Ditch the Adversarial Negotiating: How Transparency Wins in Cyber Sales – Todd Caponi, Author of Four Levers Negotiating

Are you tired of sales negotiations feeling like a hostile game of poker against procurement pros who seem to hold all the cards? Wondering if there’s a way to maintain your deal’s value without relying on outdated, adversarial tactics? Struggling with year-end deals where buyers expect last-minute discounts and you’re anxious about giving away too much? This episode is for cybersecurity sales and marketing leaders seeking a transparent, effective, and less stressful way to close deals.

In this conversation, we discuss: 

👉 Why traditional and commonly taught sales negotiation techniques no longer fit today’s buyer-seller dynamic
👉 Todd Caponi’s “Four Levers Negotiating” framework to build trust and keep more margin
👉 Practical, actionable ways to position pricing and negotiations, especially at year-end, so both parties win

About our guest:
Todd Caponi is a multiple-time sales executive and author with experience leading revenue organizations through two successful exits. He now advises, teaches, and speaks to sales teams about transparency and behavioral science in negotiation. Todd’s upcoming book, "Four Levers Negotiating," outlines a straightforward approach that’s transforming how sales teams manage deal-making conversations.

Summary:
Listen in as Andrew Monaghan and Todd Caponi unpack how cybersecurity sellers can escape the cycle of adversarial negotiations by embracing a transparent, lever-based approach. Discover how to reframe value conversations, negotiate with confidence, and earn buyer trust—so you close deals faster with less discounting. Tune in and rethink your negotiation mindset!

Connect with Todd Caponi on LinkedIn and visit toddcaponi.com. 

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Transcript

Andrew Monaghan:
I'm wondering if this sounds familiar to you. You spend months and months trying to win a deal. You're trying to build up the value, get the technical win, and then suddenly you get the okay from your champion to say, look, you've been selected and now we want to start negotiating. When I start the procurement process, the business side of this transaction, at that moment, what you're trying to do is maintain the value that you've built up along the way. You try not to discount it away as you get the pressure from your prospect and as you're trying to get the deal done in your time frame. And in that moment. It feels weird sometimes, right? It feels adversarial. You've suddenly gone from this situation where you're really working hard together, often you're champion and suddenly you're an adversarial moment as different people trying to get different things out of the deal.

Andrew Monaghan:
And it can feel like a poker match that you feel like you're losing. A lot of the time. You're wondering if you're doing all you can to maintain what you want from the deal. If that sounds familiar, you'll be pleased to know that I've got Todd Capone as our guest today. Todd is a multi time C level sales leader who's had two exits under his belt and who now speaks and teaches revenue organizations on using transparency and behavioral science to sell more. His latest book is called Four Levers Negotiating. And on this episode we talk about how the old ways of negotiating are out of date, how negotiating doesn't have to be that cloak and dagger adversarial dog fight all the time. What to do right now to prepare for the negotiations for your end of year deal and how to properly position a year end purchase and a lot more.

Andrew Monaghan:
I'm Andrew Monahan and this is a cybersecurity go to market podcast where we tackle the question, how can cybersecurity companies grow sales faster? All right, Todd, well, welcome to the podcast.

Todd Caponi:
Well, thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this one.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah, we got a cybersecurity audience so I don't know how that compares to who you usually talk with, but we got a very interesting set of people for you to engage with today.

Todd Caponi:
Yeah, I've spread my nonsense around quite a few cybersecurity revenue and customer facing organizations, so I love it. And yeah, can't wait to get nerdy with you.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah, I've been looking forward to this. I mean, I think the negotiation is one of these things. I always feel like sellers are at a bit of a disadvantage because you think an average seller is closing what, 100, 200k deals. They might have two or three a quarter, let's say. And they're up against people who might have 20 deals. Good procurement people might have 20, 30 deals to try to close a quarter. So they're just much more practiced in the whole process. Anytime, I think, well, how do we get better at this? How do we.

Andrew Monaghan:
To be more effective in dealing with people who seem to have this slight advantage or major advantage over us is good. But let me frame how I think about this, Todd, and you can jump in and tell me if I'm right or wrong or how you think about it. So I've been selling since 1994. In my career, when I started off, there was books like Getting to Yass and there was power negotiating and how to get more at your deals and all that sort of stuff, right? And that was the wave at the time. I don't know when that was probably 90s, 2000s, early 2000s, something like that. And I always felt those approaches were, I don't know, they were very well researched, let's say they always had arguments about why you did it a certain way and it was 23% better or whatever it might be. Right. Very scientific.

Andrew Monaghan:
But I felt it was always formulaic and it was a bit adversarial. And then fast forward, I don't know when it was 10 years ago, Chris Voss comes along with never split the difference and flips everything on his head and goes, oh, it's all. We got to be emotional, empathetic, and we got to show that we're human beings and care and that's how we'll actually collaborate better. Right? And he gave us a lot of good things in that book, which I know salespeople use just in general in sales, never mind negotiating. So let's fast forward to today. Now, what's wrong with these old approaches that we suddenly need a new one from Todd Capone?

Todd Caponi:
Well, it's funny. So side note, before I directly answer that when cool people are doing cool things on the weekends, I'm ear deep in late late 1800s and early 1900s Books and magazines on sales and sales leadership. So anybody who's watching this versus listening to it behind me is it smells like your grandma's basement behind me with all the books and historical things here. But it's funny, I would every morning I get up and the first thing I do is I read something old and I was read from the 1920s. And again, this is aside to what you were just asking me. But you talked about, hey, salespeople are at a tremendous disadvantage in a negotiation. There was an article I was reading this morning about how buyers felt like they were at a huge disadvantage against sellers because sellers were practicing and getting their messaging right and handling objections and doing all that stuff. And buyers, salespeople were relentless to the point where buyers were constantly buying stuff they didn't need.

Todd Caponi:
And so there was all these books on how to sell. The writer actually wrote, we need a book on how to resist being sold to. So, side note, I just thought that was funny. All right, so to your point and your question about what is it that requires us to do something differently today? You know, for me, I wouldn't even just say it's today. It's always been this way. In the way that I sold is I thought it was weird growing up that I needed a different personality to negotiate than I did to sell. Like, I don't know if people listening experience that. But sales, at least how I was taught, was meant to be a service profession where I'm trying to help customers achieve optimal outcomes.

Todd Caponi:
We're building a relationship right to the goal line. We get there, customer says, yes, I want to buy from you, and what do we do? Well, at least subconsciously, in the way that I was taught, we kind of go into, all right, I'm going to start lying to you now, Mode. I don't. I'm not going to tell you what the best deal is. You got to figure that out on your own. And to your point, in many cases, we are learning techniques taught by former FBI hostage negotiators like Chris Foss. Now, I've got the book. You see that? I've got it tabbed like, I love this book.

Todd Caponi:
But here's the thing. For me, I feel like when we treat a sales negotiation like it's the release of hostages from a bank heist, I just don't think that's sustainable anymore. And here's a couple of reasons why. Number one is so much of what's taught in historic negotiation, all the way through Chris Voss's book, is that we're treating the negotiation like an event. It's the peak of the sales relationship. Well, I would argue that in today's economy, this kind of as a service economy, and everybody who's listening, if you're in the cybersecurity realm, you're probably selling in a kind of a SaaS model where the deal is no longer the peak. It's merely an early milestone on the path to having customers that not only buy, but they stay, they buy more and they advocate and they take you with them to their next company. I just don't see how it's sustainable to a, right at the goal line of a deal.

Todd Caponi:
Go into this mode where you start focusing solely on your own outcomes, not the customers. And B, you have every single customer paying a different amount based on how well or poorly the negotiation went. I mean, AI is already exposing pricing model most of your solutions that you're all selling. If I go into ChatGPT and go, hey, how does force count or you know, recorded future digis or like how did they price their solutions? It's going to give me a pretty accurate representation. I just think it's a race to the bottom that we're doing it via negotiation techniques of events versus treating it like just an early stage in the process.

Andrew Monaghan:
If I'm a seller though, Todd, I mean, I've looked a lot of comp plans over the years. I'm comped on what I close now, not what happens in six months or a year or so. Maybe there's a little bit of an element to my comp on that. And I don't try and do the right thing by the company, but I'm, you know, let's face it, right? The reps sitting there going, oh my God, I've committed four deals. I've got to get 700 in by the end of the month or the quarter. You know, their focus is very short term. Like, I just need to get this, I need to get it done. Otherwise who knows what, I might get fired or whatever, right? So I can imagine, I can see how the CRO and the leadership will say, yeah, we got a longer term thing here we got to think about.

Andrew Monaghan:
But reps are sitting there going, I've got to get my numbers in. So how do we help a seller just kind of maybe transform their mindset a little bit to see the wider picture around this?

Todd Caponi:
Well, yeah, I mean, I would argue that there's so much there to unpack. But you know, number one is, I mean, there's an irony to this idea that when we give stuff away, we accelerate deals. As it turns out, it does the opposite. We actually slow down deals the minute we start giving stuff away. Because in the buyer's mind now, I know the price isn't the price. I know that there's stuff to be found if I just ask the right questions. And now we have slowed things down. I mean, you And I are recording this a little bit before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S.

Todd Caponi:
now imagine it's, you know, November 20th right now, and I've got my sweater on here and I accidentally wash it and I dry it and I pull it out of the dryer and I'm like, oh, this thing's destroyed. Ah, crap. I go on to bananarepublic.com where I bought it and I see they still have it. Now, should I buy it now, November 20th? No. I'd be a moron to do that given that next Friday is Black Friday and everything's going to be 40 to 50% off. So don't you see the, like, the irony of how we actually are incentivizing our customers to slow down? And then number two is, gosh, don't you get paid on the contract value of your deals? You probably get paid on the, you know, total revenue or total bookings, a B, you probably get a kicker maybe for having customers that pay a little faster. Not all of you do, but, you know, payment terms probably matter. Number three is you probably get paid more for longer term deals versus shorter.

Todd Caponi:
And number four is you probably do have to be able to forecast and there is some short term reward to being accurate with your forecasting. What I advocate through this kind of new lens, and we can talk through this, of course, is your customer's business is driven by the four same four things yours are. They want their customers to commit to a large amount of volume versus a short amount. They want customers to pay faster, not slower. They want customers to commit to longer term, not shorter. And they want to be able to forecast. This approach that I'm advocating for and have been for 17 years now, that builds trust. You discount less and your forecast becomes more accurate is to be able to have those conversations with your customers.

Todd Caponi:
You're establishing a foundation for what your pricing is based on, based on truth. But you're given flexibility within those four things, telling the customer, hey, your price is based on how much you buy, how fast you pay, how long you commit, and when you sign, if you need something, you want a discount, you want to pay slower, you want to commit less. All right, cool. These are the levers we push and pull. And what you find is your anxiety around negotiating goes away. But like I said, you're building not only for the short term because you're probably going to get paid more because you're going to discount less, but you're building for the long term when they come back to you and they want to Buy more, they want to renew. And you get that call from a former customer that's like, hey, we loved you over here, we want you here. Give us the same discount.

Todd Caponi:
Like, ah, crap. Right. So again though, sure, the, the long term wins the long term. But I would argue that if you play the long game now, the long game eventually will start filling your wallet in the short game too.

Andrew Monaghan:
And the book is called the Four Levers of Negotiating. Right there.

Todd Caponi:
There's four levers negotiating. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Monaghan:
And you just outline them there. Right. So volume, so units, deal size, things like that.

Todd Caponi:
Yeah. License seats, locations, whatever it is. In cybersecurity, typically it's a seat model, it's a license model, it's a server model. It's one of those commit to more, better, commit to less, not as good. Right. You know, one of my clients, it's certificates, right. Or whatever it is, commit to more, better, less, not as good. Number two, timing of cash.

Todd Caponi:
You're probably seeking all of your customers and proposing it this way to pay upfront, annually, net 30. Right. You probably. Number three, length of commitment is wanting your customers to commit to a minimum of a one year longer, probably better, shorter, not as good. And then number four is, as you get down to that goal line, mutual alignment around timing. You want your customers to help you forecast, right. Versus the fake expiring. You know, this weekend, only 30% off.

Todd Caponi:
Right. Like the customer knows that's crap. They know that if they don't buy this month, when you give that 30%, they can probably ask for it again next quarter and you'll either give it or, or if they wait again, irony, you're probably going to offer it again. Mutual alignment is around understanding the customer's timeframe and then incentivizing them to stick to it, not forcing it on them and trying to manufacture, motivate, speed up your deals.

Andrew Monaghan:
You brought up the timing that we're talking about right now, Right. So it is November 20th. Looking at my calendar right there, so many of us are staring at six weeks until year end, right. I look at the four levers, there's nothing here that's like, oh my God, I never thought of that before. This is some weird new dynamic that I never thought about. So I look at it. Well, it must all be in the mindset you bring to it as a seller. The, the, the mode you use it in the implementation that happens.

Andrew Monaghan:
If I'm a rep sitting there right now going, yeah, I've got four deals, let's be honest, every single one of them Knows our year end is the end of December. I might not have the expiring, whatever it is in December is very powerful. But they have that over me a little bit. How should I be thinking about using the four levers in the next six weeks? Right. So that we have this good conversation that is actually good for both of us.

Todd Caponi:
Both sides, Exactly. So I'm holding a book from 1910 here. Oh, from 1910, 115 years ago. It's a book written by a guy named Thomas Herbert Russell. The book is called Salesmanship Theory and Practice. All right, couple of things. Number one, there's a paragraph here, section, and here's the four words again. 1910.

Todd Caponi:
The four words are buyers know more nowadays. Like and then just blow your mind. They were worried back then about the rise of mail order catalogs. I've got a Sears roebuck catalog from 1908 back here that like Amazon, but and paper. Right. You could get everything. What do we need salespeople for anymore? And the rise of advertising. But Russell goes on to say that the knowledge of buyers has increased and they're no longer disposed to pay what is asked of them unless persuaded in their minds that the sellers regulate their prices on some sound basis.

Todd Caponi:
Right, Some sound basis. What I mean by that is imagine going to the grocery store and you fill your cart and then you go up to the cashier or whoever and you're like, hey, I have a budget issue, I need a 10% discount. They'd be like, Buy 10% less, jackass. Right? Like take some celery out of your cart. Right? Like, you would never do that. You would never even think to negotiate at the restaurants, at gas stations, at places where you believe that the price is set by something. Right? The gas prices change all the time. Your food prices change all the time.

Todd Caponi:
But you don't even go, it must be something. I think the B2B world has created a some sound basis problem in a significant way. And so given where we are right now, here's what I would advocate for is when you're having those pricing discussions, at least lay out the first three levers right now. Meaning, hey, as we go through this, so you understand your pricing is based on these primary things. Number one is volume. So how much stuff you're committing to product, technology, services, seats, licenses, whatever it is, it's also based on upfront annual net 30 payment terms in a minimum of a one year commitment. You can lay that foundation in your conversations. You can make sure it's clear in your proposals right now, like why couldn't you? And then when the discussion happens, what are you going to do? Well, you've established that sound basis.

Todd Caponi:
It becomes so much easier. The customer's saying, hey, listen, hey, we know we're up again. Like, we got end of quarter, we got all this kind of stuff going on. What can you do for us? You're like, well, our pricing is based on these things. How much you buy, how fast you pay, how long you commit, when you sign, what do you need, right? And all of a sudden you've played your cards face up and you're collaborating in a way that should be relatable because their business is run on the same exact thing. And so as it starts to come up, hey, we need a discount. Cool. You could either commit to more volume, but that makes your dollar amount higher.

Todd Caponi:
But economies of scale, you could pay us faster. You can commit longer or ding, ding, ding. And listen to how I say this here, everybody. Because I think it's an, it's an important delineation to be able to say, hey, listen, there's tremendous value in our company's ability to forecast. You know, I got a quota, who knew? But we have to make investments, right? And having accurate forecast gives investors confidence so they can make the right investments to make sure that we're around 10 years from now. We have to resource this. You know, if you're doing six, seven figure deals, that probably requires bodies to make it all work and get the outcomes the customer's trying to achieve. Our ability to predict when that's going to happen is really valuable.

Todd Caponi:
By the way. That's something we're willing to pay you for in the form of a discount mutual alignment. So again, that should sound different than, hey, if you can get it done by the end of December. And they're like, I'll get it done whenever the hell I want, but thanks for the discount. Instead, it's, hey, I'm paying you. I'm taking money out of my pocket, my company's pocket. I'm giving it to you. What you're giving me in return is predictability.

Todd Caponi:
Do you think that December is possible? Let's work on a mutual action plan together. Here's the steps we see happening. Let's add some buffers up in front and back just to make sure there's room. And then I'll pay you to help me forecast. That should sound different, but it should make sense. It should be the truth and your customers will get it. But now they understand the why and they have skin in the game versus Your fake expiring discount that you're throwing out like a Kohl's coupon.

Andrew Monaghan:
I would imagine there's going to be people listening to this going, you know, I'm giving all my, put all my cards on the table. I've got nothing back from them about what they want to do and all the rest of it. I must be at a disadvantage if I do that. Surely I've been led to believe all these years I'm at a disadvantage if I just lay it all out there. What's the human psychology that says that they've got that wrong if that's what they're thinking?

Todd Caponi:
Well, a couple of things. Again, you're trying to establish a sound basis. I believe that gives you more an advantage versus less.

Andrew Monaghan:
Right.

Todd Caponi:
Because now we've, you know, we've turned the customer into a liar because we're lying to them. Right? And all of a sudden you've had that. I would also argue that transparency begets transparency and that when you're transparent, unexpected honesty drives them to be transparent as well. You know, the story I tell in the book was how I accidentally discovered, I call it discovered this approach. I was a terrible traditional negotiator, right? The itwitches knows things, word art, like mirroring all that. I, I sucked at all of it. I didn't know how to use it, I didn't know when to use it. And it was obvious I was using it when I tried.

Todd Caponi:
And so I happened to be pretty good at what I did though. And I got promoted to be SVP of sales of a tech company in the Valley. My rep was working on a multimillion dollar deal. And by the way, these levers can be applied. The smallest the small, the biggest the big doesn't matter. But my rep was working on a massive, it was seven and a half million dollar deal with an oil services company. They selected us and they wanted to get in a room and bang out the commercial terms. And so I got on a plane, flew down there thinking it was going to be me, my rep and one guy walk in and they brought their whole procurement team.

Todd Caponi:
And not only that, but one of the procurement, the woman I remember like it was yesterday, she was by the door, she was just like, let's go like one of those old school, like, I'm about to kick your ass, right? And I sucked at this. I got anxious and nervous and I had just had a conversation with my CFO back at our headquarters about the things that drove our business. And so my brain was kind of putting all these pieces together. And so I told them, hey, before we start, I don't know if this would be helpful or not, but can I write on the whiteboard the things that drive our business? And they're like, whatever, dude. And like, who cares? Have fun. Here's a pen. And I wrote volume, timing of cash, length of commitment, timing of the deal up there. They looked at it completely indifferent, didn't care, like, oh, that's fascinating, Todd.

Todd Caponi:
Great story, good penmanship. And then they immediately asked for 35% off. They're like, hey, we're going to get this deal done, we got to get 35% off of it. And I immediately walked up to the board and I was like, hey, yeah, remember that four things that I wrote up there? Maybe we can use those because our pricing is based on it. Commit to more volume. Accelerate that other division into this deal. Make it bigger. We'll pay you in the form of a discount.

Todd Caponi:
Pay us faster. The terms are upfront, annual net 30. But it's a three year deal. You pay us for the out years. Now that's valuable to us. Something we're willing to pay you for in the form of a discount. This is a 3 year commitment. Commit to 4 years or 5 years.

Todd Caponi:
Valuable to us. We'll pay you in the form of a discount. Help us forecast that mutual alignment is valid. This is 7 and a half million dollar deal in a company that's doing about 12 million in revenue. Right. Like this is significant. Our ability to forecast that with accuracy is something I'm willing to pay you to help us do. And immediately the woman that was going to like swing at us was like, tell us more.

Todd Caponi:
Tell. Like she was, it was customer vendor turned into seven, eight people sitting around a table mutually aligning on a foundation of transparency and mutual understanding. They not only bought, they did pay us for three years up front. They paid us right on time so we didn't have to go get another round of funding. It's awesome. We let the customer fund us, but they used it when they bought for the additional division. They used it at renewal time. They remembered it.

Todd Caponi:
And so now we've got sound basis pricing. Everybody's paying the same amount with flexibility within the levers and obviously benefit to customers that commit to more, pay faster, commit longer, help us forecast. But it became this thing that suddenly made negotiating easy not only for us, but the customers as well.

Andrew Monaghan:
And then in that situation, Todd, like I imagine there was rounds and rounds of discussions around this at each point. Are you pulling out the four levers going, okay, well, you're asking me to move this one, so let's look at what else moves with it. And you're just constantly moving things around on your levers. Am I reading that right?

Todd Caponi:
It's exactly it. The four levers are the things that move your pricing. Now, you want more volume, faster payment, longer commitment, predictability. Your customers oftentimes want the opposite. They want to commit to as little as possible, pay as slowly as possible, commit to the shortest period of time possible, and sign whenever the hell they want. And so what the le. How the levers work is that, yeah. For everyone that gets pushed, you pull.

Todd Caponi:
For everyone that gets pulled, you push. Customer says, hey, listen, Andrew, I. Our standard payment terms are net 60 instead of net 30. Now, what do most salespeople do? They go, I can give you net 45. I don't even have to ask anybody. And now you just told the customer that the price isn't the price, and there's other things to ask for. Because, man, that was easy. Well, what else can I ask for? So instead, what do you do? Hey, our standard payment terms are net 60 instead of net 30.

Todd Caponi:
You go, all right, cool. Understand why. So be a human being first. But then go, hey, remember, our pricing is based on these four things. How much you buy, how fast you pay, how long you commit when you sign. If you want to pay slower, you can, right? Our terms are net 30. You want net 60, we just have to make up for it somewhere else. Commit longer, commit to a little more volume, help me forecast, and you'll find a couple of things.

Todd Caponi:
Number one is even. So everybody listening? That's like, I don't get paid for payment terms. Who cares? You know what you do when you're able to exchange their payment term request for something you do get paid for, Right? And so there's value in all of these things. Don't forget them. Don't go, I don't care. You know, what you're doing is you're establishing that sound basis. You're accelerating your deals. And I'll tell you, even in my own business today.

Todd Caponi:
So I do keynotes, I do workshops for customers, lots of cybersecurity. I've had more than one customer in the last two months as we're planning for sales kickoff. Go. Our payment terms are net 60. I take them through that, and they're like, we'll just do net 30, right? Like, they're just asking just to ask, and it goes away anyway. That's what you want. Guys like you gain power back by being transparent, laying those cards face up. But when you can have that confidence, confidence is contagious.

Todd Caponi:
When you can have that confident discussion, you're going to find that most of this stuff goes away anyway and you're trading it for stuff you do get paid for.

Andrew Monaghan:
When you roll this out to sellers, Todd, what's the, what's the thing they struggle with the most? What's the thing like, oh my God, Todd, that'll never work, you know, for whatever reason, right? What are they, what's in their head that causes them to, to believe that.

Todd Caponi:
You know, I mean, I might be biased, but this is designed to be head slappingly easy, right? Just like, that's stupid. Like you said it being like, this is not something that's radically new, but it is in terms of the way that we talk about, propose and negotiate our pricing. Now I will tell you, there's lots of things that companies do that, that I have to get them back into the swim lanes on, you know, one of which being the idea that hey Todd, we need to add a fifth lever and that's case studies, right? Like we, we should. And I'm like, da, right, so here's, I'm going to go on a little rant about case studies for, you know, imagine that you're going to buy something significant, let's say it's a contractor to redo your kitchen and you went online, you did the research, you read case studies of the contractor, you talked to them, it seems to align really well and you're like, wow, I, yeah, let's go. Then just as about your, you're about to sign, you find out that all the case studies were paid for on their website. All the reviews, the five star reviews they were paid for. Wouldn't that make you go, yeah, I don't know how I feel about this guy anymore. Right.

Todd Caponi:
Well in the B2B sales world, I see it all the time and we're not even thinking consciously about it that hey, I would be offended and it would, I would lose credibility in the contractor if I found out they were paying for everything. But aren't we doing the same thing at the goal line when a customer's like, hey, we need another 5, 10%, you're like, hey, sign up, do case study, right? And we'll pay you to do a case study. You're literally taking money out of your company's wallet, you're giving it to them and you're paying them for a raging five star case study review right at the Goal line, that customer is sitting there going, wait a second, you're going to pay me to do a case study? Were those case studies that I read that influenced my decision to go with you, were they also paid for? Bottom line here is like maybe I'm a looney tunes with that, but I, I've just always felt that A, you earn case studies, you don't pay for them. B, even if you do pay for the case study, it has zero teeth in a contract anyway. Like what are you paying for? If experience sucks, they're not going to do one. You're not going to take them to court. You own as a case study. And if you create an incredible experience for them, why can't you go back and go, hey, listen, we'd love to highlight you and your success, you know, so happen to be using our technology.

Todd Caponi:
We'd love to highlight that through a case study. Are you in? And it helps our future customers, but hopefully it helps you too. They're probably going to do it anyway and you didn't have to pay for it. So some of that kind of stuff, I see a lot where we take the four, but again, every for profit company in the world, you're driven by those four things. Go back to them constantly. Don't try to add them, don't erase them. I'm telling you, even if you try to erase them, your customers four levers are exactly the same.

Andrew Monaghan:
Of the things that I've seen, Todd is, especially these days in cyber security, it's one in one ad, right? Before you buy a tool, you got to display something, right? You got to show me how you're going to take out one of your competitors or do something different, which creates an interesting dynamic because then you're up against, well, this is how much we're paying this company. They're charging 100 grand a year. You're trying to displace them. You're saying it's 250, you know, doesn't makes no sense to anyone. And then suddenly all the niceties and the rules and then the so called internal policies about what you can and can't do go out the window. Because displacements are powerful, right? It's like we need to get market share, right. How should a company think about the four livers in that context of saying we want to do something different in some situations?

Todd Caponi:
Well, yeah, I mean, this is going to sound like a crazy analogy, but a few weeks ago I was in New York and the people that I was with, they took me out to dinner at A restaurant called Au Chevelle. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's like a high end restaurant, but it's known for its cheeseburgers. The cheeseburgers, depending on what you get on them, are between 32 and $36 each. All right, so they're like, they're expensive cheeseburgers. The place is packed and everybody's ordering the cheeseburgers. Now imagine walking in there and being like, hey, you know, I saw there's a restaurant down the street. I think the name is McDonald's. You can get a cheeseburger and they'll throw in fries and a drink for $8.50.

Todd Caponi:
I need like, it makes no sense for me to be paying 32 to $36 if I get an egg or some bacon on this thing. You got to come a little closer, right? All Chevelle would be like, beat it. Right? There's a reason why the place is packed. Now, cybersecurity companies like all of you, how many customers do you have? 100,000, 10,000 that are paying market price for your solutions, present them as such. I believe that you've created a sales issue, not a negotiation issue. When at the goal line you're like, hey, we're going to replace that crappy thing that you've got in there that you're paying 100k for. Ours is 250k, but we'll make it 125. Right? Like, no.

Todd Caponi:
For you to be able to up level your organization, lower risk, lower cost, raise revenue through the security that your solutions are providing, to do it in a world class level, there's an investment required. Just like that cheeseburger. Nobody's complaining as they're eating this thing and tears are rolling down their cheeks. That's the kind of experience you're hoping your customers achieve. Your price should be your price. Again, circumstances should not dictate whether customers pay more or less. Their budget issues, their previous solutions. You need to create that consistency with the flexibility within the levers.

Todd Caponi:
I think it's just a funny analogy for me to think if I'm selling an Au Chevelle cheeseburger and I'm feeling like I'm competing with McDonald's Happy Meals, I'm doing something wrong.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah. In these little situations like that, it kind of comes back to having the ability to sell the value of what you do over what they're doing right now and then having the confidence, I guess in the whole process to say, you know, some people might fall out and might not be for them, but you're saying you gotta be okay with that because you gotta have the grounding in how you're doing it. So that there's some level of consistency across deals and across customers.

Todd Caponi:
Well, yeah, and I'm also an advocate of setting that expectation early. Right. The term sticker shock has never been associated with anything good in the history of humankind. Meaning when I walk into a situation where there's an incumbent and there's a solution that we're trying to displace to in the early conversations to be able to say, hey, listen, based on our understanding of your environment, and again, we don't know everything, so I'm making a guess here, but your investment's probably going to be between X and Y. We'll get much more specific later. But if that's way off of your expectations, can we address that now versus later? This is what our customers are paying for it. And again, I'd argue like if you're selling a six or seven figure solution to a four or a five figure buyer, one of you is in the wrong conversation. Do you want to know that now or later? Or vice versa.

Todd Caponi:
Right. You're selling a small solution to somebody expecting a six or a seven figure. One of you, I'm just an advocate for, get that alignment early, don't wait. And you either qualify in, better qualify out faster, the deals you're going to lose, you're going to lose that deal anyway, or the qualifying in, in many cases is, hey, I didn't realize that, Andrew, that it's that kind of level of investment, but man, we need it. You know what that tells me? We gotta get some more people involved. And now all of a sudden you've opened it up early versus, you know, circled the drain for three months before you lost it. And last but not least, you've also disarmed that objection. And that negotiation thing that comes up at the end when they're like, hey, you know, we got our solution 60% cheaper than that.

Todd Caponi:
That's ridiculous. Right? And you're having that conversation at the end. Have it at the beginning.

Andrew Monaghan:
I had a funny situation around that. Todd, I'll share with you. So, like you, I work with heads of sales at companies and I got asked the, you know, what's this going to cost me? Question super early in the process. I did what you do, I just throw it out there. Look, based on the size of company you are and the number reps you have, you're probably looking at somewhere between this and this Depending on the scope, right? And the answer I got back was I would never have someone training my reps who gave away price that early in the process. I was like, okay, dude, yeah, that.

Todd Caponi:
Sounds like a customer. That's not for you. Like, I literally, I just had this happen to where a company was like, hey, we want you to come speak and do a workshop at our sales kickoff. And I could tell they were a smaller business and, like, this is not like an arrogant thing. But I was like, hey, listen, my demand is pretty high here, and this is the price range. And we'll have to get into, you know, how many reps and where, like, how location, how deep you want me to go, but it's going to be between X and Y. And the guy was like, whoa. Yeah, that's.

Todd Caponi:
That's way over what we were expecting. We hope to be able to build the business up, to be able to hire you next year. It's not gonna work now. Like, cool. Awesome. Thank you. Guess what we got back. Or guess what I got back.

Todd Caponi:
My most valuable asset that I can convert to revenue is my time. And they had understanding. They didn't waste any time. And now they can't wait to call me in late 2026, hopefully to bring me in in 2027, which still, again, long game wins the long game. Eventually, it wins the long, short game, too.

Andrew Monaghan:
A lot of people listening, Todd, will be at vendors, right? But in this world, a lot of the business is done through partners, usually, you know, resale partners, things like that. There's always this feeling for legal reasons, in some cases, you know, price fixing, things like that. But also just for, you know, building the relationship, how. How much control we have about how the reseller presents things to. To the end user. Any tips for. For sellers about how to handle that? Given that we want to really be involved in the process or in discussions.

Todd Caponi:
Yeah, I mean, so one of my CyberSecurity clients does 98% of their revenue through MSPS. Um, and so what they did is, you know, we taught the sales organization and it, again, this is so easy, really. It does not take. Takes a half an hour to teach the framework and then we practice it. And after two, three hours, probably three hours in person, everybody's got it and what they did. The salespeople then went and started to educate the MSPs, right? Just like, hey, here's a way to think about how you position the pricing so that your margins are higher and we win too. But don't you want to make more money? Right? And the solution, there's 20,000 customers paying this amount, right? Like, why should yours pay less? Because, you know, maybe your messaging and positioning and your confidence in the way that you deliver pricing isn't as good. I'm going to enable you, give you a simple framework for how you do this and hopefully you'll start to have confidence in the way that you deliver pricing.

Todd Caponi:
You'll discount less, you'll build trust, you'll forecast more accurately. And it went like gangbusters, right? Like immediately they were starting to see that the MSPs were appreciative of the upskilling. But now they had a simple way for them to present not only the solutions they were representing for this company, but their own services too. When they're doing implementations services, you know, they're doing it based on a fixed bid, based on how big the project is, or they're doing it based on hours, commit to a larger number of hours, pay us faster, commit longer. Right. The same exact thing applies. So you've got an opportunity here to not only build confidence in the way that you deliver it, but, but you can easily enable your partners, your VARs, your MSPs to be able to deliver this as well.

Andrew Monaghan:
So one of my big takeaways from this, Todd, has been the idea that cybersecurity, building trust is super important. It's probably in all the segments in the market out there is probably one of the more important areas that you have to build trust. But transparency builds trust. Being able to sit there and put your, as you say, put the four levers out there and say, look, let's work around this together. Seems to me that transparency leads to trust and we're going to be in a much better spot. Both of end users, but also with partners.

Todd Caponi:
Oh, absolutely. You know, there's a story that I love to tell. It's I bought a car back in 2018. I'm not a fancy car guy. I just drive a Ford and I was looking for a car that was slightly used, right. Because I'm one of those guys, like buying a new car is crazy. So I went online, I looked, searched inventory of different dealers here. I live just outside of Chicago.

Todd Caponi:
I found a place that had a car that I thought would be great. It was in the price range that like 4,000 miles on it. Cool. So I first went to Google and I researched when buying a used car, what are the things that you should always do from a negotiation perspective. So what's the common old school approaches that are recommended? There were three number One was never tell them how you intend to pay until after you've negotiated the price right, Whether you're going to write a check, you're going to finance through them, you're going to lease. Number two is if you've got a trade in again, negotiate the price of the car and then bring up the trade in. Don't bring it up early. And number three is if there's something wrong with the trade in, for goodness sake, let them find it.

Todd Caponi:
Well, I decided just being the jackass that I am and the transparency nerd. My first book's called the Transparency Sale. That kind of explores this. But I walked in and within the first 15 minutes decided I wanted to see what happened if I just did the opposite of those three things in the first five minutes. And I did. So I got my checkbook ready. I've already worked out the financing. That Jeep Grand Cherokee in the parking lot, that's mine.

Todd Caponi:
I want to trade it in. And you see that smoke swirling behind it. The car was literally smoking. The check engine light was not only on, it was flashing. And apparently that means your car's about to. It's bad, right? And I told them that. Now, literally within the next 10, 15 minutes, this rep, the salesperson at the car dealership, shared with me his ADHD diagnosis, his issues with his relationship with his father, his dislike for his job. Like, all of a sudden, it was just like, like, I got to know everything about this kid in 15 minutes.

Todd Caponi:
I did use it for a little evil. You know, normally I'm like, use it for good, not evil. But I was like, hey, how do car salespeople get paid? Like, I've never. What. What's your comp plan look like? He literally pulled his comp plan off a folder as Credenza gave it to me. And while he was working on something, I read his compensation plan. That's a long way of saying transparency. Yes, it begets transparency.

Todd Caponi:
You'll find collaboration happens so much faster when through this use of. I guess you'd call it unexpected honesty. But yeah, your price is based on this. Why not share it? Share with everybody. You don't have to wait until I get to the executive buyer. Your price is your price. Share with the person that gets coffee for the janitor if you want. Again, your prices seem like it's consistent within flexibility within those levers.

Todd Caponi:
Why not?

Andrew Monaghan:
Well, Todd, on that note and that story, thanks for joining us today. I enjoyed the conversation. A lot of good stuff there. My head is kind of spinning a little bit. You got to forget those old habits and approach things very differently. If there's a sales leader listening to this or teams going oh my God I wish I want more of that. How do they get in touch with you? How do they engage with you?

Todd Caponi:
Well yeah. So Todd Capone.com I share a lot of my nerdery on their articles, videos, a link to my podcast by the way which is again it's a hobby completely separate from anything we just talked about. I have a podcast called the Sales History Podcast if you just want to get bite sized lessons on all things history of sales and sales leadership. But Todd Capone.com is a quick way to go. I'm all over LinkedIn so just Todd Capone there and then you can pre order four levers negotiating anywhere you get your books. It comes out 1-27-2026.

Andrew Monaghan:
That's awesome. Well thanks for joining us Andrew.

Todd Caponi:
This is a blast. Thanks for letting me unload a little nerdery on you.