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GM to the Top 1% ☕ |
Reps keep asking the wrong question about machine buyers. They ask how to win the argument. You do not win the argument. The machine has more data, more patience, and no pulse. |
The right question is quieter. What is this agent actually optimizing, and who chose those variables? |
Because a model is only as smart as the inputs it was handed. If the deal is defined as price times seats, it will crush you on price times seats. Change the definition, and you change who wins. |
💡 THE VARIABLES ARE THE BATTLEGROUND. NOT THE PRICE. |
Every buying agent runs on an objective function. Minimize cost, subject to some constraints. That is the whole game happening on the other side of the table, and most sellers never think about it. They just react to the output, the target price, and try to defend it. |
That is a losing seat. By the time you see the number, the fight is already over, because the fight was in how the problem was framed. If price is the only variable that carries weight, you were beaten before the meeting started. |
The winning move is upstream. You get into the deal early enough to influence what the agent is told to optimize for. Total cost of a failed implementation, not just license price. Time to value, not just discount. Risk of switching, not just savings. When those enter the objective function, the cheapest bid stops being the best bid, and the model itself starts arguing your case. You are not fighting the machine. You are editing its instructions before it runs. That is a skill, and almost nobody is practicing it yet. |
🔧 THE FOUR MOVES TO REPRICE A MACHINE DEAL |
Do not negotiate the output. Rewrite the inputs. |
1. Get in before the criteria lock: The objective function is set early, usually before you know the deal is real. Multi-thread and shape the requirements while they are still soft. |
2. Add a cost the model is ignoring: Downtime, ramp time, integration risk, the price of a switch that fails. Name it, size it in dollars, and make it a scored line, not a feeling. |
3. Convert your edge into a constraint: Turn your differentiator into a must-have requirement, not a nice-to-have. A constraint the cheaper vendor cannot meet takes them out of the model entirely. |
4. Give the human a number to defend: The exec who overrules the agent needs ammunition. Hand them the one figure that makes choosing you the safe, defensible call. |
🎯 THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK |
Take one active deal and write the buyer's objective function as you think their agent sees it today. One line: minimize what, subject to what. Then write the version you want it to be. The gap between those two lines is your entire job on that deal. |
❓ QUESTION OF THE DAY |
On your biggest deal, do you know what the buyer's model is optimizing for, or are you just reacting to the price it spits out? |
Reply with the variable you most need to get into the deal before the criteria lock. |
See you tomorrow. |
Edward |
Founder, Morning Sales |
P.S. Shaping the criteria before they lock is prep work, the kind most reps never make time for. The 500 prompts I sell walk you through it, requirement discovery, cost-of-failure math, turning a differentiator into a scored constraint. 27 dollars for the system I actually use: https://store.edwardgorbis.com |