Has this ever happened with a deal?

• You’ve done the work. 
• The discovery was solid. 
• The proposal landed. 
• Your champion is grinning.
• The buyer is interested. 

Then, almost on cue, the request comes: 

“Can you do better on the price?” 

Head drops, heart sinks, and you exhale... a big sigh! IYKYK. 

Now, here's the plot twist that I cover in my upcoming book, "Priced to Win" on negotiating. Most salespeople hear resistance when that question arises. But what they’re actually hearing is a performance metric disguised as a reasonable request.

Reality Check 

In most organizations, procurement professionals (i.e., buyers) are trained and measured to push for discounts. 

Yes!

Their internal scorecards commonly include metrics such as: 

1. cost reduction, 
2. negotiated savings, or 
3. vendor concessions secured.

When they ask for a better price, they are not necessarily questioning your value. They're protecting their own performance rating or career!

Even when the budget exists, and the solution is the clear winner, the process still requires them to demonstrate diligence (i.e., I asked). Asking for a discount is one of the easiest and safest ways for them to show they did their job. This is why the request so often appears late in the process and feels almost automatic. 

It is less about affordability and more about accountability. 

When salespeople treat every price push as a personal negotiation, they miss the real dynamic: the buyer is often responding to an internal measurement system, not rejecting the offer.

Sales Irony 😝 

We train salespeople to maximize the sale.  They train buyers to minimize it!  Cat and mouse schema!

Turning the Procurement Table 

Now that you know the game, the next time a buyer asks for a better price, pause and reframe the moment. Instead of defending or conceding, respond with: 

“Help me understand what’s driving the request.” 

This simple question does three important things: 

1. It moves you out of reaction and into diagnosis 
2. It respects the possibility that the request is process-driven rather than value-driven 
3. It keeps control of the conversation while you uncover whether this is a real constraint, an internal metric, anxiety, or something else 

Once you understand the true driver, you can respond with the right countermeasure (I highlight 8 countermeasures in my upcoming book) instead of automatically giving up profit margin. 

When you stop taking the request personally and start treating it as a measurable and predictable behavior, you stop conceding out of frustration and start leading the conversation with that one question!

Victor Antonio, author of 'Priced to Win'

P.s., Consider pre-ordering my new book, "Priced to Win: The Sales Leader's Framework for Closing Deals Without Caving on Price," due out in Nov. 2026.

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