Latest / Closing the Deal with Fexingo: Sales, Negotiation, and Revenue Conversations for Operators / How One Rep Closed by Letting the Buyer Write the Contract
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this moment in almost every complex B2B deal where the buyer has said yes in principle, but then everything stalls. Legal needs to review. Procurement wants to renegotiate. And the rep is stuck waiting. Luna: Right. The verbal commitment happens, but the paper kills the momentum. Lucas: Exactly. So a rep I spoke with — let's call her Dana — tried something different. She was selling a mid-market SaaS platform, about two hundred seats, annual contract value of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The buyer's team had signed off, but legal was dragging its feet on her company's standard MSA. Luna: Standard MSA — master services agreement. The boilerplate that every legal team wants to redline. Lucas: Precisely. So Dana said to the buyer's procurement lead, 'What if your team drafts the contract? I'll review it, but we start from your template.' And the guy was stunned. Luna: That's a huge power move. She's giving up control of the document. Lucas: On the surface, yes. But let's think about what really happens. When the buyer drafts the contract, they have to put all their own standard terms in there — indemnification, liability caps, termination clauses. And once they've written it, they own it. Their legal team can't argue against language they drafted themselves. Luna: So the objections shift from 'we need to change this' to 'well, we wrote this.' Lucas: Exactly. Dana told me that the contract came back in three days. It had a few clauses her company couldn't accept — an uncapped liability on data breach, for example — but the negotiation was fast because the other side couldn't claim their own terms were unreasonable. Luna: What about the risk though? If the buyer writes the contract, aren't you potentially accepting terms that are worse for you? Lucas: You still have review rights. You still say no. But you start from a position of trust. You're saying, 'I trust you to be fair.' And that disarms the adversarial dynamic. In Dana's case, the final contract was actually better for her on payment terms — net 30 instead of net 60 — because the buyer's own template had that built in. Luna: So she got better payment terms by letting them write it. That's counterintuitive. Lucas: It is. But it makes sense when you think about the psychology. When you present your own contract, the buyer's job is to find problems. When they present theirs, their job is to defend it. And you become the collaborator who helps them make it work. Luna: This reminds me of a study I read — something about how people value things more when they've helped create them. The IKEA effect, they call it. Lucas: That's exactly what's at play here. The buyer's legal team feels ownership over the document. They're less likely to kill the deal over small points because it's their baby. Dana closed that deal three weeks faster than her typical cycle. Luna: Three weeks on a mid-market deal is significant. That's pipeline velocity. Lucas: And lower risk of the deal going dark. Because every week of delay increases the chance that a champion leaves or a budget gets frozen. Luna: So when does this backfire? I can imagine scenarios where the buyer's team is just incompetent or their template is a nightmare. Lucas: It backfires if you're dealing with a purely transactional buyer who sees the contract as a weapon. Or if your own legal team refuses to budge from your template. Dana had buy-in from her legal team beforehand. She said, 'I might ask them to draft the contract — is that okay?' And her legal was fine with it as long as she ran the final version by them. Luna: So preparation matters. You can't spring this on your own legal team after the fact. Lucas: Right. And you also need to gauge the buyer's maturity. A startup with no legal team? Bad idea. But a company with a seasoned procurement department? They have templates they've refined over hundreds of deals. They know what's standard. Luna: What about the relationship dynamic? Doesn't the rep lose leverage by ceding control? Lucas: Leverage in negotiation isn't about who holds the pen. It's about who can walk away. Dana still could walk away. But by letting them draft, she signaled that she wasn't trying to hide anything. That built trust. And trust is leverage too. Luna: So it's a trust-building tactic that also speeds things up. I can see why it worked. Lucas: And here's the thing — if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps them going. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that makes a real difference. Keeps us ad-free and focused on the tactics that actually work. Lucas: So back to the contract tactic. Dana also told me that by letting the buyer draft, she discovered something about their priorities. Their template had a very short confidentiality clause but a detailed data processing section. That told her data security was their real concern, not IP protection. Luna: That's intelligence you wouldn't get from sending your own contract. You'd have to guess what they care about. Lucas: Exactly. Their contract is a map of their anxieties. And once you know that, you can address those anxieties directly. Dana spent the next call walking through their data security requirements, not arguing about indemnification. Luna: So the tactic isn't just about speed — it's about insight. Lucas: Right. And that insight helped her close a second deal with the same company six months later, because they remembered her as the rep who made legal easy. Luna: I want to talk about the practical execution. How does a rep actually bring this up without sounding weak? Lucas: Dana's phrasing was: 'To save us both time, would it work if your team sent over your standard agreement? We can use that as a starting point.' She framed it as efficiency, not surrender. Luna: That's smart. It's a proposal, not a concession. Lucas: And she said it after the verbal yes, not before. Timing matters. If you say it too early, they might think you're desperate. But after they've committed in principle, it feels like collaboration. Luna: What if the buyer says no? What if they insist on using your contract? Lucas: Then you use your contract. No harm done. But Dana says that in about forty percent of her deals, the buyer agrees. And in those deals, the cycle is consistently shorter. Luna: So it's a low-risk ask with a high potential payoff. Worth trying on the right deal. Lucas: Absolutely. But I'd add one more layer. Dana also asked the buyer to include a clause that said the contract would auto-renew unless either party gave sixty days' notice. That was her idea, not theirs. She added it during the review. Luna: So she still influenced the content. She didn't just accept everything. Lucas: Right. You're not passive. You're editing. But you start from their frame, which makes them more receptive to your changes. Luna: That's the key distinction. You let them write the first draft, but you own the final version. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a principle that extends beyond contracts. In any negotiation, letting the other side propose first can give you information and make them more committed to the outcome. Luna: So the takeaway for our listeners: next time you're stuck in legal limbo, consider handing over the pen. Lucas: If you've built enough trust and your legal team is on board, it might be the fastest path to close.