The Salecopy Method: eight moves for negotiating a deal

What the method is

Most negotiation advice is about what to say in the room. The Salecopy Method is about what you write down before and after the room. It is eight moves, in order, that spell S-A-L-E-C-O-P-Y: Signal, Anchor, List, Evidence, Concessions, Options, Paper, Yes.

Each move answers one question about the deal and leaves one record behind in your CRM (customer relationship management system, the place where your deals and contacts are kept). It can be HubSpot, Salesforce or another tool. What matters is that the answer is on the deal and not in one person's head.

It is written for owners, founders and sales leaders at B2B companies, meaning companies that sell to other companies. You do not need to be a career salesperson to use it. You need to be willing to prepare before a pricing call and to write down what happened after it.

The eight moves, one line each

Here is the whole method. The full version, with a line to say and a field to add for each move, is on the method page.

• S, Signal. Know why now. Write down what changed for the buyer and when.
• A, Anchor. Set the first number, and make it the cost of doing nothing, worked out in the buyer's own figures.
• L, List. List everyone who can say no: who approves, who blocks, who delays, and what each one needs to see.
• E, Evidence. Answer every objection with proof, and keep the list of what is open and what is closed.
• C, Concessions. Plan your trades. Every give has a get, written before the call.
• O, Options. Write your walk-away before the call, and what you will do instead.
• P, Paper. Put the plan on paper, with dates and owners on both sides.
• Y, Yes. A yes without a date is a maybe. End with a dated next step that the buyer owns.

Why every move ends with something written

The first principle of the method is plain: if it is not on the record, it did not happen. A negotiation that lives in one person's head cannot be coached, checked or handed over.

Think about what a manager can see on a deal today. In many pipelines (the list of open deals and the stage each one has reached), it is an amount, a stage and a close date. None of those say whether the buyer has a deadline, whether anyone with budget has been met, or what the rep is allowed to give away. So the deal review turns into the rep telling a story and the manager guessing.

When each move leaves a record, the review changes. The manager reads the why-now, the cost of doing nothing, the buying roles, the open objections, the give and get list, the walk-away, the plan and the next step. Empty fields show where the deal is weak. That is where the coaching goes.

The record also protects the deal when people change. A rep goes on leave, a deal moves to another owner, the buyer's contact leaves. Whoever picks it up can read where things stand in a few minutes.

Why the moves come in this order

The moves run in the order a deal runs. Signal and Anchor come first because they decide whether there is a negotiation at all. A deal with no deadline is negotiated forever, and a price quoted before the buyer has agreed what the problem costs gets compared with zero.

List and Evidence come next because they find the people and the concerns that will otherwise appear late. Deals are rarely lost to the person you are talking to. They are lost to someone you never met, or to an objection that was answered with enthusiasm instead of proof.

Concessions and Options are your preparation for the pricing conversation: what you can trade, and where you stop. Price is the last thing you talk about, and the first thing you prepare.

Paper and Yes close it out. They turn an agreement in principle into steps with owners and dates, so a verbal yes does not turn into a signature that slips a quarter.

Where AI fits

The rule is the same in every move: AI prepares and checks. A person decides and speaks.

In practice an AI assistant can read call notes and propose the why-now in one sentence, build the cost calculation from the inputs the buyer gave, flag a buying role with no contact attached, list the objections still open, and check a proposed concession against your approval limits. It can also play the buyer so a rep can practise before the real call.

It does not send, promise or concede anything. The rep confirms or rewrites what the AI drafts, and a person makes every commitment. For more on where that line sits, read what AI should and should not do in a deal.

How to start this week

Do not roll out all eight moves at once. Start with the first and the last, Signal and Yes. They need the least setup, and they tell you which of your open deals have a reason to close.

• Monday: add two fields to the deal record, Why now (text) and Buyer's deadline (date).
• Tuesday: add three more, Next step (text), Next step owner (a buyer contact) and Next step date.
• Wednesday: go through every open deal in negotiation and fill them in. If you do not know the answer, leave the field empty. Do not guess.
• Thursday: on each buyer call, ask the Signal question: "What happens on your side if this is still not solved by the end of the quarter?"
• Friday: count the deals in negotiation that have no deadline or no dated next step. Those are your maybes.

What to expect, and what to add next

The first week can be uncomfortable. A deal you thought was close may turn out to have no deadline and no date. That is the method doing its job. It does not promise that more deals close. It shows you which ones are real, so your time and your concessions go to those.

After that, add one move at a time. Anchor and Concessions make a good second pair, because they shape the pricing conversation most directly. When you are ready for your pipeline to hold the moves in place, so a deal cannot move forward with the key fields empty, read pipeline stages with exit criteria.

What to add to your CRM

A prompt to try

You are helping me prepare for a negotiation using The Salecopy Method. The eight moves are: Signal (why now and the buyer's deadline), Anchor (the cost of doing nothing per month, in the buyer's figures), List (everyone who can say no), Evidence (objections and the proof that answers each), Concessions (what we can give and what we get back for each), Options (our walk-away and both sides' alternatives), Paper (a shared plan with owners and dates), Yes (a dated next step the buyer owns).

Here are my notes on the deal:
[paste your deal notes, call notes or transcript]

For each of the eight moves, in order:
1. Quote what my notes already say about it.
2. If my notes say nothing, write MISSING. Do not guess or fill the gap with an assumption.
3. Give me one question I could ask the buyer to fill the gap.

Finish with the three gaps I should close first, and why. Use only what is in my notes. Do not draft messages to the buyer and do not contact anyone. I will decide what to say and send.