Offering Credible Discounts

At an internal sales meeting I attended last week at one of my customers, the boss asked why it was that the reps always talk about round figure discounts? Typically in increments of 2½ percent?

At the bottom of a quote is often a line something like “less discount – 15%”. Why is it never 14.289%? Wouldn’t a different figure give more credibility to a prospect? “I worked hard and managed to get you this….”  As it could be due to discount pool apportionment or raw materials costs, etc. 

Imagine if for every sale that normally attracts your commonplace ‘15%’, you preserved some margin in this way, what would it all add up to? A pretty decent number hopefully.