Discounts and Negotiation: Protect Your Price

About half your customers are quietly waiting for a sale—even when they’re ready to pay full price. A client of mine learned this the hard way: one “limited-time” discount turned into their new normal. In today’s episode, we’ll explore how that happens—and how to stop it.

Harvard Business Review estimates the average company gives away roughly 1–2 % of revenue every year in unnecessary discounts. Not bad, until you remember most profit lives in that thin slice at the bottom of your P&L. Today we’re going to treat your price like an asset to be defended, not a number to be negotiated away.

We’ll look at why “just 10 % off” can quietly destroy your margins, how constant promotions train customers to distrust your list price, and what disciplined discounters do differently. Instead of arguing that discounts are “bad,” we’ll explore how to use them as precise tools: when to say yes, what to ask for in return, and how to keep your full price as the unquestioned reference point.