Most salespeople dread the negotiation phase. After weeks or months of building trust with a prospective customer, they’re suddenly expected to shift into an adversarial mode—anchoring high, concealing their bottom line, and treating buyers like opponents. It’s a jarring personality shift that erodes the very relationships sellers worked so hard to build. But what if negotiation didn’t have to feel like combat? What if the same transparency that won the deal could also close it?
In a conversation with Todd Caponi, author of Four Levers Negotiating: The Simple, Counterintuitive Way to Higher Deal Values and Lasting Trust (Matt Holt Books/BenBella, January 2026), he shared how a high-pressure meeting with six procurement professionals at a massive oil services company accidentally led to a framework that has transformed how sales teams negotiate. Caponi is a multi-time C-level sales leader, a behavioral science and sales history researcher, a CSP®-designated speaker, and the author of two previous award-winning books, The Transparency Sale and The Transparent Sales Leader.
You’ve already written two award-winning books on transparency in sales. What led you to dedicate an entire book specifically to negotiation?
Growing up in sales, I always found it strange that I was expected to become a different person to negotiate than the one who earned the deal. Sales was about trust, outcomes, and advocacy. Then suddenly, at the finish line when the customer says “yes,” we’d shift to tactics that eroded all three.
It doesn’t have to be that way. I had stumbled on an approach where negotiation actually reinforces trust, leading to less discounting, lower anxiety, and stronger long-term relationships.
And that matters more now than ever. The deal is no longer the peak of the relationship—it’s an early milestone. With AI and peer networks exposing pricing, it’s increasingly unsustainable for customers to pay wildly different amounts based on how good or bad the deal was negotiated.
Transparency doesn’t just feel better, it performs better. And in negotiation today, it’s becoming a requirement.
In the book, you describe a pivotal moment early in your career where you walked into what was supposed to be a one-on-one meeting with a procurement rep at a major oil services company and instead faced a room full of six people ready to demand a 35% discount. You weren’t prepared for a battle—and yet the negotiation wrapped up in under 30 minutes with both sides leaving as friends. Can you walk us through what happened in that room and how the Four Levers framework was born?
I had just stepped into my first revenue leadership role when one of my reps pulled me into a big deal with a major oil services company. After a verbal “yes,” procurement got involved and asked me to fly to Houston to finalize pricing.
I walked into the room expecting a one-on-one with the customer’s representative, and instead found a full procurement team—professional negotiators—ready to hammer me for concessions and discounts.
Remember, I was awful at traditional negotiating. My anxiety went through the roof. So, to buy time, I shared a conversation I had recently had with my CFO—the four things that drove our pricing: volume, timing of cash, length of commitment, and timing of the deal. Volume, meaning we want our customers to commit to more products, services, etc. than less. Timing of cash, meaning it’s better when customers pay us faster rather than slower. Length of commitment, referring to a desire to have customers commit to a longer term versus shorter. Then the timing of the deal, which refers to the value of predictability. Knowing when customers will sign, and need our resources, is really valuable. They agreed those same levers drove their business, too.
Then came the ask: “We need 35% off.”
Instead of playing the typical negotiation games, I pointed back to those levers and suggested we work through them together. These were the four things we were willing to trade for—commit to more volume, pay us faster, commit longer, and/or help us forecast. The dynamic shifted instantly, from adversarial to collaborative. We structured a deal that worked for both sides, preserved pricing integrity, and actually built trust.
That was the lightbulb moment. The Four Levers weren’t just a way to price. They became a better way to negotiate: transparent, collaborative, and built for long-term value.
You use a phrase throughout the book that really reframes how sellers should think about discounts: “pay you in the form of a discount.” Why is that language so important, and how does it change the dynamic between buyer and seller?
That phrase changes everything because it reframes what a “discount” actually is. It’s not a giveaway—it’s a form of payment.
In that Houston meeting, instead of battling over price, I pointed back to the four drivers of our pricing and explained: those are the things we’re willing to pay you for in the form of a discount. More volume, faster payment, longer commitments, and predictability all create real value for us. So we exchange value for value.
It creates mutual understanding instantly. Every concession has a cost. A discount is money. Extended terms mean we’re financing the deal. Shorter commitments and uncertainty carry risk.
When both sides see concessions as payments instead of favors, the dynamic shifts. It stops being a tug-of-war and becomes a fair exchange.
Let’s talk about the Four Levers themselves—Volume, Timing of Cash, Length of Commitment, and Timing of the Deal. You argue that every for-profit company’s pricing is ultimately driven by these four elements. For someone hearing about this framework for the first time, how does sharing these levers openly with a buyer actually build trust rather than giving away your playbook?
Think about how we buy as consumers. We don’t try to negotiate at the grocery store or with an Uber. Why? Because we trust the price is based on something consistent and fair. Confidence in how a price is built creates confidence in the price itself.
In B2B, we often do the opposite. We hide how pricing works, which invites negotiation and skepticism. I mean, by definition, the word “proposal” is a suggestion. And the minute we give away anything, we’ve eroded trust that our price is the best the customer can do.
Sharing the Four Levers changes that. It shows buyers that pricing isn’t arbitrary. Instead, it’s based on clear, logical drivers. And it gives them a transparent path: if they want a better price, there are specific ways to create value in return—more volume, faster payment, longer commitments, or better predictability.
So, it’s not giving away a playbook. Your price should be your price. This way, you’re giving the buying brain confidence in that, which speeds your end of the sales cycle, too!
One of the more provocative arguments in the book is your case against fake expiring discounts—those “sign by the end of the quarter” incentives that most sales organizations rely on. You say they actually train buyers to slow down and ask for more. Can you explain why, and what sellers should do instead?
Think about it. There’s such an irony around those end-of-quarter discounts in that they don’t speed deals up—they slow them down.
First, when you offer one, you’re signaling that timing matters more to you than to the buyer. A smart buyer picks up on that and thinks, “If I wait, I’ll get a better deal.” The closer the date of the expiration of said discount, the more leverage the buyer gains, and the less the seller has. A smart buyer is now trained to wait as long as possible because they know they can get even more if they do.
Second, if you honor that discount after the quarter ends, your pricing loses credibility. But what’s worse is, if you don’t, and say, “Sorry, that discount expired at the end of the month,” what’s a buyer to do? Wait! Because they know you’ll offer it again. Either way, you’ve created hesitation, not urgency.
What I advocate for is mutual alignment. Telling a customer, “Hey, there’s value in our ability to predict our business. We have to allocate resources. Predictability gives our investors confidence, and allows us to make smarter investments in our own company. If you can help us predict when you’ll be ready to sign, we’ll pay you to stick to it in the form of a discount.” Paying your customer to help you predict—not manufacture artificial urgency. I swear, this helped my organizations better align, and our forecast became insanely accurate.
You ground much of the book in sales history, going back over a century, quoting texts from the early 1900s that describe the same discounting problems we see today. What does that tell us about the profession, and why do you believe the current moment—with AI, peer feedback, and pricing transparency—makes this framework more urgent than ever?
It’s almost funny to think that in 1910, Thomas Herbert Russell wrote a book called Salesmanship, Theory & Practice, where he starts by saying, “Buyers know more nowadays.” Yes, 1910!
He goes on to say, “The knowledge of buyers has increased, and they are 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.”
For over a hundred years, we’ve known that having inconsistent, negotiable pricing erodes trust, slows down deals, and erodes the value of each transaction.
Your customers’ ability to connect with their peers and share what they’ve bought, what they asked for, what they received, and ultimately what they paid is growing by the day. AI is exposing pricing models. We are quickly racing our pricing and profitability to the bottom unless we learn how to confidently present and propose, as Russell says, “sound basis” pricing that is consistent across our customer base.
Learn more about the Four Levers Negotiating framework, speaking engagements, and workshops on the official website. Four Levers Negotiating is published by Matt Holt Books, an imprint of BenBella Books.
