoring When consumers assess a luxury product, they instinctively rely on a reference point. Presenting a higher priced item first creates a benchmark that makes other options feel more attainable while still premium. This simple sequence reinforces the brand’s prestige and clarifies the hierarchy within the collection. 2. Premium Bundling Curating products or services into a single premium bundle can increase perceived indulgence and sophistication. In luxury, bundling is not about offering a deal. It is about crafting a narrative that highlights craftsmanship, experience, heritage, and emotional value. A bundle should feel like an elevated universe rather than a financial incentive. 3. Rounded Pricing for Prestige Strategies such as $99.99 belong to the mass market. Luxury clients expect clarity and confidence. Rounded pricing like $500, $5,000 or $12,000 supports the perception of mastery, control, and quality. It signals that the brand is not seeking volume but rather communicating authority and enduring worth. 4. Scarcity and Exclusivity Limited editions, controlled production, appointment only access, and one-of-a-kind creations amplify desire by signaling rarity and privilege. When scarcity is authentic and price is positioned accordingly, clients feel they are entering a protected circle. Exclusivity becomes an active part of the value proposition. Why This Matters In luxury, pricing is not a competitive tool. It is a positioning tool. A coherent pricing strategy strengthens perceived value, deepens emotional engagement, and builds long term loyalty. A weak or inconsistent strategy, on the other hand, erodes trust and diminishes brand stature. If you plan to refine your pricing architecture and align it with the psychology of today’s discerning luxury consumer, I would be glad to help. I support luxury brands in shaping pricing strategy, elevating perceived value, and building product and service ecosystems that resonate with high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients worldwide. Let’s connect and explore how thoughtful pricing can strengthen your brand. #LuxuryBrandStrategy #PricingPsychology #LuxuryPositioning #ExclusivityMatters #Consulting

Last quarter, I told a client to RAISE their prices by 50% In the middle of a recession. While losing deals to cheaper competitors. When their win rate was already below 20%. They took the risk The results? → Win rate: Jumped from 19% to 40% → Sales cycle: Cut from 118 days to 70 → Revenue: Up 150% in just 90 days Here's what we discovered: Their low prices weren't making them more competitive They were making them less trustworthy When we analyzed their lost deals: 80% of prospects who said "too expensive" never bought from anyone The deals they won at discounted prices had 2X higher churn rates Procurement was treating them as a commodity because they positioned as one Their best customers were the ones who DIDN'T negotiate on price So we implemented what I call "Trust-Based Pricing": - We increased prices to reflect the true value delivered - We eliminated all discounting completely - We restructured compensation to reward margin, not revenue - We trained reps to walk away from price-sensitive prospects The transformation was immediate: - Prospect engagement quality: Increased 100% - Deals requiring procurement approval: Reduced by 60% - Implementation success rate: Up from 50% to 75% - Average customer lifetime: More than doubled The dangerous myth killing your sales growth: Lower prices win more business. The reality? In complex B2B sales, your price is a powerful signal about your confidence and the value you deliver. Your competitors are busy slashing prices and offering "special discounts." Meanwhile, market leaders are systematically increasing prices and watching their close rates improve. What if you raised your prices tomorrow and trained your team to confidently defend the new value proposition? P.S. If you need help with your sales, send me a message

Selling to ENT without changing your pricing model is like showing up to a black-tie event in flip flops. MM pricing models don’t survive in enterprise sales. Why? Because selling 1,000 licenses to an enterprise isn’t 20x harder than selling 50 - but if you don’t adjust your pricing strategy, it will be 20x more painful. Enterprise buyers don’t think in per user terms. They think in budgets, forecasts, and cost centers. They want predictability, not a CPQ nightmare where they’re adjusting seat counts every quarter. If you’re moving upmarket, here’s how to avoid looking like a tourist at the grown-ups’ table: 1. Kill per-user pricing for large accounts. Enterprise CFOs see per-user models as a ticking time bomb...every new hire adds cost. Instead, sell in committed tiers, annual volume contracts, or all-you-can-eat licenses. - Instead of “$50 per user, per month,” structure it as, “$X for up to 1,000 users.” - Price for usage, not headcount - think storage, API calls, transactions, etc. 2. Enterprise doesn’t “expand naturally.” Build in expansion from day one. For MM, you can land small and grow. Enterprise doesn’t work that way. - Ramp pricing: Year 1 at 60%, Year 2 at 80%, Year 3 at 100%. Predictable growth, no CFO freak-outs. - Auto-expansion clauses: If usage exceeds X%, licenses auto-scale. Protects you from procurement pulling a “we’ll just add seats later” stunt. 3. Enterprise buyers expect to “win.” Give them a win - without losing. These buyers are trained to negotiate. They want a lower per-unit cost, but they’ll commit bigger dollars to get it. - Introduce an ENT Rate...lower per-unit cost, but higher minimum commit. CFOs love “efficiency,” and you get more ARR locked in. - Structure custom packaging that makes them feel special. Limited access to beta features, priority support, or bundled services. Want to win in enterprise? Stop selling like an SMB rep. Price for scale, control the expansion, and let procurement “win” on terms that make your CFO smile.

Never compete on price. (unless you are Costco or Ryanair) When everyone in your market starts discounting, most founders make the same mistake: They join them. I would do the opposite. Because the moment every competitor looks cheaper, the real opportunity is to stop looking comparable. Here is the strategy I would use instead: → First, narrow the problem. Do not sell “marketing,” “software” or “consulting.” Sell a specific outcome for a specific customer. The more precise the problem, the less useful the competitor’s cheaper quote becomes. → Second, quantify the cost of doing nothing. If your solution costs $50,000 but the problem is leaking $300,000 a year, the conversation should not be about your fee. It should be about the $250,000 gap. Founders lose pricing power when they present the price without presenting the economics. → Third, change the offer before changing the price. If a buyer cannot afford the full scope, reduce the scope. Remove custom work. Extend the timeline. Change the service level. But do not quietly sell the same thing for less. That trains the market to wait for a discount. → Fourth, create proof around the outcome. Not more testimonials saying you were “great to work with.” Show: Time saved. Revenue created. Costs removed. Risk reduced. Speed to result. Proof makes price harder to argue with. → Fifth, make switching away from you feel expensive. This does not mean trapping customers. It means building knowledge, workflows, data and relationships that compound over time. The strongest pricing power often comes after the sale, not before it. → And finally, know your walk-away number. Every founder should know: The minimum gross margin worth accepting. The maximum delivery effort per customer. The discount level that makes the deal financially unattractive. Without those numbers, pricing becomes emotional. You start negotiating against yourself. When competitors cut prices, do not ask: “How do we match them?” Ask: “How do we make the comparison irrelevant?” Because price competition is usually a sign that the market cannot see enough difference. The answer is not always to charge less. Sometimes it is to become harder to compare.

I've coached 300+ AEs through pricing conversations. The ones who close don't defend price - they reframe value. Here are the 7 pricing objections that signal "no" and the one-liners that flipped them to "yes": 1. "It's too expensive" → "Compared to what?" Forces them to reveal if they're comparing apples to oranges or haven't done the math on status quo costs. 2. "We don't have budget" → "When does your next budget cycle open?" Separates real timing issues from polite rejections. No budget ever? They're not buying. 3. "I need to think about it" → "What specifically would you need to see to feel confident moving forward?" Surfaces the real objection hiding behind the stall tactic. 4. "We're looking at cheaper options" → "Are you optimizing for lowest cost or highest ROI?" Shifts focus from price tag to business impact. 5. "Can you do better on price?" → "Help me understand which metrics matter most - initial investment or time to value?" Reframes negotiation around outcomes, not discounts. 6. "It's not in our plans this year" → "What would have to change for this to become a priority?" Reveals if there's any path forward or if you're chasing ghosts. 7. "We need to run this by finance" → "What questions will finance ask that I can help you answer now?" Real buyers prepare for internal selling. Tire-kickers hide behind process. The pattern? Every response forces specificity. Vague objections = they're not buying. Specific concerns = there's a deal to be made. Stop defending your price. Start qualifying their commitment. Which objection do you think kills deals most often?

POV: You’re a product marketer. Pricing and packaging just landed in your lap. ❌ No pricing manager. ❌ No budget for a consultant. Just you, Google Sheets, and a vague sense that “we should probably revisit our pricing.” Common scenario at Series A/B: ✅ You’ve found product-market fit. ✅ You’ve grown fast. Now you need to unlock the next level of growth. So where do you start? First and foremost: Don’t try to fix everything. Pricing touches everything. Before you jump in, understand what you can impact. HubSpot’s Sam Lee breaks pricing into 3 key areas: 1️⃣ Product Monetization: pricing metrics, plan design, packaging. 2️⃣ Commercial Strategy: discounting, sales enablement, channel pricing. 3️⃣ Back Office: Governance, analytics, decision-making flow. I’ll add one more: 4️⃣ Pricing plumbing: tech stack from CPQ through billing. Odds are, you can safely ignore 2️⃣ through 4️⃣ (for now). You probably can’t overhaul your quote-to-cash flow, redesign your deal desk, or implement new billing software. But Product Monetization? That’s where you can move the needle. Here’s how I’d tackle it (in order): Start with packaging. Look at your current plans. For each one, ask: • Does this plan solve a distinct job? • If you were the ICP, would your tiers make sense? This alone can uncover big wins. Often, just simplifying plans can improve conversion or help your sales team tell a better story. Next, take a closer look at features. An easy approach is the value matrix. It maps each feature by: • Relative preference (how much people want it) • Willingness to pay (how much they’d pay for it) You’ll end up with: → Core features: everyone expects them, no one’s paying extra. → Value drivers: people want them and will pay for them. → Add-ons: not for everyone, but high value for a niche. The last one is where most SaaS companies leave money on the table. From there, review usage thresholds. Even if you can’t change your pricing metric (heavy lift), you can still adjust thresholds. Look at usage caps across plans: • Are they aligned with actual customer usage? Competitor research helps here. Find arbitrage opportunities where you can offer more value for the same price or better align value with consumption. Lastly, look at price points. Yes, actual prices come last. Once your packaging, features, and thresholds are dialed, you can ask: • How do we want to be positioned in the market? • Which plan should be the hero (and are we making that clear)? A 10% price bump won’t fix a confusing plan structure. But a well-designed plan can make a higher price feel like a steal. In summary: ✅ Control the controllables. ✅ Think like your customer. ✅ Reassess feature bundling. ✅ Pressure-test your thresholds. ✅ Only then play with price points. You don’t need to be a pricing expert. You just need to use your product and marketing instincts. (And maybe pretend to be your ICP for a day.)

If you're a sales rep sitting at the negotiation table in 2026, don't try these things. You'll be out of the game before you even start. 1. Don't ignore the "risk of inaction." Your biggest competitor usually is not another tool. It is the buyer doing nothing. If you cannot quantify what staying broken costs them for the next 3–6 months, you walk into the negotiation with zero leverage. 2. Don't negotiate on price without re-anchoring to impact. If you are debating $10k while the buyer loses $50k a month by waiting, you are letting the deal turn into a price conversation. Pull it back to impact, timing, and why this matters now. 3. Don't start trading until every request is on the table. Procurement loves the drip feed: one ask now, another later, then "one last thing" after Legal. Stop the slow bleed. Get every request out in one shot and confirm there is nothing else coming later. 4. Don't discount before you're the chosen vendor. Get this sentence first: "You are the vendor we want to move forward with" And use your relationship with the champion to read the room. You'll know if you're selected or still being compared. If you're still being compared, any discount becomes leverage they use with another vendor. 5. Don't blink when they ask for your floor. Buyers already have pricing context from peers, Slack groups, and internal benchmark decks. If you look unsure, trust collapses. Conviction in price is conviction in the value behind it. 6. Don't fear silence after you say the number. Give the price, then stop talking. If you rush to explain the number, you weaken it. Give them space to process the investment. 7. Don't accept concessions without tying them to signature. Once all requests are listed, ask the question most reps avoid: "If we meet these terms, does that get the deal signed?" If the answer is vague, you are negotiating without a real end point. 8. Don't drop price without taking something back. If the number moves, something else moves too: term length, payment structure, scope, rollout timeline, a case study, an expansion clause. Discounts without trade-offs signal your original price was flexible. 9. Don't let procurement run the conversation without your champion. Bring your champion into every procurement call. Procurement will press on cost. Your champion must defend the business case, the internal urgency, and why you're the safest path forward. Without them, it turns into pure price cutting. 10. Don't treat procurement as the enemy. Give them the "internal memo." Make it easy for them to justify the spend upward. A crisp ROI narrative, risk framing, implementation plan, and the "why now." If you help procurement look smart internally, they'll stop trying to win by cutting you down. A well-run negotiation is about retesting your conviction that your solution is the safest path forward. Play it well.

At $10M+ ARR, You are losing money. Not because of bad product, But because of bad pricing. Why pricing? → Competitor pricing weakens positioning → Pricing doesn’t match customer value → Customers stay on the cheapest plan → No upsells, no expansion revenue → Too few users on annual plans → Enterprise deals lack flexibility → Pricing is never tested Lack of pricing strategy directly affects your revenue. Here are 7 steps to fix it. 1. Audit pricing by revenue segment → Where is pricing suppressing upgrades? 2. Reposition pricing against competitors → Own a category, not just a price point. 3. Expand revenue streams → Upsells, add-ons, usage-based models for high-value users. 4. Charge based on value, not just cost → Align pricing with impact and willingness to pay. 5. Move customers to annual → Build ACV and retention with incentive-based annual pricing. 6. Enable enterprise flexibility → Custom contracts, volume discounts, and deal-based pricing. 7. A/B test pricing regularly → At this scale, small price shifts = millions in ARR gains. At $10M+, pricing isn’t just a strategy, it’s a competitive advantage. P.S. How often are you testing your pricing strategy? ♻️ If you find value, let others benefit too. __________________________________________ Ready for more SaaS pricing insights? Follow me, Marcos Rivera🔔