Sometimes you just have to walk away from a buyer.

If you have read much of what I have written, you will know that I believe that it is a supplier’s responsibility to adopt the customer’s perspective, understand what the customer wants and then apply their experience and expertise to bring value to the customer.  That’s the only way to create sustainable mutually valuable relationships.

But it is not a one-way street.  The customers have to hold up their end as well, and as you will see in the video later in the post, that doesn’t always happen.

If, as a seller, you recognize any of the following buyer negotiation lines, then you know that you are facing down a one-way street to procurement central and will likely never have a long term valuable relationship with the customer; and then it is probably time to walk away.

“You see, we didn’t budget for this …”

“Let me make a phone call, see what I can do …”

” I can cover your hard costs, but that’s really as far as I am willing to go”

“You gotta work with me, we will make it up on the next deal”

“The future potential for your company here is huge”

Let’s assume for a minute that the salesperson representing the supplier has invested the time to consider how they can truly deliver value to the customer.  That’s not always the case but the best sales people are in fact those who look to partner with their customer as opposed to just sell something.  However, by definition, a partnership implies two parties working together.  The customer has to be a willing and collaborative participant in the partnership.  If after the seller has done all of their value creation work, but the customer remains exclusively focused on price, it is usually because:

1. The seller does not understand what the buyer is trying to achieve and has done a poor job in articulating the value
2. The buyer does not really care that much about addressing the problem that the seller is trying to solve
3. The buyer believes that the seller is only trying to sell them something and does not believe that the seller is in it for the longer term
4. There is a cultural/values misalignment between buyer and seller

In each of these cases it is highly unlikely that things will turn out well.

• If the seller sells based on price – that is a shaky foundation on which to build a long term relationship
• If the buyer buys based on price – that implies that the buyer does not really value the partnership
• Unless there is true alignment between supplier and customer on how mutual value can be created, the relationship will not sustain

Neither supplier or customer are well served by progressing with a deal. It will only end in tears.

Here’s a video to cheer you up 🙂

Be brave.  Sometimes it’s tough out here.

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Donal Daly is Executive Chairman of Altify having founded the company in 2005. He is author of numerous books and ebooks including the Amazon #1 Best-sellers Account Planning in Salesforce and Tomorrow | Today: How AI Impacts How We Work, Live, and Think. Altify is Donal’s fifth global business enterprise.