Keep price notes in writing
After each pricing talk, write the price, the net, and what you decided.
A phone call is easy to remember two different ways. When you finish a talk about price, write three lines before you do anything else: the price discussed, the net you calculated, and what you agreed to do next. Date the note. If you wait until evening, you will smooth the conversation into the version you prefer.
Store the note with your offer page, not only in a text thread. A thread is hard to read next to the calculator. One page in the pricing folder can hold a month of these notes, each a few lines. If a later conversation drifts, you can read what you already decided instead of debating a memory. This record is yours. It is not a promise to a buyer until you sign something that says so.
Write the net from the calculator, not from the headline. If someone said the price works, ask which costs they included and write those down. A price that works before a credit and a price that works after a credit are different notes. Label them. If you did not run the numbers during the call, say in the note that the net is still blank and run it before you agree to the next step.
At the end of the week, read the notes in order. You should be able to see whether your list price, your hoped-for net, and your walk-away net are still the ones on the original page. If a note changed one of them, update the original page and initial the change. Do not let the latest call silently replace the decision you made when you were calm. The next step you wrote is the thing you do, or the thing you cross off with a reason.
What to do
- Write the price, the net, and the next step after each pricing talk.
- Date the note and file it with your offer papers.
- Leave the net blank if you have not calculated it yet, then calculate it.
- Update your three numbers only when a note actually changes them.