1. Fruitful Business
Many sales reps have their heart set on the value of the contracts they sign. They sign a USD 100,000
contract and feel great – celebrations are in order, everybody congratulates the hero and he moves on
to the next deal.
That is great in a perfect world, but in a competitive world where customers want everything for as little
as possible our “hero” has to build a healthy sale from the beginning and not resort to burning his/her
prices to close the business. Sales rep who do this usually focus their mind on the revenue and try to
ignore the profitability of the deal by telling themselves that this is a one-off time of burning the prices
and they will make it up in a future deal. The reality is that this future deal never comes and once you
start burning your prices, you will inevitably continue to do so.
Customers are not opportunistic or manipulative; they want the best deal for their company and so do
you. What you need is to educate them and build together a healthy sale where each party gets what it
deserves.
Customers do not know the cost structure of your company. They do not know the cost of doing
business and terms like SG&A are gibberish to them – and possibly to you! Do you know what SG&A is?
SG&A is “Sales, General & Admin” expenses that may climb up to 14% in some companies, and as a
great entrepreneurial sales rep you should know this figure when you price you goods/services
The key to fruitful business is to teach your customers from the beginning what they do not know and
bring them up to the level of valuing your price even if it is higher than your competition because you
are in business to stay – you are not a hit and run person/company.
In services industry the deal contains:
1) Fixed cost elements like the machines, SW, material you buy at fixed cost
2) Subcontracted cost like the cost of subcontractors’ resources working for you during the project
duration
3) The cost of your resources working for X number of days or weeks, and this is where you you’re
your money.
Your target is to maximize your profitability by:
a) Negotiating your cost and margin for cost elements #1 &# 2
b) Making sure you know the real cost of your resources to properly price them
c) Making sure you are covered by Change Management mechanism to protect you against scope
creeps and slips.
Great sales reps think like business owners, they are not attracted by the revenue figures only, but
worry about the health of the whole deal; i-e revenue, profit, payment, collection, reference-ability, and

2. repeat business. Great Sales reps are self employed to solve customers’ problems by motivating them
to invest in their products/services.