So you've been working a deal for a while and the prospect you're working with has dropped a few hints that the price ranges you loosely floated might be a bit higher than they are comfortable with. How can you negotiate without just taking a lower contract value?

1. Start high and slowly drop

Psychologically, everyone loves the feeling of getting a good deal. Major retailers nationwide will mark up prices in the months leading up to Black Friday, so they can artificially slash prices to claim huge discounts. How can you replicate this for enterprise sales? Start with a number slightly higher than what you are actually aiming for. You can mention that you were able to get special approval from your leadership team on a discounted price for the annual subscription, specifically just for this prospect.

2. Offer an extension on the contract

Rather than decreasing the price of the contract, offer to give them an extra month or two at the end of the annual term. If your product has a long TTV (time to value), this could also be beneficial to you, as it gives you additional time to prove value before you begin renewal conversations.

3. Offer an extension on the contract

If you're using MEDDIC to qualify each opportunity, you probably have a good understanding of what their Decision Criteria is and what their quantifiable pain is. You can learn more about MEDDIC and how to implement it within your sales process in the blog post we wrote on MEDDIC. With this understanding, you know what matters to the prospect. Find something they value more than the cost savings and let them have a win on something other than price.

For example, say the prospect has identified the ability to collaborate with other teams as a pain point - you're selling a lead enrichment software to a team of BDRs but they mentioned it would be hugely valuable to collaborate with both Marketing and the AEs. If your pricing is based on number of seat licenses, but they have another team they'd like to collaborate in your tool with, you could offer complimentary additional licenses as an additional value driver.

4. Offer more convenient payment terms

If the prospect is in the middle of a budgeting cycle, they might have already used most of their budget for this year. If your finance and leadership team will allow it, you could offer to let the prospect pay quarterly, rather than the entire annual contract upfront. That means they may be able to spread the cost across the remainder of this budget cycle and the beginning of the next one, if they expect to have more budget freeing up.

5. Calculate the ROI

Again, if you're using MEDDIC, you should know exactly what their pain is from the Identify Pain step and how to quantify it. You can use that to calculate how long it would take for your product or service to pay for itself (either through cost savings or through accelerated revenue).