Hi Reader,
You know those seven reflections I wrote this month on why sales teams keep discounting deals they shouldn't? Here's the one thing underneath all of them.
Most teams treat the business case as a document. Something you write the night before the deadline. Twelve pages of product detail, contract terms, and a pricing table. Send.
But the teams that win at full price don't write a business case. They build one — across every conversation, every discovery call, every follow-up. By the time they sit down to write the proposal, the case is already made. The document just captures what's already been built.
Here's the thing:
When a proposal feels thin, it's never a writing problem. It's a building problem.
Nobody collected the customer's real words.
Nobody calculated what the pain actually costs.
Nobody connected the dots into a root cause.
And then someone sits down at the 11th hour and lists what the customer will buy and what it costs. That's the proposal. And the discount conversation starts.
So how do you solve this?
Here are 7 things that I've seen do their magic:
- Put a number on every pain point your customer mentioned — not just the obvious ones
- Calculate what the problem causes, not just what it costs
- Make sure a competitor couldn't have written your proposal by swapping the logo
- Help your champion see the bigger problem they didn't know they were solving
- Connect their pain to what's already on their boss's agenda
- Write the executive summary first — if you can't, the discovery isn't done
- Never let a proposal go out without someone challenging it
Each one has a story behind it — a real team, a real deal. I've put them all together in one essay: https://valueinspiration.com/winning-business-case-saas-deals-full-price/
Question for you to reflect upon:
Does your team build the business case across every conversation — or write it the night before the deadline?
The Remarkable Effect is ... when every proposal earns full price.
Ton