“We'll Work Something Out”

There's a phrase I hear on sales calls that always makes me quietly wince: “Don't worry, we'll work something out on price.”

It sounds generous in the moment. It usually means the rep doesn't actually know the true cost or margin on the job well enough to quote it with confidence, so they're buying themselves time with a vague promise instead of a real number.

The problem is “we'll work something out” always gets worked out in the customer's favor, never the company's — because by the time the real numbers get pulled, the relationship's already anchored on “it'll be reasonable,” and nobody wants to be the one who walks that back.

It's a small sentence. It's also one of the more expensive ones I hear, deal after deal, quietly eating margin nobody planned to give away.

Do your reps ever say some version of “we'll figure out the price later” — and if so, does anyone actually track how those numbers land?