Most sellers think discounting happens when procurement asks for a better price.
I see it differently.
In many deals, discounting starts much earlier — when the seller fails to establish enough value.
By the time the buyer is negotiating price, the seller is often dealing with the consequences of weak discovery, unclear differentiation, or a business case that was never fully developed.
I’ve seen sellers enter negotiation believing they are in a strong position because the buyer likes the solution. But liking the solution is not the same as understanding the cost of the problem, the value of the outcome, or the risk of doing nothing.
When that value is not clear, price becomes the easiest thing to challenge.
A typical situation looks like this: the seller runs a good demo, answers questions well, and sends a proposal. The buyer responds positively but says the price is higher than expected. The seller immediately starts looking for room to discount.
But the real issue is not price. The issue is that the seller never anchored the investment to measurable business impact.
What is the problem costing the organization?
What inefficiency, risk, missed revenue, or lost productivity is being addressed?
What happens if the buyer delays six months?
What makes this solution meaningfully different from cheaper alternatives?
If those questions have not been answered, the seller is negotiating without leverage.
The strongest sellers build value long before negotiation begins. They do not wait until the proposal stage to justify the investment. They help the buyer see the business case throughout the process.
That is why the Value Creation and Negotiation Preparation material in Iconic Selling is so important.
Sellers learn how to connect their solution to business outcomes, not just features and benefits. They learn how to protect margin by creating clarity around value. They learn how to enter negotiation with a stronger foundation.
But the course is only one part of the Iconic Selling experience.
I personally coach sales professionals on real opportunities where pricing pressure, procurement involvement, and discount requests are already happening. We look at what was established, what was missed, and how to recover the value conversation before giving away margin unnecessarily.
That is where sellers begin to change their habits.
They stop seeing negotiation as a separate event and start seeing it as the result of everything that came before it.
A seller who builds value early has more options late.
A seller who skips that work usually pays for it in discounting.
About Carl Erickson
Carl Erickson is the founder of Iconic Selling and the President and CEO of Beacon Worldwide. With more than 30 years of sales leadership experience, Carl has helped top sellers close six and seven-figure deals in industries like technology, healthcare, and energy. His client-centric Iconic Selling Framework is a proven pathway to building trust, delivering value, and consistently closing high-value deals. Carl’s mission is simple. Help salespeople sell the way buyers actually want to buy.