Giving Discounts to Your Clients Does More Harm Than Good

Understanding this one thing will make you 10x more persuasive, in sales, negotiations, and every conversation

I was reading this book by John Carlton and I came across this:

If you go through life believing anyone is going to honestly congratulate you on your successes, or honor a favor you did for them… you are sadly mistaken

Here’s the shorter version of the same: No good deed goes unpunished.

Have you ever done someone a huge favor and later realised that they didn’t even value what you did for them? I have.

I have given discounts on to my freelance copywriting clients and assumed they understood the importance of me stepping down for them. Later, I realised it didn’t matter to them. And worse when I lost my authority by reducing my prices for them.

I understood this mistake when I was reading this book and I came across this: People assume they deserve what they get.

Let us take this example.

An employer hires for $200 a week. When he is giving them the salary, he gives an extra as bonus. He keeps on doing this for a few months. But after like 3 months, the employer decides not to give the bonus.

The employee who got all excited with some extra bonus earlier, now has his mindset around the idea that he deserves the bonus. Now when he doesn’t get the bonus he will start feeling like he is not getting what he deserved.

And that ego will wrap incoming information to fit it’s own version of reality.

John Carlton shares that when he reduced the prices, everyone has to say about the copy, even the client’s wife wants to make corrections.

But when he charged high and didn’t negotiate on it. He was given the respect he deserved, because he was hired and seen as an expert.

You need to understand this:

In every instance, on every occasion, in every situation — you are dealing with a human being with an ego at least as big and nervous as your own