You can set up your store to accept offers from clients wanting to buy a license (besides or instead of letting them buy in a self-service manner). This will enable them to enter into a negotiation with you, presumably for a lower price.

This is enabled by default. To have this disabled in your store, select the rate card(s) you are using and click ‘request clearance, price quotes and negotiate on-line’. Learn more about rate-cards here.

We’ll use an example to demonstrate how this works.

Your client Lenny Ford has visited your store and wants a license a for TV Commercial, for a track called ‘Hitch a Ride’. The territory is National. In this example, we are using the Basic rate-card. Learn more about rate-cards here.

The rate card calculated price for this usage is $840, but Lenny has a tight budget and makes an offer of $700. So he clicks on ‘Clearance or special quote request’ and enters $700 in the box.

You will receive an email with all the details of Lenny’s offer:

You should then login to your LQ account and click on ‘Licensing Inquiries’ in the left-hand menu. Lenny’s offer is there:

Click View to see his offer.

You now have 4 options:

1. Accept current offer - Accept his suggested price and terms.
2. Send response - Send a response to him, you can add a requested sum to your response. To be used if you and to negotiate and/or his offer is not acceptable.
3. Send final response - Same, but he won't be able to reply further, and you must enter a requested price. To be used if you do not want to negotiate further.
4. Decline current offer - Decline Lenny’s inquiry, and he won't be able to reply anymore. To be used in case this is not a serious offer or seems like spam.

Whatever you do, an email will be sent to Lenny informing him that his offer got a reply.  He’ll receive an email with a link leading to his licensing inquiries page, in your store.

… and when he clicks on the ‘View Details’ button he’ll be able to purchase the license at his or your offered rate (read on).

Let’s say you thought the rate is too low, but you’d be happy to accept $750, enter a message in the box and then enter the sum. Then click ‘Send Response’. Lenny will receive an email with a link to the store:

This will prompt him to either accept your offer (1) or return a counter-offer (2). If he enters a counter-offer, you will receive an email notifying you and the details will appear on the Licensing Request page again. You can then accept it or send another counter offer (same buttons as before). This is how the negotiations history is displayed:

Let’s say you decide that the lowest you can go is $740 so you write a note to Lenny, put $740 in the box and click ‘Send final response’.

When Lenny clicks on the link in his email, it will take him to a page that will show him the final offer:

He can then decide to purchase or not but cannot negotiate further.

At any point in the negotiation (even at first request) you can click ‘Decline current offer’. In this case, after clicking on the link in the email, the customer will see a notice in the store saying the request has been declined. He can, however, start a new inquiry.

Note on negotiation:

In practice, it’s usually much better to do these negotiations over the phone, as it’s helpful for building a strong working relationship with your customer. Sometimes, customers do have genuine budget limits and really want to use your music. With a verbal negotiation, you may be able to understand a bit more about the project they want the music for and the possible benefits of your music being involved. It’s always important to think long-term and to consider a customer’s lifetime value (LTV).

When you have reached a verbal agreement, you can ask them to put that amount in the ‘Clearance or special quote request’ box and when the Licensing Request comes through to you, just click ‘Accept current offer’.