Anti-Discount Script.
What to Do When They Ask for a Discount

Let's be honest.

How often do salespeople come running with cries
- that the client is ready to commit
- but asks for a 15% discount
- we need to sign urgently

And you agree..

(I used to do that often too)

Product teams in pursuit of personal bonuses sales targets make the same mistake

They trade on price, not value

Let's break down why this approach is more of a dead end, and how to close deals more elegantly.

When you agree to a discount, you make two unpleasant mistakes:

1. You devalue the product
You literally confirm that your 100,000 rubles per month was an inflated price, and the product is actually worth 85,000

2. You make growth harder for yourself
There is a metric called net revenue retention (that NRR). If this year you sold for 85K instead of 100K, then next year, just to stay in place, you'll need to squeeze out of the client not even 15%, but 17.6%

And the client is already used to the discount.


Investors often see this as the team's inability to defend the product's value.

What should you try to do differently?

Let's use an example

Imagine a marketing automation service.

The client says: "It's expensive, give us a 15% discount, or we'll go to competitors."

Instead of immediately cutting the check from a conditional 100K to 85K..

Say this:

"Let's keep the original price, but as a bonus, you get access to the AI analytics module for the whole year, which usually costs 30K!"


The idea is:

The client gets a benefit of 360,000 rubles per year and can feel like a hero who secured great terms.

You preserved real money, since the cost of granting access to an already built module is almost zero.

And you also "hooked" the client on another useful feature.

People don't always want to pay less

More often, they just want to feel that they got the maximum possible for their money.

A discount makes you cheap, while smart bundling makes you generous.

Instead of giving away real money, give away "digital surplus":

- Modules
- Available gigabytes
- Workstations
- API requests
- and so on

Even priority support, additional training, or custom development can cost you less than the discount amount

But it will significantly increase loyalty and NPS


Of course, not all clients will agree.

And some will insist on a monetary discount

The idea is simple

The next time your hand reaches to approve a discount..

Stop and ask yourself:

"What can I add to the client's basket so they feel like a winner, without taking money out of my pocket?"

Have a margin-rich weekend

#discounts