successcoaching/claude-for-customer-success/negotiation-prep

/renewals:negotiation-prep [VALIDATED]

Build a renewal negotiation brief calibrated to your account, authority, and commercial posture.

Use when

• You are preparing for a renewal call, contract negotiation, or price conversation and need a structured brief covering pricing anchor, walk-away position, and objection handling before the call
• You need to validate a proposed discount or concession against your configured authority ceiling before presenting it to the customer
• A renewal is at risk of contracting or churning and you need a prepared competitive counter-position
• You have run /renewals:contract-review and need to translate commercial constraints into a negotiation strategy

Do NOT use for

• Contract term extraction or clause-level risk flagging — run /renewals:contract-review first; negotiation-prep consumes its output
• Post-deal analysis of a closed renewal — this skill is for pre-call preparation, not retrospective review
• Real-time negotiation coaching during a live customer call
• Price increase notifications — use /renewals:price-increase-prep for structured price increase communication

Typical Activation

/renewals:negotiation-prep Acme Corp — full negotiation brief for a named account

/renewals:negotiation-prep Acme Corp --brief — condensed brief: anchor, walk-away, top 3 objections, and discount authority check only

/renewals:negotiation-prep Acme Corp --export — customer-facing renewal proposal with all internal positioning suppressed

Pre-flight

Read both configuration files before preparing any negotiation brief:

1. ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-customer-success/renewals/CLAUDE.md
2. ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-customer-success/company-profile.md

If either file is missing or contains [PLACEHOLDER] markers in the pricing, discount authority, or escalation fields, stop:

"Your renewals company profile isn't configured for negotiation prep — discount

authority, pricing model, and escalation matrix are required. Run

/renewals:cold-start-interview to configure these fields. Proceeding without

them means the brief cannot validate whether proposed offers require approval."

Fields read from config:

• Pricing model and tier structure
• Discount authority ceiling (what you can approve without escalation)
• Escalation approval chain (who approves above-authority discounts)
• Standard price increase policy
• Multi-year deal incentive structure
• Negotiation posture (consultative / direct / data-led / segment-dependent)
• AE partner (for expansion or commercial co-ownership)
• Contract terms outside standard (requires Legal/Finance routing)

G-code dependency: All G-code guardrails referenced in this skill (G1–G9) are defined in the CLAUDE.md config loaded above. If Pre-flight halts or config is missing, G-codes are undefined — do not proceed with partial config.

Reasoning Protocol

Before generating output, apply these primers:

1. CLASSIFY: What type of negotiation prep request is this?

• Standard Renewal: Account healthy, no pressure signals, renewal is routine with a possible price-increase conversation. Optimize for completeness over urgency.
• Price-Sensitive Renewal: Budget freeze signals, prior price objections, declining usage, or scope reduction requests. Anchor integrity and concession sequencing are critical.
• Competitive Displacement Threat: Competitor named in calls or CRM, active evaluation or RFP. Hold the anchor — do not panic-discount. Lead with value and switching cost.
• Stakeholder Disruption: Champion departure, exec sponsor change, reorg. Validate the stakeholder map before building the brief — a stale map invalidates the negotiation posture.
• Expansion-Attached Renewal: Renewal coincides with upsell or tier upgrade. Separate the renewal anchor from the expansion proposal — each needs its own walk-away.

1. CONSTRAINTS: What limits the solution space?

• G4: Escalation path must be configured before generating negotiation guidance — no generic "escalate to your manager." Named owner, channel, and SLA required.
• G5: Internal positioning, walk-away figures, competitive analysis, and discount authority details are confidential — suppressed entirely in --export mode. Verify output destination before generating.
• G7: All data sources must carry a timestamp and staleness flag — CRM >7 days, call recordings >14 days. Never present stale commercial data without flagging it.
• Discount authority ceiling from config gates every offer scenario — any offer below authority requires pre-call approval from the configured escalation owner.
• Connected integrations limit what can be retrieved — flag gaps explicitly, never silently omit a data source.

1. EXPERT CHECK: What would a veteran renewal negotiator verify first?

• Has the customer actually raised a price objection, or am I solving a problem that doesn't exist? Preemptive discounting trains customers to expect it.
• Are the three numbers locked (anchor, first concession, walk-away) before the brief is complete? If any number requires on-call calculation, the brief is incomplete.
• Is the stakeholder map current? Cross-reference CRM contacts against recent call attendees — a name/title list from CRM is not a verified stakeholder map.

1. ANTI-PATTERNS: Common mistakes to avoid:

• Opening below anchor without pre-approved authority — every dollar below anchor in the opening is unrecoverable.
• Treating the walk-away floor as the opening offer — the floor is the minimum acceptable outcome, not the starting position.
• Fabricating competitor intelligence — if no competitive data is configured or confirmed from calls, say so. Do not invent competitor weaknesses or pricing.
• Generating --export output before reviewing the internal brief — the export suppresses all strategy; the CSM must see the brief first.
• Presenting a below-authority offer on a call without prior escalation approval — it sets a precedent and cannot be retracted.
• Producing a thin brief for a "healthy" account without running the objection scan — latent objections surface on calls, not in CRM status fields.

After execution, verify:

• Does the brief give the CSM everything needed to walk into the negotiation prepared — anchor, concession path, floor, objection responses, and escalation routing?
• Are all offer scenarios validated against the configured discount authority ceiling?
• Is internal content fully suppressed if --export mode was used?
• Confidence: [High] if CRM + call data corroborate and authority is configured / [Medium] if single-source or partially stale data / [Low] if user-provided context only — state which.

Mode

--brief (default): Core negotiation brief — pricing anchor, walk-away position, discount authority summary, top 3 objections with responses, and recommended opening. Most useful 24–48 hours before a renewal call.

--full: Expanded brief — all --brief content plus full objection bank, multi-scenario offer modeling, competitive counter-positioning (if competitor evaluation is confirmed), and stakeholder-by-stakeholder talking points.

--export: Clean customer-facing renewal proposal — suppresses all internal positioning, walk-away notes, competitive analysis, and meta-commentary. Produces only: proposed renewal terms, value summary, and next steps. Safe to share.

⚠️ --export mode output does NOT include any internal brief content.

Review the brief first, then generate the export separately.

Timing guidance

Commercial context

Generate a negotiation brief when one or more commercial signals are present:

• ARR at stake warrants structured preparation (any account with material contraction or churn risk)
• A discount or concession is under consideration — requires authority validation before the call
• Competitive displacement has been signaled (call recordings, CRM notes, or direct customer statement)
• A price increase applies and the customer has not yet acknowledged it
• The renewal is within 30 days and no commercial posture has been established

For routine renewals with no pressure signals, no pricing change, and no concession in play, a brief may be unnecessary — a pre-call review of the account record in CRM may suffice.

Account identification and context pull

Ask: "Which account are you preparing for? Provide the account name, and tell me the renewal date, ARR, current product tier, and any signals you've seen — objections raised, price sensitivity, competitor mentions, stakeholder changes."

If a CRM connector is available, pull:

• Current ARR and contract terms (seat count / usage tier)
• Renewal date and days remaining
• Expansion history (prior upsells — indicates willingness to invest)
• Open support tickets or recent escalations (leverage points for the customer)
• Contact map: primary champion, economic buyer, executive sponsor status
• Opportunity stage and any notes from prior renewal conversations

If a call recording connector is available (Gong / Chorus), pull from the last 2–3 calls:

• Price objections raised and their framing
• Competitor mentions (name if captured)
• Budget signals (freeze, reduction, expansion)
• Decision-maker statements about renewal intent
• Unresolved commitments from your side

Confirm the pull before proceeding:

"[CRM + Gong]: [account name] · $[ARR] ARR · renewal [date] · [N] days out ·

[N] calls reviewed · last price signal: [summary] · data as of [timestamp]"

Pricing anchor and opening position

Build the anchor from the account's commercial history and your configured pricing model.

Anchor construction

Note: if a price increase applies, this account's anchor is the full

post-increase figure. Do not open below the anchor unless discount authority

is deliberately deployed. The anchor is what you ask for; the walk-away is

what you can accept.

Opening recommendation

State the opening position clearly:

"Open at $[anchor amount] — the full renewal amount at [flat rate /

[X]% increase per config]. This preserves concession room. Your first

concession, if needed, should be [multi-year term / service credit /

phased increase] rather than an immediate ARR reduction."

If the account has a confirmed competitor evaluation:

"Competitive context: opening at full anchor signals confidence. A

pre-emptive discount can signal weakness before the customer has applied

pressure. Hold the anchor until they surface an explicit price objection."

Walk-away position

Define the floor before the conversation starts.