Write your walk-away before the pricing call

What the Options move is

Options is the sixth move in The Salecopy Method. Before price is discussed, you decide in writing the point at which you say no, and what you will do instead. Then you work out the buyer's options too.

The mistake it prevents is finding your limit live on the call, under pressure. A limit found that way is not a limit. It is whatever number ends the discomfort, and it is rarely the number you would have chosen at your desk the day before, with a calculator and a calm head.

Write the walk-away as a number and terms

The walk-away is the worst deal you would still sign. Below it, you say no. Write it as a price and the terms that go with it, because price alone hides half the deal.

Work it out from your costs and your capacity, not from how much you want this customer. Have the person who approves discounts agree it before the call, so your rep is not negotiating with the buyer and with their own manager at the same time.

A walk-away is not a target. You do not open with it or aim for it. It is the floor, and its job is to let you say no without having to think. It usually covers:

• The lowest price for the full scope.
• The longest payment terms you can carry, for example payment within 30 days and not 90.
• The shortest contract length that still makes the work worth doing.
• Anything you will not agree to at any price, such as unlimited changes or a start date you cannot staff.

Write your own alternative

Next, write what you will do if this deal does not happen at an acceptable number. This is your alternative, and it has to be real.

There are three common ones: a smaller scope at a price that works, a later start when the buyer has the budget, or a polite exit that leaves the door open. Add what the freed-up time is worth to you. If your delivery team is booked for the next two months, losing this deal costs you little. If they are idle, it costs more. Know that before the call. Do not let the buyer hear it in your voice first.

Be honest here. An alternative you invent to feel better does not make you calm. Other live deals do. That is one more reason to keep prospecting while a large deal is in negotiation.

Work out the buyer's alternative

The buyer has options too. They can do nothing, build it themselves, stay with the current supplier or choose a competitor. Write down which is most likely and what it costs them.

Doing nothing is often the real competitor, and you may already have its price. If you worked through the Anchor move, the buyer has agreed what the problem costs each month it continues. See anchor on the cost of doing nothing.

Here is an invented example. Say the buyer agreed the problem costs them 8,000 a month, and your price is 60,000. Waiting a year costs them 8,000 times 12, which is 96,000. A request to cut your price by 10 percent is a request for 6,000. One more month spent arguing about it costs them 8,000. You do not need to say that sharply. You need to know it.

If the buyer's alternative is strong, for example a capable competitor at a lower price, write that down too. It tells you to compete on scope and proof, or to walk early and save both sides the time.

Offer two smaller versions, not a discount

When the buyer names a number below what the full scope costs, the line from the method is: At that number I cannot do the full scope. Here are two versions I can do.

Prepare the two versions before the call. Each one removes something real: fewer users, one site and not three, a first phase without the second, standard onboarding and not custom. Price each one properly.

This does three things. It shows your price is tied to work, not to nerve. It gives the buyer a choice between two ways of saying yes. And it tests the budget claim. A buyer with a true budget limit picks a smaller version. A buyer who was testing you often goes back to the full scope.

A discount with nothing removed tells the buyer the first price was padded. If you do move on price, trade it for something from your give and get list, covered in never concede, trade.

Put it on the deal before negotiation

All three items go on the deal record in your CRM (customer relationship management system, the place your deals are recorded) before the deal enters the negotiation stage: the walk-away, your alternative, the buyer's alternative. If they are blank, the pricing call is not ready to happen.

An AI assistant can hold that line for you. It can refuse to call a deal ready for a pricing call until the walk-away is filled in, and it can draft two smaller-scope versions from your price list. It drafts. The rep and the approver decide the numbers, and the rep says them to the buyer.

Writing it down also helps after the deal. When you compare the walk-away with the price you signed at, across many deals, you can see which reps hold their ground and which ones land on the floor every time. That is a coaching conversation you could not have before.

Before your next pricing call

Give yourself fifteen minutes the day before. Write the three lines, draft the two smaller versions and get the walk-away approved. If you cannot finish, move the call. A day's delay costs less than a number you agreed to because you had nothing else ready to say.

What to add to your CRM

A prompt to try

You are helping me prepare for a pricing call with a B2B buyer. Do not contact anyone and do not write messages for sending. I will decide every number myself. Your job is to check my preparation and tell me what is missing.

What I sell: [your product or service]
Full scope and price I plan to propose: [scope and price]
My price list or the parts that make up the scope: [paste here]
My walk-away, as price and terms: [fill in, or write: not decided]
My alternative if this deal does not close: [fill in]
What I know about the buyer's alternative: [fill in]
Cost of doing nothing the buyer agreed, per month: [fill in, or write: not agreed]

Do this:
1. If my walk-away is not decided, stop and tell me the pricing call is not ready. Ask me the questions I need to answer to set it.
2. Check that my walk-away includes terms as well as price. List any term I have not covered.
3. Draft two smaller-scope versions using only items from my price list. Show what each removes and the arithmetic for each price.
4. Say in two sentences how strong the buyer's alternative looks, using only what I told you.
5. List what is missing from my preparation.

Do not invent prices, costs or facts about the buyer.