On: Startup sales negotiations 101 – how to respond to...

[jfasi]

The author argues that nine out of ten bad customers will self select during the trail period, but does not offer any indication for how to positively verify that. Perhaps those asking for discounts are doing so not because they are problem customers waiting to happen, but because your product is priced at too high a price point?

Can anyone recommend a strategy for verifying that isn't the case, rather than insisting that good customers will be happy to pay the price and damn the doubters?

[tlogan → jfasi]

Just do a simple experiment: always give the discount. They want for 4.99 - give them for 4.99. They want for 0.99 - give them for 0.99. You will see that is not going to improve your sales. If it does, then you might need to tweak pricing but we hackers always price our product too cheap so that very rarely the case.

[SteliE → jfasi]

The point I'm making is not that it's bad to ask for a discount. I do it all the time :)

The only difference is I don't ask for discounts before trying a product and determining that it fits my needs and I actually want to purchase.

The advice I give is to ask people politely to trial your product first and then offer them a discount if they actually confirmed that they like it

[reeses → SteliE]

If someone offers you money, take it. Smart salespeople shut up the instant the prospective says,"yes."

[SteliE → reeses]

That's true for one time deals where you don't care about success but not true for SaaS. Taking money from the wrong customers and running a high churn/high support cost SaaS app will destroy your startup.