Signed

You got three quotes, pushed all three vendors, and took the one with 20% off. That process compares price on the basics every platform shares and hides what actually decides the purchase: whether the platform fits your business, and what the service really costs to deliver. Max explains why the three quote rule breaks down for enterprise technology and why a discount off the industry's opening price can still leave you overpaying.

What You'll Learn
  • How to tell whether three vendor quotes are actually comparable
  • What to define before you ask any vendor for a quote
  • Why one vendor can quote far below the others
  • How platform owners and resellers price differently
  • When support is worth more than another 5% off
  • Why a 20% discount can still leave you overpaying
Answer These Before You Request Quotes
  1. What does this have to do that's specific to your business? Every phone system makes and takes calls. Write down what you need after that, like the systems it has to connect to and the hardware you plan to keep. That list is what makes the quotes comparable.
  2. Why is each vendor on your list? If the honest answer is "they were the ones we'd heard of," the comparison was decided before it started. Build the list from your answer to the first question.
  3. Does the vendor build the platform or resell it? A vendor that runs its own platform works from different costs than one reselling it wholesale. Ask each vendor which one they are, because it changes how far they can move on price.
  4. What will your team handle that the vendor won't? If your users are spread across locations, someone has to set things up on site and help people when something breaks. Price that work before you compare quotes. Another 5% off won't cover it if your team ends up doing the vendor's job.
  5. What price did every quote start from? Vendors in a category tend to open near the same list price. A 20% discount from that number tells you the vendor was willing to move. It doesn't tell you the price is competitive.
If you can't answer two of these in writing, three quotes won't tell you which vendor to pick. Max walks through why in the episode.

The Playbook
  • (00:00) - Why “get three quotes” is dangerous advice for enterprise tech
  • (00:59) - When price shopping actually works
  • (01:42) - Same core features, very different platforms
  • (02:41) - Why one vendor can sell so much cheaper
  • (03:37) - Why platform owners and resellers price differently
  • (04:05) - When support is worth more than another 5% off
  • (04:35) - Why 20% off a $25 seat can still mean overpaying
  • (05:33) - What three quotes will never show you

Resources Mentioned
About Signed
Signed is the podcast for buyers in a market built for sellers. Playbooks are the solo format: one trigger, one specific play. New episodes weekly at itbroker.com/podcast. If the trigger in today's Playbook is one you're facing right now, book an intro call at itbroker.com. We help buyers make the right call the first time. Buy tech without regret. Follow: @itbrokerdotcom

Full Transcript

Creators and Guests

Host
Max Clark
Founder & CEO of ITBroker.com

What is Signed?

The IT market is built for sellers, not buyers.

That's why 80% of tech buyers regret their last major purchase. Deals take longer than they should. Teams get locked into platforms that don't fit, contracts they can't escape, and vendors they wouldn't choose again. The pitches, demos, and analyst reports are built to close deals, not help buyers make the right one.

Signed is the podcast for the buyers. Host Max Clark, CEO of ITBroker.com, talks with CIOs, CFOs, operators, and founders who've lived inside real enterprise tech deals — the ones who can explain what actually determined whether the deal worked.

Plus weekly Playbooks breaking down the moments that matter most: renewals, M&A, compliance mandates, office moves, budget cuts, and the specific plays that separate buyers who get it right from those who regret it.

If you're responsible for choosing, negotiating, or living with the consequences of enterprise technology, this show is for you.

New episodes weekly. An ITBroker.com podcast.

Max Clark (00:00)
So if you're walking in at a

Max Clark (00:01)
price anchor of 25 and you think

Max Clark (00:04)
you're getting a good deal

Max Clark (00:04)
with a 20 % discount,

Max Clark (00:06)
I hate to break it to you,

Max Clark (00:07)
you're probably nowhere near reality

Max Clark (00:09)
for what you should be buying

Max Clark (00:11)
that stuff from.

Max Clark (00:13)
The IT market is built for sellers, playbooks are for buyers. This is signed, I'm Max Clark from ITBroker.com. Today's topic, the three vendor quote. No fluffing off the cuff, here we go.

Max Clark (00:32)
This is incredibly scary advice that's really common. How do you buy something? Well, you go out and you get three quotes. Need plumbing for your house? Go out and get three quotes. Need a TV? Go out and get three quotes. Need an AI platform or security infrastructure or data center? Go out and get three quotes. It is horribly misguided. Three quotes from who? How are you selecting? And what are you comparing?

Max Clark (00:59)
I mean, if you're buying a Sharpie, then absolutely go out and price, you your online, you know, your local store in a couple of online things. I mean, if you're, you're buying, you know, a pallet of printer paper and, you know, you know, the brightness and the weight of a ream of paper that you're looking for, absolutely go out and quote it price compare. You know, you're, purchasing a commodity that is, you know, easily swappable, but

Max Clark (01:30)
The problem and why this advice is so dangerous is when you're purchasing enterprise technology, it's going to anchor a critical business function. And I'm sorry to tell you this, if you're not aware of it.

Max Clark (01:42)
Platforms are different. Core functionality is the same. Let's do something really basic, right? A phone system, a UCAS platform, right? What's core functionality? It needs to make and receive phone calls. Are all of them going to make and receive phone calls? Absolutely. From that point forward, things change. How their admin works changes. What their integrations work changes. What other platforms they support?

Max Clark (02:11)
change, what CRMs they integrate with change, how they integrate change, what devices they support change, what conference room hardware change, do they support call forwarding and three-way calling on a cell phone, that changes right, you know, so it's not, you know, this general idea of go out and get me quotes from three different vendors and let's figure it out, what are we doing here people, like what are you actually comparing

Max Clark (02:41)
How are you finding these vendors in the first place? And here's the other side of it. What you are looking for and then trying to figure out and bet on is you're trying to find the company that is going to give you the steepest discount or sell something to you for the lowest possible margin. Now, what you also don't know is why are they willing to sell something to you for such a low margin?

Max Clark (03:10)
compared to somebody else. Now again, this is just assuming that you're buying the same widget, right? You're buying a, you know, with some sort of consumable, right? Like from distribution, like an optic for a router, right? Does that company have just a glut of them sitting, you know, on the shelves? Are they about to go under and they're trying to get as much revenue as they can before they do? Do they have a, you know, a sales ramp commitment that they have to hit? If they don't hit it, they're gonna be in serious issues.

Max Clark (03:37)
What's their underlying cost structure, right? If you're talking about a company that is doing its own development and controls its own platform end to end, at some point, they don't control their own platform the whole way, by the way. It's just where do they not control? Compared to a service provider that maybe is an integrator that has gone out and purchased wholesale the platform that they're reselling to you, completely different unit economics, right? But maybe

Max Clark (04:05)
What you really want is you want a strong integrator and you want a strong support function. And that's what's more important to your business because you've got 20,000 users in 10 different states and having somebody that can go on site and sit down with a person and do configuration and support is more important to you than, you know, eking another 5 % of margin out of it. you know, the other part of this that makes us really crazy, and I unfortunately see this all the time is,

Max Clark (04:35)
You know the industry collectively comes around and finds certain price points. They try to start stuff the price anchoring with So if you have something that um, the industry has decided is 25 a seat and it's price anchored at 25 a seat when you do the initial interaction You know if you go out and you get three vendors And you start beating up the three different vendors. Are you going to find one vendor? That's going to give you a 20 discount. Absolutely. You are you know It's like table stakes. Of course, you're going to find a 20 discount

Max Clark (05:04)
The difference is, is which one of those vendors has a totally weighted cost of goods sold per seat at $6 and which one is at $3 and can you buy from one of those vendors at $8, $9 a seat? So if you're walking in at a price anchor of 25 and you think you're getting a good deal with a 20 % discount, I hate to break it to you, you're probably nowhere near reality for what you should be buying that stuff from.

Max Clark (05:33)
And you are not going to find this. are not going to expose this. And you are not going to get any insight to this process if you're just going out and blindly quoting three vendors. I'm not going to get started in RFPs. I'll leave that rant for another day. there are very few things that become pure commodities that you can compare apples to apples with. There's functionality that's going to overlap between the different ones. And that absolutely, 100%, you need to understand.

Max Clark (06:03)
But the key there becomes, you know, the common table stakes functionality is not what's usually critical to you as a business and your functions and how you are going to go about driving your business forward. It is the things that make you unique as a business that's massively important. And just going out and getting three quotes is not going to expose that. You're not even going know what questions to ask. They're not going to care because they know you're just price shopping and you're creating a situation where you're just going to end up in a world of pain.

Max Clark (06:34)
So please, blind three vendor quotes. Let's put this one, let's kill this, let's stop using it, let's put this one to bed. It's not serving anyone who's out buying enterprise technology. That's the playbook. More is available at itbroker.com slash podcast. And if you're in the middle of a real decision and want someone in your corner, book an intro called itbroker.com and buy tech without regret. I'm Max Clark, see you on the next one.