Some buyers seem to have a natural talent for taking advantage of poor sales technique. Professional buyers are trained in a tactic they call Salami - it means “one slice at a time”. It describes the way the buyer will keep asking for more discount, or more services after the price has been set. Each request is for something quite insignificant but by the end of the process the seller will have conceded much more than would have been the case in a single negotiation.
In Always Be Prepared to Walk Away we looked at ways we could respond to customers who are just about to sign and can do the deal, if only they had a little bit more. These customers are in the Salami role, whether they know it or not. We know this can be very difficult for the seller. It seems the only response available is walking away from the deal, or at least threatening to. That’s not an attractive option for anybody. Better if we never get in this situation in the first place, but avoiding it requires us to have laid the proper groundwork, very early in the campaign.
A professional buyer will persuade us to declare early in the campaign, our terms - price, payment, services, guarantees - all the things it’s easy to include when we’re probably not going to get the deal. In fact the buyer may understate our qualifications for the project, just to make us declare our best price. If the buyer tells us at the first meeting we need to do something with our price if we’re to make the short list, he’s planning the Salami. We’re in for a hard time later. Whatever price we offer at this point is going to be the maximum we’ll get. We’re likely to get a lot less.
How do we defend ourselves against this? Most of the guiding principles in Serious About Selling suggest ideas for managing this situation - maybe Insist on Being Treated as a Business Partner is the most appropriate - but this paper addresses it directly.
Our best defense in this circumstance is:
“No because we don’t have the full details of what’s needed”
“We will offer an acceptable price, when we understand the bounds of the requirement.”
“We won’t lose the business on price alone”
“But we will not discuss price in detail until you are ready to sign a contract.”
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