Being a sales voyeur...
I was sitting in a staff meeting and the President and Sales VP’s were discussing negotiating, discounting and holding the line on price.


One manager said, “If we can prove technical superiority, then I can discount less. But if I can’t prove product superiority you can’t expect me to hold the line on price!”

A deal at Major Media Co. came up, and they commented on the fact that it closed with little discounting at $1.2M.


No-one seemed to know why. They were particularly confused because it was closed by a fairly junior rep.

The story behind the story
I ran into the rep who closed the Major Media Co. deal and congratulated him. I asked him about the deal. He said, “It came in at a great price, but I was concerned it wouldn’t close because I there wasn’t really a technical or business problem. We replaced an IBM solution that worked. The business wasn’t really impacted by the change. It was just that Major Media Co. had three new executives who came on board who wanted to make their mark and they decided to move away from IBM to demonstrate visible positive impact.

Politics trumps product
The manager who was focused on demonstrating product superiority is apparently not aware that superior political alignment trumps product. He’s having speed and feed conversations with IT people and he’ll always have long sales cycles and will need to discount frequently. He’s also training his people to do the same.

Separating the signal from the noise
He’s not focused on the primary factor that determines value in the big deals.
Even the rep who closed the deal thought the absence of technical trouble meant there was no value.


Like people prior to Copernicus’s insight, they think product is the center of the universe. Both of them operate with a fundamental misconception. If we separate the signal from the noise, the signal is what powerful people personally want.

The best product does not win. The best salesperson wins.
What you think justifies the deal is irrelevant.


What justifies the deal is what is personally, emotionally important to the buyer; especially the executives.


The winning factor is almost never PRODUCT SUPERIORITY