Sales Negotiations – The Way Forward

“Is not the salesman who sells goods to one customer at one price and to another at another price, a thief? Is not the house which allows its salesman to do this an accomplice to this crime of theft?”

This is the beginning of a story I found in a 1904 book by Charles N. Crewdson titled “Tales of the Road”.

Charles tells the story of a sales kickoff attended by a company’s 100 salespeople. Yes, this is over 120 years ago!

At the time, this company, like almost every company, used codes on the samples they showed or displayed to prospects instead of actual dollar amounts, so that only the salesperson knew the price. With that information asymmetry, they could charge more than the listed price if they could get it. The codes were typically based on a 10-letter word. For example, the salespeople may know the word WASHINGTON. Each letter of the word represented a number, so W-1, A-2, S-3, and so on with the final letter, N = 0. So, a product with ‘SIN’ written on it costs $3.50.

The president got up and explained to the team, “There is one thing about our system of business that I do not like; it is the cutting of prices.”. He asked the team whether prices should start being marked in plain figures directly on the samples the salespeople sell, rather than the old way where only the salesperson knew. He said, “I wish that every man who favors (transparent pricing) would stand up, and those who think the other way would keep their seats.”

Only one of the 100 in the audience stood up. “The vote is so near unanimous that it seems hardly necessary for us to discuss the matter. Yet, it is possible that one man may be right and ninety-nighe mayu be wrong, so let us hear from one of our salesmen who differs from his ninety-nine brethren.” He was asked to speak…

He started by referring to the president’s comment that one man may be right. “There is no may about it. I do not think I am right. I KNOW IT.”

His name was Billy, and he told a story…

He started with the advice he was given from a mentor who said to him, “Billy, it is better for you to be abused for selling goods cheaply than to be fired for not selling them at all.” So, he went out and, in his own words, “slaughtered the price of goods.” His bosses wrote to him in the field telling him to quit it. But he “kept on cutting, cutting, cutting. I knew the other boys in the house did it, and I did not see any reason why I should not.”

He added, “If a man was hard to move in any way and was mean to me, I came at him with cut prices. If he treated me gentlemanly and gave me his confidence, I robbed him. That is, I got the full marked price, while the other fellow bought goods cheaper than this man.”

But then he got caught. Two of his customers met, one was someone he considered a good friend. That good friend was paying more than the other, and sure enough, the topic came up. He lost a customer and a friend. A friend that had referred others to him. “I don’t care to deal with a man who does business that way.”

Now, some in the audience clapped with agreement, but many others were still not sold. He asked why. The reasons didn’t hold much weight. One reason was based on the idea that if a customer was turned off by the price before understanding its value, we lose a sale. Another stood up and proclaimed how so many customers could never afford the price regardless of the value, and waste so much of the salesperson’s time when they could have lost faster. It didn’t take long for the entire audience to be in agreement…set prices, displayed transparently!

This is a story written in 1904. The odds of customers connecting was slim. Information proliferation was barely a thing. Yet, it happened, and without much debate, an entire team of salespeople were in agreement with the need to set consistent pricing. 

Today, there’s so much talk of how “selling has changed” and how “buyers have access to so much more information”. Our mindset to selling has changed. Customers are further down the buying journey. They better armed.

Yet, what hasn’t changed much at all? Negotiating in B2B.

Quite literally, the techniques taught and leveraged in selling are foundational to the early 1900s, but specifically burst onto the scene following the Consumer Protection Act of 1975. It was a time when the US economy shifted from a “fair trade” focus to a “free trade” focus, and salespeople had to start honing their negotiating skills. Those techniques taught during that era? Fundamentally the same as we still use today.

And with the proliferation of information accessibility, the ease with which customers can connect and share, and with AI already exposing our pricing models, how is it sustainable to have every customer paying a different amount, based on how well it was negotiated?

That’s why, over the past 15 years, I’ve used the Four Levers Negotiating approach. It establishes a sound basis for your pricing, with flexibility within the levers that matter to every for-profit company. You want companies to commit to a higher Volume of products, technology, services, etc. You want the timing of cash to be faster instead of slower. You want the length of commitment to be longer instead of shorter. And, you want the timing of the deal to be predictable instead of random. Four Levers: Volume, Timing of Cash, Length of Commitment, Timing of the Deal.

The book Four Levers Negotiating is out January 27th. You can pre-order it right now (if you’re reading this prior to January 27th). If you don’t want to wait, don’t want to read, or don’t want to purchase something, there are so many podcasts I’ve been on, masterclasses I’ve done, and there’s a whole chapter dedictated to it in my first book, The Transparency Sale. Or…you can always reach out to have me speak/teach your teams at info@toddcaponi.com!

I’m Todd Caponi, CSP®. (<– links to LinkedIn)

I’ve written three books so far, The Transparency Sale, The Transparent Sales Leader, and my soon to be released Four Levers Negotiating.

I’m a sales keynote speaker and sales trainer, focused on teaching revenue organizations how to leverage transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity.

It’s what I do…teach sellers, their leaders, well…entire revenue organizations how we as human beings make decisions, then how to use that knowledge for good (not evil) in their messaging (informal and formal), sales negotiations, sales presentations, and revenue leadership.

Reach out (email to info@toddcaponi.com) – for inquiries about speaking at your event or sales kickoff, for programs to upskill your customer-facing teams and leaders, or just to nerd out on sales or sales history.

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