Sometimes a client is not making a request, they are posing
a test.
We were pursuing a $30 million systems integration deal with
a long-standing energy client. The functions we were installing were of the “mission
critical” type, and if something went wrong with the implementation, there was
a high risk of substantial losses to the client. Trust and collaboration were
the primary buyer values.
Having survived round after round of orals presentations,
reviews and questions, the client was ready to make their decision. We had delivered what we viewed as a world-class proposal that demonstrated our
understanding of the risks, provided mitigation and would achieve the client’s
goals.
We were not the cheapest bidder, we were told. And we were
not surprised. We were told, however, we had the best solution.
The client was making its final rounds to decide the winner between
us and a key competitor. The sourcing lead contacted our sales lead and said, “We
love what you’ve proposed. But we need the price reduced by 30 percent. If you
do that, the deal is yours.”
There are always three potential answers to a request for a
price reduction: yes, no, and an offer of less than what was asked.
We had several internal meetings to decide our answer.
Throughout the process, we had committed to the client that we would provide
the most competitive price that we could. We knew how important the success of this
engagement was for the future of the client’s business, and we didn’t want
price to be a distraction. We were focused on the quality of the work,
reduction of risk, and achievement of the client’s goals.
When it came time to answer the client’s request for a price
reduction, we said “no.”
The reason, we explained, was that all of our discussions
had focused on what it would take to succeed. We said to reduce our price by
any amount, thereby causing us to cut back on our solution or staffing, would
put success at risk.
We won the deal.
Once the project was underway, we had a “win” review with
the client to understand what about our proposal led them to choose us over the
other service provider. The issue of the price reduction request came up.
The client said “no” was the right answer. Someone in the
client’s executive leadership team proposed asking us for the discount to see
whether we had been true to our commitment to provide the best price we could
to do the project. The entire exercise was a test. If we had offered a
discount, we would have destroyed all of the trust we had established both in
our price and our ability to deliver.
And we would have lost the deal.
Of course, if we had not won the deal, we would be asking
ourselves “what if” questions to this day. But doing the right thing is always
the right thing to do, and you’ll never regret doing the right thing.
