By Todd Caponi

The business-to-business sales world’s approach to negotiating is coming to an end and very few of us are talking about it. Even fewer are ready. 

The traditional sales process, as it should be, is focused on helping our customers recognize what’s possible and optimize their potential outcomes. We build trust and a relationship with the prospect. 

Ideally, the client agrees to move forward with us, which leads to the unsustainable problem.

At that moment, our sales personality changes. We cease to focus on the customer’s outcomes. We now focus on our own. And in many cases we’re using similar approaches to those used negotiating high-stakes hostage negotiations. 

Observed by Jeffrey Rubin more than four decades ago in American Behavioral Scientist: “Typically, each side begins by asking for more than it expects to get, and through a series of offers and counteroffers in a stepwise concession process, a mutually acceptable agreement is ultimately reached.” 

In other words, right at the goal line we start lying.

While that alone should signal a need to change, there’s an unsustainable element to it.

The result of such traditional negotiation tactics is that every client pays a different amount based on how well or poorly the negotiation went. The loudest and most demanding customers often pay less than the friendliest. When deal preservation, job preservation, or fabricated deadlines are on the line, those clients pay less with more favorable terms. 

It’s a challenge that’s existed since the beginning of the modern sales profession.

Charles N. Crewdson, in his 1904 Tales of the Road, asked: “Is not the salesman who sells goods to one customer at one price and to another at another price, a thief? Is not the house which allows its salesman to do this an accomplice to this crime of theft?” 

Back then, however, the risk of getting found out was low. Buyers didn’t have the access they do today to their peers or pricing information. 

If we’re to believe that transparency and trust are core to being a successful salesperson, why do we dispose of that belief during negotiation? The proliferation of information and connectivity is quickly exposing the lie-filled, inconsistent approach that results. But there’s a simple fix. 

Without simply treating your solutions like an item you’d buy off a store shelf, a better way is to present, propose, and negotiate your pricing consistently with deal-specific flexibility based on the actual four levers that drive your business. These four elements also happen to be the same for every for-profit business in the world. 

These four business levers encompass: 

1. Volume– How much is the client purchasing from you in terms of products, technology, services, hours, locations, or whatever the item is that you’re selling? The more the client is willing to commit to purchasing, the better it is for your organization and, as such, should be reflected in the pricing. Commit to buying more > committing to buying less. 

2. Timing of Cash– How quickly will the client be paying for said Volume? The faster a client is willing to pay for your products, technology, and/or services, the better it is for your organization and should be reflected in your pricing. 

3. Length of Commitment– How long will the client be committing to your products? The longer the client commits, the better, which should be indicated in your pricing.

4. Timing of the Deal– There’s tremendous value in your ability to predict your business. The better a client is willing to mutually align on timing, the better it is for you. Your pricing should reflect the client’s willingness to help you predict, not a fabricated incentive to sign faster! Pay the client to help you forecast. 

By presenting your price in the context of the four levers, you can confidently (and with less anxiety) establish consistency across your client base, provide flexibility in terms of deal structures without sacrificing integrity, and provide concessions in exchange for the core elements that drive your business.

Discounting and blind concession-granting are the most expensive ways to accelerate and secure a deal. Access to information and peer connections are making it more expensive. Further, inconsistency is eroding trust just at the most important stage of your sales engagements. 

With the four levers you build trust through the goal line. You also will maintain customer value as your client not only buys from you, but stays, buys more, talks with peers, and even takes you with them to their next career stop. 

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Todd Caponi, CSP® is a multitime C-Level sales leader, a behavioral science and sales history nerd, and has led through two companies with successful exits. He now speaks and teaches revenue organizations and their leaders on leveraging transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity as Principal of Sales Melon LLC. He’s the author of two previous award-winning books, The Transparency Sale and The Transparent Sales Leader. His newly released book is Four Levers Negotiating: The Simple, Counterintuitive Way to Higher Deal Values and Lasting Trust(Matt Holt Books, Jan. 27, 2026). Learn more at toddcaponi.com.