Today, I’m excited to share insights from my discussion with Blair Siegler, CEO and founder of Quantico. We explored negotiation intelligence, a crucial but often overlooked aspect of B2B sales that significantly impacts business profitability and client relationships.
Quantico’s Origin Story
Blair started Quantico to fill a market gap he noticed at Meta, where effective value exchanges were critical to product adoption and client investment. He and his brother also saw challenges with discounts in enterprise sales, sparking the idea of a platform to manage these impacts.
Blair pointed out that businesses often apply discounts without analyzing their long-term effects. He suggested using historical data on successful deals to improve negotiation strategies. Companies can turn past discount data into a strategic asset using machine learning and AI.
The Reality Versus Policy on Discounting
I noted that there is often a gap between discount policies and their real-world application. Blair agreed and mentioned that companies are aligning their pricing strategies better. This helps make CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) systems more effective and predictable.
Blair explained that making revenue concessions visible has helped clients improve their profit margins by three to four percent. This small improvement can have a big cumulative effect, similar to how termites slowly damage a structure. Over time, unchecked concessions can significantly erode a company’s profitability.
Balancing Revenue Goals and Organizational Costs
We discussed how sales teams focused on revenue can clash with other departments that see themselves as cost centers. This misalignment can hurt the company’s financial health. Companies need to ensure their sales strategies also reflect broader financial goals.
Blair highlighted the importance of visualizing data to make it easy to understand and use. This approach allows sales professionals to make informed decisions based on solid evidence. It also helps bridge the gap between complex tools and sales teams.
The Future of Sales: Combining Data with Human Insight
In wrapping up our conversation, Blair and I agreed that experience and intuition are still vital in sales but are even better when combined with data-driven insights. Quantico enhances the human element in sales with clear, actionable data to support decision-making. This combination of data and human insight sets successful sales strategies apart.
As we concluded our discussion, it was clear that embracing negotiation intelligence can fundamentally transform how B2B sales teams operate. By understanding and leveraging negotiation tactics and discount strategies, businesses can build stronger, more beneficial partnerships with their clients, enhancing profitability and long-term success.
Thank you for joining me in this deep dive into negotiation intelligence. I hope these insights inspire you to refine your sales strategies and negotiate effectively and strategically. Until next time, keep aiming for smart, strategic negotiations that propel your business forward.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
