Login

I’m trying to get a better deal on a long-term service contract, and the other side keeps agreeing in principle but then stalling before we sign. It feels like they’re using time pressure against me, waiting for my internal deadlines to force a worse deal. Has anyone else faced this deliberate delay tactic and found a way to keep momentum without showing your hand?

Yep, that happened to me. They’d say in principle and then go silent while procurement did rounds. I started treating it like a real deadline: asked for a formal proposal with a fixed price and clear go/no-go date, and I booked a decision meeting on the calendar. If they missed that date, I would pause and pull other options. It nudged them to move faster.

Sometimes I wonder if the delay isn’t about pressure but about who actually has the signing power. I chased one point of contact and a single quote, and kept getting loops through procurement and legal. I asked for one owner and a firm answer, but it kept circling back to another committee, which stalled again. It made me question if I was chasing the wrong thing.

I tried adding a price cap and tying terms to quarterly reviews rather than yearly renewals. It did push some responses, but then they wanted more discounts or a different scope. It felt like I was trading one delay for another. Not confident about the outcome, but it did surface where the real leverage lived.

One afternoon I got distracted by the room vibe and the coffee order, and the talk drifted away from the deal for ten minutes. When we came back, they asked for more time. I’m not sure the problem was time pressure or just misaligned incentives. I keep wondering if there’s a real hand to play here or if I’m chasing a moving target.

Login
Username:
Password:	Lost Password?
	Remember me