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It's Ok To Get Lost During A Sales Negotiation

One of the great myths of sales negotiating is that you always have to know everything about everything. It turns out that even the great negotiators can’t do this. There are a whole bunch of reasons why, but the important fact is that it’s not possible to always be on top of everything. It’s what you do when you find yourself in this situation that will distinguish you from other negotiators.

Why You Are Not Perfect

You aren’t perfect – so get over it. Even in the best of circumstances a negotiation is a fast-paced affair. During a negotiation we are trying to impress the other people on our team with how good of a negotiator we are. At the same time, we’d like to be able to impress the other side with how sharp and on the ball we are. The problem is that we fall off of that ball quite often.

Specifically what happens is that we get hit with a tidal wave of information as a negotiation progresses. The other side starts to throw facts, statistics, requirements, and demands at us very quickly. Trying to keep track of all that is being discussed can overwhelm even the sharpest negotiator.

Keep in mind that you are also under a great deal of pressure when you are part of a negotiation. There is generally a great deal riding on your ability to reach a deal that will allow your company to achieve great things. This pressure combined with lots of confusing information being thrown at you serves to leave you feeling lost and confused.

What You Need To Do When You Get Lost During A Negotiation

Becoming lost at some point during a sales negotiation is actually a fairly common occurrence – it happens to all of us at some time. When it happens to you, you’ll need to remember the most important rule: don’t panic!

Instead, realize what is happening – too much information, too much pressure, too little time to process it all. The first thing that you need to do is to apply the brakes to the negotiation. If you let it keep going on while you aren’t following along, then you’ll just end up getting more and more lost.

You need to speak up. Tell the other side that you don’t understand what’s been said and that you’d like them to back up and review where things currently stand. No, they aren’t going to be terribly happy about this, but they’d do it – they don’t have any other choice.

Many times what you’ll discover when you do this is that the other side is not really sure where things stand either. They won’t be able to back up because they can’t remember all that they’ve said. When this is discovered, you’ll have a chance to reset the negotiations. You get to pick where things stand and the negotiations can start from there. You’ll be in charge and you won’t be lost anymore…!

What All Of This Means For You

I’ve got good news for you: you don’t have to be perfect in order to be a very effective sales negotiator. What this means is that you can become lost during a sales negotiation and still end up with a good deal.

The reasons that we can get lost during a negotiation are many and varied. The most common one is that the other side wanted us to become lost and they buried us under a mountain of information that we just haven’t been able to process. That’s why it’s always ok for us to say that we’re confused and have the other side repeat themselves.

The burden of making sure that we understand what is being discussed really falls on the other side of the table. The only way that we can make a mistake is if we don’t speak up when we find that we are lost. Have the courage to speak your mind and ask for clarification and you’ll find your way home and be able to reach deals that you’ll be proud of.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that you should call for a timeout when you first discover that you have become lost during a sales negotiation?

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Sales Negotiators Need To Know When To Hold The Truth - And When To Fold

People are either honest or they aren’t right? Umm, well not exactly. Look, in a sales negotiation everything is not as it seems. I hate to use strong words like “lying” or anything like that, but let’s just say that a healthy dose of skepticism is often a sales negotiator’s best friend.

What’s Going On Here – Can’t Anyone Tell The Truth?

The older a sales negotiator gets, the more he / she is less likely to believe just about ANYTHING that they are told. There is a reason for this! In the end, sales negotiating is all about power – who has it and who doesn’t. However, just like in the game of poker bluffing is not only allowed, it is often encouraged.

If you don’t believe me (or you don’t WANT to believe me), then think about how a buyer and a seller interact when they are trying to complete a deal to buy a house – talk about some serious poker playing!

Where Do The LInes Get Drawn?

We are in a very murky area here and it’s very easy for a sales negotiator to stumble over the line and fall into the dark side – becoming a flat-out lier. It’s necessary that you operate here, but you’ve got to watch your step.

Our house buyer / seller are going to be presenting information that may not quite be the complete truth. The house seller is going to be talking about all of the things that make the house a fantastic house – and leaving out any discussion about the leaky pipes in the basement and the squirrels that have set up a home in the attic.

Likewise the buyer is going to be trying to mask any real interest that he / she may have in buying this particular house. Additionally, the buyer will be working hard to NOT communicate how much funding he / she has to complete the purchase. Is anyone lying here? No – but they are also not telling the complete truth.

One Word – Be Skeptical

A good sales negotiator is ALWAYS skeptical about anything that he / she is told by the other side. This includes when the other side uses facts & figures (where did they come from?), experts (what makes them an expert?), and handsome bound color documents (Kinko’s can turn out great stuff overnight).

As a sales negotiator your job is to always be asking questions. Take nothing at face value and always assume that the other side is probably not giving you the complete story. This is how you are are going to transfer power from the other side to you.

Final Thoughts

Being a “doubting Thomas” is a great skill for a sales negotiator to have. One important rule of life has been give to us by the Las Vegas board of tourism: “What happens during a Sales Negotiation, stays in the negotiation.” This means that you can’t have any hard feelings about what information the other side revealed (or didn’t) during the negotiation after it is all over and done. Having a healthy dose of doubt while negotiating will allow you to close better deals and close them quicker.

Questions For You

Have you ever accepted anything that the other side has told you at face value during a  sales negotiation? Did it turn out to be completely true? Have you ever been fooled by the other side? Have you ever stretched the truth during a sales negotiation? How did the other side use the information that you gave them? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

We all hear so much about the smooth Donald Trumps of the world that we can fall in to the belief that everyone shows up for a sales negotiation better prepared than we are. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are four common sales negotiation mistakes that even really smart people make all the time. Are you making any of them?

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Post tags: bluffing, buy, buyer, buyers, buying a house, communications, deal, deals, Kinko's, money, negotiation, planning, poker, price, sale, sales, seller, selling a house, skeptical, skepticism, strategy, success, tactic

Sales Negotiators Should Not Be Afraid Of Facts & Stats - They Are Just Here To Help!

So there you are, getting ready to fire up your side of a sales deal when all of a sudden you get hit with a volley of facts, averages, and statistics. You’re hit! Each one of those figures came with a sharp point that has embedded itself, perhaps fatally, into your arguments. Is there any way that you can survive?

Good news, the answer is yes. It turns out that these powerful negotiating weapons: facts, averages, and statistics are ALWAYS negotiable. We have trial lawyers to thank for showing us the way. The key here is not to argue with the numbers themselves, but rather dispute what lies behind the numbers.

Questions that a good salesperson will ask right off the bat after being attacked with numbers include:

1. Who collected these numbers?
2. What sources did they use to get the numbers?
3. What techniques did they use to collect the numbers?
4. Were there any assumptions used when collecting the numbers?
5. Why were the numbers collected in the first place?
6. What values were hidden behind the numbers?
7. Were there any biases that might have influenced the collection?

A key point to always remember is that any facts, statistics, or averages are always based on things that have happened in the past. What you are in the process of trying to do is to negotiate a deal that will live in the future.

One final point is to not allow yourself to get too worried by statistics or averages. They are just ways of trying to be able to talk about large amounts of data. The most important thing to remember here is that by their very definition, statistics and averages really don’t apply to anyone including you.

Have you ever been trying to work a deal when the other side suddenly whipped out a bunch of numbers? What was your reaction? What did you do next? Did the numbers end up influencing how the deal came out? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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© Dr. Jim Anderson for The Accidental Negotiator, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: averages, business contracts, deal, deals, fact, facts, how to deal, how to negotiate, money, negotiating skills, negotiating tips, negotiation, negotiation skills, negotiation tips, negotiator, salesman, salesperson, saleswomen, statistics, success

The other day I happened to drop in on my friend Mike only to discover him hard at work on some mysterious project. He had a list of local electronics stores and he was checking them off with a pencil one-by-one all the while he was surfing a seemingly endless set of web sites and performing a cut and paste operation from each one of them to an Excel spreadsheet that already looked like a day trader’s tracking system.

When I asked him what he was up to, he told me that he had finally broken down and was going to buy the Panasonic 50″ TV of his dreams that evening and he was going to buy it at the Best Buy located close to his house so that he could get it home and start watching it that night. When I inquired as to why all of the frantic action was taking place, he just stared at me for a moment and said “…if I want to get the best price, then I’ve got to do some espionage to find out how low they can go…“

Ok, so I guess that I should have seen that one coming. Mike did bring up a very good point: often the outcome of a negotiation is determined before the talking even starts and the winner is the side that collected the BEST information. Note that I didn’t say the MOST information, because this is a case where quality definitely triumphs over quantity. Getting more information on the other person’s situation, constraints, and motivations will increase your power while allowing you to do a better job of defending your important issues.

You can’t view information gathering as a one-shot activity. It is a process that continues even after the negotiations start and that will require you to shift in and out of multiple modes during the negotiations. You should look at information gathering as a process that will continue throughout the entire negotiation session. This means that you’ll need to establish a personal connection with the other side before you jump into the heart of your negotiation. The ability to see and understand the other side’s viewpoint is critical to understanding their negotiating position.

In business to business negotiations one of the most often overlooked sources of information is your staff no matter what department they are in. Often times we have employees who used to work for the other side, or employees who have close personal connections to the other side’s staff. These are great resources to draw on in order to learn more about the set of environmental drivers that will be shaping the other side’s negotiating position.

I gave Mike a call yesterday in order to find out how his purchase had turned out. He was beside himself with glee. “When they saw me come in with my stack of research papers, they turned me over to the manager right away. He and I talked for about 45 minutes and in the end I had gotten $400 off of the list price and a free 1 year warranty.” It looks like you can put a price tag on the value of gathering information.

So what’s your story? Have you ever had a chance to “go undercover” and collect information that ended up helping you during a negotiation? Have your friends ever asked you to do some sleuthing in order to help them get a better deal…?

Tags: information gathering, espionage, deals, negotiation

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