Pricing Strategy Negotiations

When negotiating, do you think the big wins happen at the table? They don't! The real magic happens before the first word is spoken. Success in 80% of negotiations is due to preparation. It's taking small steps to control the process, foresee challenges, and set small goals. I coached a procurement manager stuck in a deadlock with a supplier. Both sides had drawn firm lines: • The supplier demanded upfront payments. • The procurement team refused. • They feared cash flow issues. For weeks, the talk had gone in circles. It made no progress. When I stepped in, I asked one question: “𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙?” The team realized the supplier's main concern wasn't money. It was to reduce delivery risks. By focusing on interests, not positions, we found a solution: 𝗔 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘂𝗽𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗽𝗹𝘂𝘀 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀. The result? The deal closed in two days, with terms that worked for both sides. That negotiation taught me this: →  Preparation isn't just logical. → It's also strategic and emotional. I'm happy to share here how I prepare for a negotiation: 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲. • Be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. • No vague goals like “get the best deal,” aim for concrete outcomes: → Add a long-term partnership clause → Reduce delivery timelines by 10% → Secure flexible payment terms 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. • Ask, why does the other side want this? • When you negotiate based on interests, you create options that meet both parties’ needs. 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘀 (𝗠𝗘𝗦𝗢𝘀) • Successful comes with always having options ready. For example: → Offer A: A 5% discount for upfront payments. → Offer B: Standard payment terms and extended service coverage. If you present choices, you reduce deadlock and keep control of the conversation. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. 𝗡𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰—𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. • Practice self-awareness to stay composed under pressure. • Show empathy to build trust. • Use "Feel, Felt, Found" on objections, and it'll guide decisions. Negotiation is like a dance. Both sides need to move in sync, adjusting their steps as they go, to create a harmonious outcome. And the best dances are choreographed long before the music starts. So, what’s been your biggest negotiation breakthrough? Have you ever unlocked a deal by shifting focus from demands to solutions? Found success by preparing better than your counterpart? Drop your story in the comments—I’d love to hear it. Or DM me if this resonates with a challenge you’re navigating. Let’s talk about what works.

One of our clients came to us excited about a wholesale opportunity. A well-known stockist wanted to place a big order. It felt like a breakthrough. But when we looked at the terms, the numbers didn't add up. The stockist wanted: → 60-day payment terms → Sale or Return (so unsold stock would come back) → The right to discount without approval Here's what that actually meant: They'd need to fund production upfront. Wait two months to get paid. And risk getting stock back at the end of the season that they'd then have to shift themselves. All while the stockist could discount the product and erode the brand's pricing position elsewhere. The margin looked okay on paper. But the cash flow impact and the risk? It would have tied them up for months. We helped them push back. Not to kill the deal. But to renegotiate terms that actually worked: → 30-day payment terms instead of 60 → Outright purchase instead of Sale or Return → A minimum order quantity that made the admin worthwhile The stockist agreed. Because they wanted the product. And here's the thing: most stockists need independent brands more than the brands realise. Your job isn't to say yes to every opportunity. It's to make sure the ones you say yes to actually work for your business. 💬 Have you ever negotiated better terms than were first offered?

Your champion loves you. Their procurement team just forwarded your competitor's pricing. Subject line: "Can you match this?" Attached: A proposal that's 30% cheaper, conveniently stripped of all context about what's included. Procurement doesn't care about your value prop or the 6 months you spent building trust. They will, however, try to get you to negotiate against yourself. And most reps do exactly that. They'll start justifying why they cost more. Offer discounts before anyone asks. Treat it like a fair fight when it's actually a hostage situation. Your competitor is being used as a wedge to extract a better price from you. Procurement knows your champion already wants you. They're just testing how much margin you'll give up. So what do you do? 1. Reframe the comparison as incomplete. Don't defend your price against theirs. Make THEM defend their comparison. "Happy to walk through a detailed comparison. I'm noticing their proposal doesn't include implementation support, data migration, and training that you told me were critical. Should we map out what an apples-to-apples comparison looks like?" Force THEM to acknowledge the gaps & do the work of reconciling what's missing. 2. Quantify the delta, not the total. ENT buyers think in deltas. Don't defend your $500K price against their $350K price. Defend the $150K difference. "The gap here is really about implementation support, data migration, & training. Strip those out and we're within 5%. But removing those would add 6 months to your timeline and increase your internal costs by $200K. Want to run those numbers?" 3. Anchor to the cost of choosing wrong. Procurement optimizes for price. Your champion optimizes for not getting fired. "I know price matters. But if this doesn't work, what's the cost? You're betting your Q3 launch on this. A 30% discount doesn't matter if the vendor can't deliver." 4. Don't just say no to the discount. Give them options that expose the trade-offs. "If we need to get closer to that number, here's what that looks like: - Remove premium support: $50K savings, but your team handles all troubleshooting. - Extend implementation to 6 months: $40K savings, but you miss your Q2 deadline. - Reduce user seats by 30%: $60K savings, but only your core team gets access." Let them see what "cheaper" actually costs. 5. Arm your champion with the ammo they need. "Here's a one-pager comparing both options side-by-side, including the risks. Feel free to share this with procurement and finance. I'm happy to jump on a call if it helps." Make it easy for your champion to be your internal advocate. Remember that your job isn't winning over procurement. It's making sure your champion has everything they need to win the internal fight. If you fold on price just to make procurement happy, you've signaled that your pricing was bullshit to begin with. And once you've done that, you're not the premium choice anymore. You're just expensive.

Sometimes, telling people less about your pricing works better than telling them everything. At Wynter, our pricing has always been… complicated. “How much does Wynter cost?” “It depends!” Not the answer anyone loves to hear. The complexity comes from our underlying cost structure, being a two-sided marketplace where different people with different seniority levels (different hourly rates) share their perceptions. And when a test or survey can involve 15 to 100 participants, for 2 or 30 minutes each (a test can be 2 questions or 20, async or live)… pricing of a test naturally varies. Add here that we have subscriptions (you get X tests/surveys per year) and pay-as-you-go, plus various incentives to drive behaviors... It ends up pretty complicated. Over the years, we've run a lot of pricing experiments and consulted with a lot of names you know in the pricing specialty. Still, communicating "how much is Wynter" is hard work. It's hard enough on a sales call... but try explaining it on a pricing page. That's 10x harder. For a long while, our approach was to give people all the information. (Screenshot 1). We knew it was a lot... but after we ran a pricing page test with Wynter on it... we found out just how much friction we created. Too much info led to cognitive overload — and, to inaction (it's easier to hit the back button rather than figure it out). Based on ICP feedback from pricing page tests, we designed and tested multiple iterations until we came to a version that performed much better (Screenshot 2). It omits a number of details, yes... but those details actually caused anxiety and friction. We dramatically simplified price communication on the pricing page... leaving a portion for a sales conversation (or in-product discovery). When a lot of the pricing "depends," having a dialogue about someone's specific needs is a much better way to arrive at a specific quote. If you have complex pricing, the point of a pricing page is to communicate what someone gets, state a typical price range (is this aligned with our budget?), and offer options to learn more if someone feels this might be a fit. You don't need to spell out *everything*. There is no one-size-fits-all, and the best way to know how your pricing page lands on your ICPs is to ask them. Run a pricing page test with your ICPs to learn what's holding them back on yours.

One of the worst advice I put into practice the first three years of my sales career: "Do not talk about pricing in the first call" When I just started in sales, I felt anxious to talk about pricing every single time. "Is that pricing not too high?" "Are they going to immediately reject us?" Not being able to talk about pricing made it even worse. Treating it as something to be hidden is just weird. But things got a lot better over time. Because I learned from experts with practical, not just theoretical knowledge. Here are a few rules that helped me tremendously: 1️⃣ Do not withhold pricing. Never say something like: “I cannot give you a price right now” 2️⃣ Always have a range of pricing ready when the prospect is asking. Something like: “Other banks that did projects with us typically spent 75k to 200k for the initial project” 3️⃣ Only communicate the exact price when you know the business case 4️⃣ Right after you communicate pricing, you have to ask: “How do you feel about that price” 5️⃣ Never communicate the first pricing through email or text - only in a meeting 6️⃣ Adjust the offering to the business case. If you have a 1.5 Mio. efficiency case, do not offer 50k. Go for a 350k-500k option and pack it with some support and services that will make the implementation more successful 7️⃣ Don’t make any promises about discounts right in the call in case you are not sure. Say: “I have to check internally and get back to you” 8️⃣ If you give a discount, always get something in return. A few options: 👉🏻 Reference Video or Case Study with KPI Improvement 👉🏻 Introduction to other companies 👉🏻 Signature by a certain date (e.g. end of quarter) 👉🏻 Presentation at Webinar for other potential customers 👉🏻 Long-term contract (2 or 3 years) 👉🏻 Yearly up-front payment 👉🏻 Open for reference calls with other prospects 9️⃣ In case they say “This is expensive”, you clarify first: “There are usually two different reasons I encounter when someone says that. 1st you do not see value for the costs or 2nd you do not have the money available. What exactly is it in your case?” 🔟 The client says: “We only have Amount X” - what do you do? Find a different solution other than a discount. Make them pay the mentioned amount this year after the start of the project and the difference at the end of the project or when the new year starts in January. If you put those into place, you will rock that dicey topic.

The MSA Negotiation Checklist I Use to Protect My Company. I review MSAs weekly. This checklist saves me from missing critical items. Scope and Deliverables → Define services clearly. Avoid open-ended language. → Include acceptance criteria. Know when the job is done. → Add change order process. Scope creep kills budgets. Payment Terms → Net 30, not net 60. Cash flow matters. → Milestone-based payments, not time and materials where possible. → Late fees for delayed payments. Incentivize on-time payment. Liability → Mutual indemnification. One-sided is a red flag. → Cap liability at 12 months fees. Lower for high-risk deals. → Exclude gross negligence and willful misconduct from the cap. → No liability for indirect, consequential, or lost profits. Data and Security → Define confidential information. Be specific. → Include data security standards. Reference SOC 2 or ISO 27001. → Add breach notification. 24 to 48 hours, not reasonable time. → Require data deletion post-termination. Confirm destruction. Termination → Termination for convenience. 30 days notice minimum. → Termination for cause. Define breach clearly. Include cure period. → Survival clauses. Know what outlives the agreement. IP Ownership → Background IP stays with owner. → Foreground IP goes to customer for custom work. → License back for provider to use learnings. Limited scope. Dispute Resolution → Governing law. Pick your jurisdiction. → Venue. Home court advantage where possible. → Escalation clause. Try executive resolution before litigation. Insurance → General liability. $1M minimum. → Cyber liability. $5M minimum for data-heavy deals. → Professional liability. For service providers. Final Review I read the entire document. I check cross-references. I confirm defined terms match throughout. One error in Section 12 can void your protection in Section 5. What do you add to your MSA checklist? Share below. I will add it to mine. #msa #contractnegotiation #commercialcontracts #legalops #inhouselegal #checklist

The hardest part of any discovery call? Saying your price. Especially in personal branding, where the results aren’t instant. There’s no “design this logo” or “write this one article.” It’s long-term. Strategic. Messy. So when they ask, “How much do you charge for personal branding?” You freeze. Because there’s no fixed scope. And you’re scared of sounding too expensive — or too uncertain. Here’s the truth: If you sound unsure, they’ll start questioning the value. Let me break down what actually works: 1/ Lead with questions, not numbers. Instead of jumping to price, say: “Happy to share my pricing — but first, can I ask: What does success look like for you in 6 months?” Let them open up. People trust those who listen first. 2/ Never quote a flat rate for personal branding. This is not logo design. It’s strategy, content, growth, and perception — over months. Structure your pricing around: – Depth (Are we just doing content, or strategy too?) – Duration (3 months? 6? Ongoing?) – Outcomes (Do they want visibility? Authority, Leads?) This way, you’re not selling “12 posts.” You’re offering transformation. 3/ Use value anchoring. When you say “₹70K/month,” it sounds expensive. Until you say: “This builds a personal brand that gets inbound leads, PR opportunities, and makes your team look stronger. How much would that be worth to you?” You shift the frame from cost → investment. 4/ Give 2–3 tiered options. Let them choose their comfort level. Example: – ₹40K: Strategy + content (basic) – ₹70K: Strategy + content + lead gen – ₹1L+: Book writing + growth + PR direction Now you’re not being negotiated — They’re picking what fits. 5/ Confidence is value. Say your price, then pause. Don’t justify. Don’t rush. Let the number sit. Most people lose the deal not because of pricing — But because they sound like they don’t believe in their worth. Personal branding is not a “service.” It’s positioning, clarity, and long-term leverage. And if you sell it like a deliverable — You’ll always get treated like a vendor. But if you sell it like an advantage — You’ll get paid like a partner. #personalbranding #marketing #business

As a lawyer with an MBA, one of the most important shifts in how I approach contracts came from understanding balance sheets, specifically how payment terms flow directly into working capital, cash flow, and borrowing costs. I've seen how a seemingly innocent "Net 90" customer contract created a $400K working capital gap that cost a company $48K annually in interest, on revenue they'd already earned but couldn't collect yet. Here's the January payment terms audit I'd run with finance teams, not because it's "legal work," but because contracts create the financial reality the business operates within. Part 1: Customer Payment Terms (What You're Offering) What to look for: Payment terms drift: Contracts say Net 30, but AR aging shows average 52 days. You're financing their operations interest-free. Unprofitable early payment discounts: You offer 2/10 Net 30, but your cost of capital is only 8% annually, you're losing money on the discount. Large customers demanding longer terms: Your biggest customer negotiated Net 90, tying up $500K of working capital. Industry-inappropriate terms: You're in food & beverage (15-day inventory turnover) offering Net 60 terms. Part 2: Supplier Payment Terms (What You're Required to Pay) What to look for: Terms mismatch: You pay suppliers Net 30, customers pay you Net 90 = 60-day cash flow gap. Missed early payment discounts: Supplier offers 2/10 Net 30. If your cost of capital is 10%+, you should take every discount. That's a 36% annualized return. Automatic late fees: Some suppliers increase prices 5-8% if payment terms are extended beyond standard. ▪️Strategies to Align Payment Terms with Cash Flow 1. Tiered Payment Terms Based on Customer Size Don't offer the same terms to everyone. 2. Progress Billing for Long-Term Projects Instead of payment at completion: 30% deposit at signing, 40% at midpoint, 30% at completion. Or bill monthly for work completed. 3. Payment Terms Escalation Clauses Reward good payment behavior: "Net 30 for Year 1. If 95%+ on-time payment, extends to Net 45 for Year 2. Below 80%, reverts to Net 15." 4. Negotiate Longer Terms with Suppliers Ask: "Can we move from Net 30 to Net 45 if we commit to higher volume?" Suppliers may charge 5-8% more, but if that costs less than your credit line interest, it's worth it. In Summary Your January audit is an opportunity to align payment timing with business reality so you're not financing everyone else's operations on your credit line. What's your biggest cash flow challenge with payment terms? This is not legal or financial advice; consider speaking with a qualified lawyer. Get a deeper dive into this topic in this weeks edition of my newsletter—link in comments and/or featured. #PaymentTerms #InHouseCounsel #ContractNegotiation

Last week I shared how I crossed $200,000 on Upwork. The question I got most in the comments was not about skills or tools. It was about money. How do you actually set a price with a client without scaring them off or selling yourself short? Here is what I have learned after 99 projects. 1. Price the problem, not the hour. Clients do not care whether a task takes you 8 hours or 80. They care what it is worth once it is solved. Quote hours and you invite them to negotiate your time. Quote outcomes and you invite them to weigh the value. Those are two completely different conversations. 2. Ask what the problem is costing them first. Before I say a single number, I ask what this is costing them today. Lost leads, wasted hours, a manual process that breaks every week. Once the cost of the problem is on the table, your price stops sounding like an expense and starts sounding like a return. 3. Never name a price in the first message. Price out of context always sounds too high. Understand the scope, the stakes, and the outcome first. A number lands very differently after a real conversation than it does cold in a proposal. 4. Anchor to value, not to what others charge. There will always be someone cheaper. Racing them to the bottom is a game you win by losing. Anchor to the result you deliver, and let the clients who only shop on price go somewhere else. 5. Give one clear number, not a range. A range tells the client you are unsure, and they will always hear the lower end. Decide what the work is worth, say it plainly, and hold it calmly. Confidence in your own number is half of what they are buying. 6. Let the silence do the work. When you name your price, stop talking. The pause feels long to you and normal to them. The freelancer who fills that silence with a discount just taught the client to always push. The one who waits gets paid. 7. Your price is a signal. It tells the client how you value your own work, which is exactly how they will value it too. Price like someone who solves real problems, and you attract clients who have real problems to solve. The goal was never to be the cheapest option. It was to be the obvious one.

The deal closed. That doesn’t mean it was clean. Just came out of one of the more grinding sponsor-side processes I’ve been through in a long time. Not because anyone was overtly aggressive. Not because of headline economics. Because of something far more subtle: 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐲. Everyone loves to talk about “market terms” and “alignment.” Here’s what actually happens: → Concepts that were negotiated get reframed late → Risk that was allocated gets shifted through overly complex terms → Economics change through mechanics, not price Not in big swings. In inches here, inches there, inches everywhere Real examples from this deal: → Liabilities that clearly belonged in the indemnity/RWI structure → tried to be pulled into “Indebtedness” (i.e., dollar-for-dollar at closing and outside RWI protection) → Rollover rights → almost shifted away from the core deal: sellers can cash out at the same time and on the same terms—not be delayed or treated differently after the fact → Fixed rollover equity → almost turned into a moving target, where the number of units could shift based on changing assumptions None of this was positioned as a re-trade. It was all: “just cleaning up language” “just aligning with the model” “just how it works in practice” That’s the game. Here’s the untold reality: 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞. And structure lives in: → financial definitions → how the pieces of the agreement tie together → what isn’t said as much as what is The hardest part? It doesn’t feel like a fight. It feels like: → confusion → repetition → “why are we talking about this again?” That’s by design. What I took away: 1. If you don’t anchor the structure, you will chase language forever 2. If something feels off, it usually is—just not where they’re pointing you 3. Efficiency dies when ambiguity is intentional 4. The deal is “done” about 10 times before it’s actually done We got it closed. More importantly, we closed the deal for our founder clients that was actually agreed to. But the process was brutal. Most deals don’t fall apart. They just… drift. If you’re not careful, that drift is the difference between an okay outcome and a great one.