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Graduation Day 31st May! We had a great time, didn’t we?

Have you ever had a client ask for a discount and quite aside from the fact that you can’t afford to give it because your margin is tight, you don’t want to do it as a matter of princple? You are feeling a bit squirmish about it, and it’s quite clear:

You will need to deny the discount request.

So how the heck do you do that graciously?

I feel the need to go back to the mindset here:

It is important that you are totally at ease with your position, which means:

Assuming that you succeed in communicating your decline of their request tactfully, if the client still chooses to be offended and take their business elsewhere, then that will need to be ok with you.. It is important that you can stick to your principles here.

Let’s take a specific example and play it through:

You provided a proposal to a client, they asked you for a 20% discount to go ahead with the proposal. You don’t want to give any discount because you feel the price is totally justified and lowering would sell you short.

Here is what to check:

- Have you done a good enough job on establishing the value for your client in what you propose?
- have you set out exactly what you will provide and the value of each item?
- have you provided choice (eg. two packages of differing value to choose from)?

Assuming you have done that, and they still want a discount:

Be surprised and ask “oh, I thought you could see the value in this offer, which part of the offer do you not see as valuable enough to justify the full price?”

Now they have to name one, you ask “Is that the only one?” and you can have a specific discussion about the value of that item and all you need to do is demonstrate how that item justifies the value you put on it.

If your client is quite upfront and just wants a special deal, be upfront with them as well by saying:

“I can appreciate that you want to be sure to get exceptional value and when you look at the Return on investment with this offer which is at (say what it is for them) you will see the offer at this price is exceptional value already. I want to make this a true win win for both of us and that’s how I have priced it. Giving you a discount would mean I would feel that I am underselling my value and that’s not a good frame of mind to be in when delivering highest quality service which is what I am striving to do for you.”

This is generally enough for clients to pull back. Nobody wants to have a service provider that feels resentful and therefore provides only second best.

If someone still doesn’t ‘get it’ , I’m afraid you will have to be pretty clear in saying that you don’t give discounts. You believe that you are providing the best possible solution for the job and that’s what you are focusing on. At this stage the client request will be more a haggling contest that you don’t want to engage in.

If you have done good work in your sales process and if you are making it clear in your unique selling proposition that you are competing on quality, not on price, then that should preempt this discussion completely.

Preframing is alwasy easier than reframing after the fact!

Your Business Mindset Breakthroughs Assignment:

1. Apply this tactic either to a discount request or any other request that you need to decline.
2. Share your thoughts and experiences in leaving a comment on this blog!

To your Success
Yvonne

Have you ever been in one of these dilemmas:

- You had agreed to participate in a certain project and then you changed your mind/your circumstances changed and you want to pull out
- a client asks you for something extra on a project that you hadn’t budgeted for and you feel it is unreasonable but don’t want to put them off
- a friend empahtically and really nicely asks you to go out with them but you just don’t feel like it?

And then you ponder it in your head, should I do it or shouldn’t I do it….? and If I was to say ‘No’ or “I changed my mind’ how will they take it and more importantly how will I feel when seeing their disappointed face? Will my benefit be worth the guilt trip I will be on for a while after saying ‘No”?

I know what it’s like, I’ve been there.

Until I understood that it was my mindset that was causing this whole dilemma, meaning I could change it.

Let me ask you this: If your kid’s or partner’s or your own life depended on it, would you be able to say “no” to the person?
Of course you could. Which tells me one thing:

Feeling guilty about saying it, or not saying it at all, means in your mind the other person’s outcome is more important than yours. And that is just not true!

Read this: You getting your outcome is the most important thing!

And before you protest, let me clarify this statement: Sometimes, saying ‘yes’ to someone and going the extra mile is the outcome you want because there is a long term payoff (eg throwing in an extra benefit for a client with whom you want to build a long term relationship). That means you do get your outcome in the end, so you both win!

However, there has to be a strong enough win for you at the end. And please don’t use this way of reasoning to talk yourself into something you don’t want to do.

Way too many people in business and in their personal life, think they are being so good by constantly looking out for others and putting their own needs last. And then they start to feel resentment, exhaustion, depression and burnout. I see it all the time in my coaching practice. These people feel selfless when they do it, not realising that without them receiving something in return so the scales even out, they will burn out. Because on an unconsicious level there always has to be an exchange, you need to get something back, otherwise you can’t sustain yourself in the long term. On an unconsious level we always expect there to be a return even if we don’t like to admit it consciously.

So you might as well be honest with yourself about it upfront. Remember if you don’t eat and drink to become strong yourself you won’t have the strength to help others who need help to feed themselves. It’s the same here, giving too much in the short term will only mean you can’t sustain what you do in the long term because you will burn out.

How do you know then, when to say ‘no’ and when to say ‘yes’?

Your Business Mindset Breakthrough Assignment

Next time you face a dilemma like this ask yourself:

1. What do I get out of saying ‘yes’ to this request?
2. Do I value that outcome highly enough, in other words is my return (emotionally or financially) higher than my investment here?
3. Does my gut feeling say ‘yes’ or ‘no’?
4. Listen to your gut feeling as it is always honest, while you might be kidding yourself by talking up your benefits if you are afraid of the other person’s reaction to your ‘no’
5. If you still feel you should say yes, ask yourself “who says you should?” usually it’s an old piece of programming from our parents that says we should and it most likely doesn’t apply to you anymore!

Watch out for my next post where I will give you some language tools to say ‘no’ in a graceful and elegant way, so relationships are maintained while you get what you want!

Until then,
Value yourself, because you are worth it,

Yvonne