For B2B founders who want bigger deals at their price
"We're not landing deals in the size we want."
Same effort, same meetings, smaller deals. Here's why the price keeps shrinking, and how to land the size you want.
Sound familiar?
You go in aiming for a big engagement. You come out with a pilot. Or a smaller scope. Or the same scope with a discount, because the buyer "needs to get it past finance".
You did the work. The buyer liked you. But the moment the number came up, the deal started to shrink. 🐬
What it costs
Same effort for smaller deals means you need more deals to hit a target that's already slipping. More prospecting, more meetings, more proposals.
And discounting compounds. Once a buyer gets a lower price, it becomes the anchor for the renewal, the referral and the next deal.
You feel it on the call. The buyer goes quiet when the number lands, says "let me take this to the team", and you already know the next email will ask for a smaller version.
The real source
Price before value.
The buyer heard your number before they put a number on their own problem. So they compared your price to a competitor's quote, or to doing it themselves, instead of to what the problem is costing them.
It gets sharper when budgets are tight. Every number gets a second look from someone who wasn't on your call. If the only figure in the proposal is yours, that person cuts it. If the buyer's own cost of inaction sits next to it, they defend it for you.
Against nothing, any price looks big. Against a problem the buyer has measured out loud, the same price looks small. That's pricing power, and it comes from the order of the conversation, not from a better rate card.
The fix: Step 4 before Step 6
The 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale put the cost of the problem in front of the price. Two steps change the size of the deal:
Step 4, Cost of Inaction. You ask what happens if nothing changes, then you stay silent. The buyer sizes the problem in their own words.
Step 6, Investment. Time first, then people, then money. By the time you name the price, the buyer has already invested in the solution with their time and their team.
Run them in that order and you're not defending a price. You're in control of the conversation, and the buyer is choosing between your price and the cost they just described. The discount conversation never starts. 🐯
What changes
The price conversation gets shorter. The buyer already measured the problem, so your number lands next to their cost, not next to a competitor's quote.
Scope grows on the call, not in a negotiation. When the buyer hears themselves describe a year of the problem, a bigger engagement is their idea.
And you stop leaving money on the table, deal after deal. Same effort, the size you want. 🌴
3 questions to ask on your next call
Step 4
"What happens if you do nothing?"
Step 4
"If this looks the same in a year, what does that cost you?"
Step 6, before any money
"How much time can you and your team give this each week?"
Don't name a price until the buyer has answered the first two. Then notice how the conversation about the number changes.
Who's behind this
Simon Severino
Founder of Strategy Sprints, based in Vienna. 2,400+ B2B founders have gone through our programs, practising the 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale until they lead the conversation again.
Before Strategy Sprints, Simon coached 2,000+ teams, including Google, BMW and Airbus.
Questions founders ask
How do I stop discounting in B2B sales?
How do I win bigger B2B deals?
What is pricing power in B2B sales?
Your next call
Want to land the deal size you aim for? Bring your last deal to a discovery call and we look at where the price started to shrink. If it's a fit, the 90-Day Sales Acceleration installs the process, and the 200K Club gives you spotters who push you through the price conversation until it feels normal.
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