Latest / Closing the Deal with Fexingo: Sales, Negotiation, and Revenue Conversations for Operators / How One Rep Won a Deal by Training the Buyer on Price
Transcript
- Lucas: So earlier this week I was talking with a VP of sales at a mid-market SaaS company — about fifty million in revenue — and she told me about a deal her team had been chasing for seven months. Luna: Seven months. That's either a massive enterprise whale or something went sideways. Lucas: It was a mid-six-figure contract, so not whale territory, but significant for them. And the deal had been stuck for six weeks at the very end, waiting on procurement sign-off. The buyer — director of operations at the target company — was fully on board. He wanted the product. But he couldn't get his own CFO to approve the budget. Luna: Classic internal sell problem. The champion doesn't have the language to defend the price upstairs. Lucas: Exactly. And normally the rep would have sent over a one-pager on ROI, maybe offered to hop on a call with the CFO. But this time the rep did something different. He asked the buyer: 'Can I spend two hours with you and your team walking through a total cost of ownership model that you can present to your CFO yourself?' Luna: Huh. Instead of selling to the CFO directly, he taught the buyer how to sell it. Lucas: Right. And what's interesting is that the buyer was a director of operations — not a finance person. He knew the operational value but had no idea how to translate that into a cost-benefit analysis that a CFO would respect. So the rep sat down with him and his procurement lead. They built a spreadsheet together, line by line. Luna: What kind of line items? Give me something concrete. Lucas: Sure. They included the current manual-process cost — how many hours per week the team spent on the task the software would automate. They added error rates, rework costs, even the soft cost of delayed reporting. Then they layered on the subscription price and calculated a three-year net present value. The rep didn't just hand over the spreadsheet — he taught them the assumptions behind each cell. Luna: So the buyer could actually answer questions when the CFO poked holes. Lucas: Exactly. The buyer went into the budget meeting the next week and presented it himself. The CFO asked two or three pointed questions about the discount rate and how they'd measured the rework cost. The buyer had the answers because the rep had prepped him. The deal closed three days later. Luna: That's a great outcome. But is this a repeatable tactic, or was it just the right buyer at the right time? Lucas: I think it's repeatable under specific conditions. The buyer has to be motivated — they've already decided they want the product. And they have to be financially unsophisticated when it comes to building business cases. If the buyer is a procurement professional who already knows how to model TCO, you're wasting their time. Luna: You're basically playing the role of a teacher rather than a closer. That's a mindset shift for a lot of reps. Lucas: It is. And it requires a level of transparency that some reps are uncomfortable with. You're showing them exactly how your pricing stacks up, including areas where you might be more expensive on a per-unit basis. If you've got a weak value prop, this exercise will expose it fast. Luna: So the rep in this case was confident the product held up under scrutiny. Lucas: Exactly. And that confidence came from data. They had case studies from similar companies showing the time savings. They knew the numbers were defensible. But the key insight for me is that the rep didn't try to control the narrative. They gave the buyer ownership of the analysis. Luna: That also builds a lot of trust. The buyer feels equipped, not pressured. Lucas: And that's often the difference between a deal that closes in a quarter and one that drags on. The rep told me that before this, they'd always tried to arrange a direct call with the CFO, but in this case the buyer explicitly said, 'My CFO doesn't want to talk to vendors. He wants me to make the case.' So the rep adapted. Luna: Listen, if this episode helped you think about a deal differently — maybe you've got a stalled opportunity you're trying to unstick — honestly, if it was worth a coffee to you, that's the link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Keeps the show ad-free and independent. Lucas: Yeah, we don't run ads. Listener support is what keeps these conversations going. And we really appreciate it. So back to the TCO training tactic — there's a potential downside I want to flag. Luna: Let me guess: you spend two hours training them, and they take your model to a competitor to negotiate a lower price. Lucas: That's the fear. And it does happen. But the rep in this case told me she's only seen that once in five years. Typically, the buyer who's willing to invest that time is already bought in on your solution. They're not shopping your model around; they're using it to justify a decision they've already made. Luna: So the signal is that the buyer is asking you to help them sell internally, not asking for a discount. Lucas: Exactly. If they say 'I need you to justify the price to my boss,' that's a different conversation. But if they say 'I need to justify the price to my boss myself but I don't know how' — that's the cue. Luna: And then you get to decide whether you're willing to invest the time. This is not a tactic for a small deal. You're not going to spend two hours building a TCO model for a ten thousand dollar contract. Lucas: Right. The rep I spoke with only uses this for deals over a hundred thousand dollars annual recurring revenue. And she only offers it when the champion has already demonstrated they're willing to advocate internally — they've scheduled meetings, they've pushed back on objections. If they're passive, she doesn't go there. Luna: So you're essentially qualifying the buyer's commitment before you do the work. Lucas: Exactly. It's a form of reciprocity too. You're investing time in them, and they subconsciously want to honor that investment. But the real win is that you're creating a shared artifact — a spreadsheet that the buyer co-owns. That makes it much harder for them to walk away without a compelling reason. Luna: I want to talk about the actual training session. What does the rep do differently from a typical discovery call? Lucas: Good question. The rep told me she starts by asking the buyer to pull up their own procurement or budgeting process. She says, 'Walk me through how a capital expenditure gets approved in your company. What documents do you need? Who signs off?' She maps the process first. Luna: So she understands the specific format the CFO expects. Lucas: Right. Some CFOs want a one-page executive summary. Others want a full ROI model with sensitivity analysis. The rep then builds the case in the format the buyer will present it, using the buyer's own templates if possible. That's a move most reps don't think about — they just send their own branded deck. Luna: Because the buyer presenting in their own company's template looks more credible than a vendor's slide. Lucas: Much more. And the rep also role-plays the tough questions with the buyer. She'll say, 'If the CFO asks why you didn't consider outsourcing instead, here's how you answer.' She's literally coaching them on the objections the CFO will raise. Luna: That's a lot more than just sending a spreadsheet. That's like doing the internal sales call for them, but from the sidelines. Lucas: It is. And it works because it positions the rep as a partner, not a vendor. The buyer feels more confident, the CFO sees a well-prepared internal recommendation, and the deal accelerates. In this case, it went from six weeks of radio silence to a signed contract in three days. Luna: What about after the deal closes? Does that investment pay off in retention? Lucas: The rep said that clients who go through this process have significantly lower churn in the first year, because they have a clearer understanding of the value they're supposed to get. They know exactly what metrics to track. So the implementation phase goes smoother too. Luna: So it's not just a closing tactic — it's a customer success tactic disguised as a sales tactic. Lucas: Completely. And that's why I think this is such a powerful approach. It aligns incentives. The rep doesn't just want the signature; they want the buyer to be successful so they expand later. Training the buyer on price is really training them on value. Luna: I'm going to try this with one of my own stalled deals. But I'm curious — what's the one piece of advice for a rep who wants to try this tomorrow? Lucas: Start small. Pick one deal where you know the champion is strong but stalling. Offer a thirty-minute 'CFO prep session' instead of the full two-hour model build. See how they respond. If they jump at it, you've got your signal. If they say 'no thanks, just send a quote,' you know they're not willing to do the work internally. Luna: So the training itself becomes a qualification tool too. Lucas: Exactly. And if they do take you up on it, you'll learn more about their internal politics in thirty minutes than you would in three discovery calls. Luna: Alright, I'm sold. I think this is one of those tactics that sounds risky but actually de-risks the deal. Lucas: It does. And it's a reminder that sometimes the best way to close is to stop trying to close and start teaching.