Gong Labs analyzed over 519,000 sales call recordings to study how top performers handle pricing conversations. One of the clearest patterns in that data: the seller who accepts the buyer’s framing on price rarely recovers it.
The buyer gives you a range. It sounds like flexibility. It sounds like they have done their research, surveyed the market, and landed on something reasonable. The upper end of the range even feels like a gesture of good faith.
Here is what is actually happening. Both ends of that range sit below your number. The ceiling was engineered to function as the negotiation’s anchor. The “flexibility” is an illusion. You are inside a structured pricing trap, and the trap has a name in the buyer’s playbook.
It is called The Bracket. And the counter to it is Margin Protection Move #2: The Bracket Buster.
Most sellers never see it coming. They counter somewhere in the middle of the buyer’s range, believe they held firm, and close the deal 14 to 18 percent below where the conversation should have been. The Bracket Buster does not negotiate within the frame. It exits the frame entirely.
IS YOUR PORTCO STALLED?
Not plateaued. Not slow. Stalled. There is a difference, and if you are living it right now, you already know which one it is.
Most operators can identify the symptom. Revenue has stopped moving. Pipeline looks active but nothing is closing. The team is working but the number is not. What they cannot identify is the structural reason, and that is the conversation worth having.
If your portfolio company has stalled, I will tell you why in 30 minutes. No prep required on your end. I use a proprietary diagnostic framework built across 15+ scaling engagements to identify the growth ceiling fast.
Every buyer negotiation has a playbook. Most sellers do not know it exists. One of its most reliable moves is called The Bracket: the buyer opens commercial discussions not with a single number, but with a range. Both ends sit below your price. The upper end of that range is presented as flexibility or even generosity.
It is neither. It is an anchor.
The psychology behind it is well established. Research traces this to Tversky and Kahneman’s anchoring bias: the tendency for an initial number, regardless of how it was arrived at, to act as a psychological reference point that pulls all subsequent discussion in its direction. The buyer who delivers a range before you name your number is not being transparent about budget. They are pre-loading the reference point. The buyer’s range implies market consensus, as if they have surveyed the landscape and this is simply what things cost. It positions your actual price as an outlier rather than an accurate reflection of the value you deliver.
Watch for three tells. The range arrives before you have named your investment. Both figures sit below your floor. The buyer refers to the range as though it reflects what the market pays, not what they are willing to pay. That last tell matters most. It is designed to make your real number feel unreasonable.
The math is precise. Bracketing consistently produces discount rates 14 to 18 percent above simple anchoring because sellers unconsciously accept the bracket as a legitimate starting point. A $400,000 engagement with a 16 percent bracket discount loses $64,000 before the first counter. The seller who splits the difference between the buyer’s ceiling and their own number has not held firm. They have conceded margin they will never recover.
The Mindset Required
The bracket is not a range to negotiate within. It is a frame to exit. Your only correct move is to step outside it entirely: state your number above both ends, tie it to outcomes, and decline to treat their range as a relevant reference point.
Your Move: The Bracket Buster
Step 1: “I appreciate the range. Let me step outside of it for a moment.”
Step 2: “Based on the scope we discussed and the outcomes you described needing, the investment is [YOUR NUMBER]. That figure sits above both ends of the range you mentioned, and here is why it is the right number: [specific outcome delivered], [specific risk eliminated]. The range does not apply to this engagement.”
Do not apologize for being above the bracket. Do not explain the gap in terms of their ceiling versus your floor. Anchor to value and hold the number.
Come into the meeting with your investment figure already tied to two or three specific outcomes. The more precisely you can name what the engagement delivers and what risk it eliminates, the harder it is for the buyer to argue that your number sits outside a “normal” range.
Your Move: The Scope Trade
Step 1: “I can absolutely work with you on the investment structure. Here is how I think about it.”
Step 2: “If we remove [specific deliverable], the investment adjusts to $[reduced price]. If we remove [deliverables A and B], it comes to $[further reduced]. Each adjustment is proportional. I want to make sure we are being precise about the tradeoff. Which structure delivers what you need at an investment level that works?”
Come prepared with pre-built scope tiers and corresponding investment levels before the meeting. Never reduce price without identifying exactly what scope is being removed. Make the tradeoff explicit and visible.
Why This Works
The buyer’s bracket only has power if you accept it as a legitimate starting point. By stepping outside the range and re-anchoring above both ends, you reset the frame. Your number, not their ceiling, becomes the reference point. Precise offers signal that you have a solid sense of the value and may be inflexible on price. Counterparts tend to engage accordingly, making smaller counteroffers in response.
Authority. Responding to the bracket by going above it signals that you operate from a value-based framework, not the buyer’s pricing construct. Authority is demonstrated as much by what you refuse to accept as by what you assert.
The Win Condition
The conversation moves to your anchor. The buyer either engages with your value argument, which is the conversation you want, or discloses what is actually driving their pricing expectation, which gives you the precise information you need to respond effectively. Either outcome is better than the one you were handed when you walked into the bracket.
FRACTIONAL CRO
83 percent of the VC, PE, and family office teams that reach out to me share the same situation: a portfolio company that has plateaued on revenue, lost pipeline velocity, or cannot convert at the rate the investment thesis required. The problem is almost always the same place. Sales and marketing are not operating as a system.
I serve as a Fractional CRO and Revenue Architect for growth-stage companies at inflection points. I have sat in a range of C-suite chairs across 15+ organizations, but the engagement that moves the needle fastest is always the one that starts with the revenue engine. If your portco has stalled, let us diagnose it.
Three signals from this week across Venture Capital, Private Equity, Family Offices, and Capital:
Family offices are growing in number and investing more like operators than funds. FINTRX released its inaugural quarterly Family Office Report in May 2026, adding 119 new family offices to its platform in Q1 alone and bringing the global total to 4,503. The data shows that first-generation entrepreneurial families are driving the growth, with a strong preference for direct investments, private equity, and venture capital over fund-of-funds structures. The implication for operators: this capital increasingly moves like founder capital. Faster decisions, higher selectivity, and a preference for backing operators they know personally. Source: FINTRX
Revenue growth now accounts for the majority of PE value creation, and the bar is rising. According to Gain.pro’s 2025 Private Equity Value Creation Report, revenue growth accounts for 54 percent of total value creation across more than 10,000 global PE investments, compared to 32 percent from multiple expansion and just 14 percent from margin improvement. The 2026 environment has raised the stakes further: while 5 percent annual EBITDA growth once secured a 2.5x MOIC, today’s borrowing costs mean that same return now requires 10 to 12 percent annual EBITDA growth. For management teams, the revenue engine is the exit thesis. Source: Gain.pro / Carta
PE-backed companies that treat pricing as a strategic asset are materially outperforming those that do not. The 2025 EY-Parthenon PE Pricing Report found that PE fund managers least exposed to unforeseen risk examined pricing in their investing approach 55 percent of the time, compared to just 35 percent for managers most exposed to risk. EY-Parthenon’s research found that investment in pricing capabilities helps portfolio companies implement price increases, grow revenue, and create measurable value, and that current macroeconomic conditions are making pricing discipline more important than ever for PE-backed B2B companies. Source: EY
WANTED: SCALING SUCCESS STORIES
I recently joined NYU as a faculty member in the Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Management program, where I am writing and later this year instructing the course “Scaling and Exiting the Business for Maximum Value.” The curriculum is being built around real operator experience, not case studies from a textbook.
If you have led a company through a significant growth inflection, a VC, PE, or family office-backed scale, or a successful exit, I want to hear from you. The operators who built something real are the curriculum.
The buyer comes in with a range. It sounds researched. It sounds fair. The upper end of their range even feels like they are meeting you partway. You counter somewhere near their ceiling, and the deal closes. You believe you held your price.
You did not. You accepted a frame that was never yours to begin with.
The Bracket is one of the most effective moves in the buyer’s playbook precisely because it does not feel like a move. It feels like information. Budget context. Market reality. What it actually is: a pre-loaded anchor designed to keep the entire conversation below your number. The buyer who delivers a range before you name your investment is not being transparent. They are setting the reference point that will govern everything that follows.
The Bracket Buster does one thing. It exits the frame. “I appreciate the range. Let me step outside of it.” Your number, above both ends, tied to outcomes. No apology. No explanation of the gap. The range does not apply to this engagement.
That is not aggression. It is precision. The seller who cannot step outside a buyer’s bracket will spend an entire career closing deals 14 to 18 percent below where they should have been. Compounded over time, that is not a negotiation problem. It is a margin problem.
Exit the bracket. Own the anchor.
SAM SPEAKS
I speak to executive audiences on three RevOps topics.
Scaling and Exiting the Business for Maximum Value. Most operators spend years building a company and weeks preparing for the exit. The ones who capture maximum value at the table are the ones who treated the exit as a strategy, not an event. This talk draws on 12+ years of scaling and exiting experience across 15+ organizations, and the curriculum I am currently developing as an NYU faculty member, to give executive audiences a field-level framework for building toward a transaction from day one.
The Unrealistic Leader. The leaders who build enduring organizations are not the ones who set realistic expectations. They are the ones who hold an unrealistic standard long enough for the organization to grow into it. This talk is a practitioner’s case for why the most dangerous thing a leader can do is become reasonable too early, and what it actually looks like to lead from the front when the numbers do not yet support the vision.
The Price Pressure Playbook. Buyers have a playbook. Most sellers do not know it exists. Drawing from my published work cataloguing 20 buyer pressure tactics and the 20 operator moves that counter them, this talk gives revenue leaders and executive teams a tactical framework for protecting margin, closing at full value, and recognizing the moves being run against them in real time.
From the Tip of the Spear is my weekly publication for executives who are building something real. One issue, every Tuesday. A field report from active operator engagements, one principle with supporting data, and market intelligence from across my VC, PE, and family office network.
