Today’s plays › All plays › Negotiation & closing

Test a late-stage discount demand before you answer with a number

Picked and checked by Olga Pearson, SalesUpLevel

Get tomorrow’s play in your inbox. Free ↓

Run it before your 10am

1. 01Don’t reply with a number yet.
2. 02Gather the deal history, your champion’s exact words, and the procurement contact’s public background.
3. 03Ask AI whether it looks like a real limit or a tactic, and what you could give instead of price.
4. 04Pick a non-price trade (payment terms, multi-year price lock, start date, scope) and get your finance team’s OK.
5. 05Counter in one short, calm message.

Procurement has asked for [20%] off as a final condition on a [$ amount] deal. Below is the deal history and the exact words my champion used.

1) Does this look like a real budget limit or a negotiation tactic? Show me what in the history points each way.
2) How much internal pressure does my champion’s language suggest?
3) Give me 3 counteroffers that protect the contract value but give procurement a win they can point to (payment terms, a multi-year price lock, scope, start date).
4) Write a 3-sentence reply for the strongest one.

[Paste deal history, with names and confidential terms removed]

Watch out for

• One deal, his telling. A “tactic” read is still a guess, so confirm it with your champion before you hold firm.
• Contracts and pricing are confidential. Strip names and terms, or use only your company’s approved AI tool.
• Net-60 and price locks cost your company something too. Get approval before you offer them.
• If procurement really has a hard budget cap, holding firm can lose the deal. Have a walk-away plan.

Source: Idan Baum, Idan Baum on LinkedIn, Aug 6, 2026. Results are as reported by the source; we did not measure them.

Run these next

• 06 · Follow-upTurn the discovery recording into a same-day proposal in the buyer’s own words
• 04 · DiscoveryScore every discovery call against MEDDIC, for yourself or your whole team
• 08 · CRM hygieneClean your CRM in an afternoon, but make AI check for open deals before anything is deleted