What to Offer a Business Client Instead of a Discount

Offer visibility, not money. A business client will not record a reference for ten percent off the invoice — the discount is not theirs to enjoy, it lands in a budget line they may not even own, and the person you are actually asking gets nothing from it. Offer them what they do want: exposure to your audience, a reference from you in return, or a public association with a supplier they are glad to be associated with.

This is the single biggest error carried over from consumer marketing. The discount mechanic works beautifully with a person who pays with their own card and feels the saving immediately. It falls flat with a purchasing manager who feels nothing at all.

You are not asking a company. You are asking a person.

Nobody in a company will ever record a testimonial. A person will, and understanding which person, and what they personally get out of it, is the whole job.

That person is usually a marketing manager, an operations lead, or the owner of a small firm. They have a boss, or a board, or a reputation among peers. And they have an incentive that has nothing to do with your invoice: they want to look like they are doing their job well, and they want their own company to look good.

Ten percent off a supplier invoice does none of that. It is invisible. It shows up in someone else’s spreadsheet, months later, attributed to procurement.

But being featured — their company name, their logo, their project, in front of an audience of people in their industry — that lands directly on the person you are talking to. That is content they can share internally. It is a thing to mention. It costs you nothing and it is worth considerably more to them than a discount they will never see.

Four things that actually work

Mutual visibility. The most natural trade in B2B, because it is symmetric. They talk about you, you publish it and tag them, and their name reaches an audience they were not paying to reach. On LinkedIn especially, this is the currency. You are not asking for a favour — you are proposing an exchange in which both of you get seen.

A reference in return. You vouch for them, they vouch for you. Two suppliers who genuinely rate each other’s work saying so publicly is not a scheme; it is what a professional network is supposed to look like. It works because it is true. It stops working the moment it becomes a swap arranged between people who have never worked together.

The named case. For a client proud of the project, the offer is not “give me a testimonial” — it is “let’s tell this story properly, with your name on it.” A workshop that solved a hard problem for a client wants that solved problem on the record as much as you do. The client is not doing you a favour; they are co-authoring something that flatters them.

Priority, access, or a hand. A slot at short notice next time. A direct line to you rather than the support queue. Half an hour of your expertise on something adjacent to what you sold them. All of these are real, all of them cost you less than a discount, and all of them are worth more to the person doing the recording.

What to say to a business client

The ask is different in register, not in shape. Same three parts — permission, size, thing — but the reason is professional rather than personal.

Do not say:

“Would you leave us a testimonial? It really helps small businesses like ours.”

That is a consumer ask, aimed at sympathy, and it makes a purchasing manager feel obliged rather than interested. It also implies you are struggling, which is not a thing you want a supplier’s client thinking.

Say instead:

“That project went well and I’d like to put it out on LinkedIn — thirty seconds from you about what we sorted out, and I’ll tag you. Happy to say the same about you.”

That sentence contains the entire trade, out loud, in one breath. It names the size, it names the channel, and it names what they get. Nobody has to guess what is being exchanged, which is precisely what makes it comfortable to accept.

Why the discount instinct is so hard to shake

Because it works so well on the other side of the business.

With consumers, the immediate discount does something elegant: it turns an awkward favour into a clean, closed exchange. The customer records, gets ten percent off the bill in front of them, and nobody owes anybody anything. It is fast, it is fair, and it is finished.

None of that machinery transfers. The B2B client’s “payment” is delayed, indirect, and lands on their employer. The exchange never closes on the spot, and so it never stops feeling like a favour — which is exactly what you were trying to avoid.

So the goal is the same and the instrument is different. You still want an exchange that closes cleanly. It just has to be denominated in something the person in front of you actually receives.

This is why ciaopost keeps the two segments separate rather than treating B2B as consumers with bigger invoices: the discount tiers belong to one side and would be silly on the other. The testimonial is referential — one company vouching for another — and referential proof is bought with reciprocity, not with money off.

What does not change

Everything about consent and authenticity is identical, and in B2B it matters more, not less, because you are publishing a named company’s opinion.

• Get consent in writing, from someone entitled to give it. A named individual at the client, who has the authority to speak for the company. A junior engineer’s enthusiasm on camera is not a corporate endorsement, and their legal department will explain that to you at length.
• Never write their words for them. The offer to “just send me something and I’ll polish it” is well-meant and it produces the worst testimonial in the set — corporate, smooth, and obviously ghostwritten. Their real sentence, hesitations and all, is the only one anybody believes.
• Never make the incentive conditional on the verdict. “We’ll feature you if you say something positive” is the line you do not cross, in any segment. You are trading for their thirty seconds, never for their conclusion.

Ask the client who already told you

Somewhere in your inbox is an email from a client saying the job went well. That client has already given you the testimonial — it just arrived in the wrong format, silently, where nobody can see it.

That is the one to ask. Not because they owe you, but because they have already decided, and all you are proposing is that they say it where it does some good, with their name on it, in front of an audience that is useful to them too.

Then get the consent right before you publish anything with another company’s name on it.