Archive for the ‘negotiation skills’ Category

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2 Negotiating Secrets That Nobody Else Will Tell You

Friday, May 7th, 2010
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Just Because The Other Side Asks For A Handout, Doesn’t Mean You Have To Give It

Just Because The Other Side Asks For A Handout, Doesn’t Mean You Have To Give It

Ok, so it’s time to get down and dirty about this sales negotiating stuff. Time after time I keep seeing sales negotiators making the same two mistakes over and over again and it just has got to stop. You can build the best product in the world, have the best sales team, but if you keep dropping the ball when it comes to negotiating the sale, then it’s all for naught.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

The Rolling Stones got it right when they released a song with this name. All too often I see sales negotiators busily writing down every demand that is made by the other side during a negotiation.

Hold on a minute here, do you expect to get everything that you ask for during a sales negotiation? I suspect not. Why do we all seem to automatically assume that the other side is not going to be willing to reach a deal with us unless all of their demands are met?

The reality of the situation is that the other side, just like us, expects to only be partially successful. Now of course, this is not going to keep them from making a lot of demands on us. However, by no means do they expect to be 100% successful.

A key point that we need to remember when we are involved in a sales negotiation is that many of the concessions that the other side may be asking for were not created by the negotiator who is sitting at the table. Rather they were passed to him or her with instructions to include them in the negotiations. What this means for you is that the other side is obligated to make the demand, but may not have a lot vested in getting what they are asking for on this point.

Additionally, in the world of horse-trading that modern sales negotiations are conducted in, you need to expect the other side to include several “straw-issue” requests. These are demands that they really have no hope of actually getting you to agree to; however, once on the table they can be used as bargaining chips.

It’s All About The Value To The Customer

Whatever the product you are trying to sell, it certainly has some benefits associated with it. All too often sales negotiation professionals overlook one of their most powerful tools – using the benefits of their product to strengthen their side of the discussion.

What we need to realize as negotiators is that by simply taking the time to customize whatever the benefits that our products have in order to address the specific needs of the other side of table (or their customers) we can strengthen our negotiating position.

To take this one step further, if we are able to actually associate a dollar value with each of our product’s benefits then we will be in a much stronger position. Not only will this increase the perceived value of what we are bringing to the table, but it will also help to diminish any other offer that might be competing against us.

What All Of This Means For You

A sales negotiation is very much like a carefully scripted dance. Both you and the other side have your roles to play and how you play them depends on what the other side does.

As sales negotiators we need to remember that just because the other side asks for something, it doesn’t mean that they truly expect to get it. We also have to take the time to study what we have to offer and to turn its benefits into quantifiable dollar value benefits for the other side or their customers.

Nobody ever said that this negotiating thing was going to be easy to do. If we want to be successful, then we’re going to have to take the time to understand what the other side is up to and we’re going to have to remember to do our homework before we start our next sales negotiation.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Help For Technical Staff

Question For You: Do you think that your product’s benefits are more valuable to the other side or to their customers?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Can anyone remember what happened way back in November of 2007? That’s when all of the writers in Hollywood went on strike. After that the Screen Actors Guild walked out. Talk about a mess. Well guess what, in the first half of 2011 this could all happen again – those contracts are once again just about ready to come up for re-negotiation once again…!

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Learn To Say “No” From A Russian

Friday, March 26th, 2010
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Sometimes The Best Way To Get To “Yes” Is To Say “No

Sometimes The Best Way To Get To “Yes” Is To Say “No

So What’s So Hard About Saying “No”?

As I work with sales negotiators and teams of negotiators I am constantly surprised by just how hard it is for them to say one simple word: “No” . I’m not sure if it’s the way that we’ve been raised or if we all have some built-in need to make other people happy, but we sure seem to like the word “yes” more than we like the word “no”. Normally, this is no big deal – I mean who wouldn’t want to hang out with somebody who is always agreeable. However, this inability to say “no” can spell disaster when you are in a negotiation…

There Are A Lot Of Ways To Say No

The classic Russian sales negotiator is always shown as sitting on the other side of the table saying “no” (or “Nyet” if you prefer) over and over again. Why can’t we be more like them?

When you are in a sales negotiation, it’s sorta like you are dancing with the other side of the table. You go back and forth as you both try to drive the best deal for your side. However, there is one important difference between this interaction and dancing: you have a goal that you are trying to reach.

What the Russians know and we need to learn is that by saying “no” we can drive the other side closer to the goal that we want to achieve. If we don’t learn how to do this, we can get trapped in a sales negotiation that just keeps going on and on and on.

As with all things in life, saying “no” isn’t just as simple as saying the word and then being done with it. Instead (and as the Russians have shown us in countless international negotiations) there are a 1,000 different ways to say no and you really should learn them all.

The simplest way to say no is to simply say it. And then say it again. And again. And again. Often times the first few times that you say it, the other side of the table will ignore you – this isn’t what they want to hear. However, if you keep saying it over and over again, they will eventually get your point.

For variety, you can get up and storm out of a sales negotiating session. They do say that actions speak louder than words and by physically leaving you are very clearly saying “no”. When you return, that “no” is still on the table and the discussions can pick up from there.

Finally, silence is a very powerful way of saying “no” . Just by sitting there and not saying anything you send a very powerful message to the other side of the table and they’ll quickly get your point.

How To Say “No” And Leave The Other Side Happy

Clearly if you become known as the sales negotiator who always says “no”, you’re going to develop a reputation. You want to be careful and make sure that you use this powerful weapon to help reach a deal with the other side.

The power of the “no” comes from the simple fact that after you’ve been saying “no” for awhile, any time that you say “yes” to the smallest concession, the other side will experience a thrill that will make them happy. You can use this to your negotiating advantage.

What All Of This Means For You

All too often we try to hard to make others happy all the time. When we are involved in a sales negotiation, we need to turn this tendency off otherwise it may inhibit our ability to strike the best deal possible with the other side of the table.

The ability to say “no” is a powerful tool that we all have. There are many different ways to say “no” and as a sales negotiator you need to learn to use them all.

The real power of saying “no” is that when you finally get around to saying “yes” you’ll be that much closer to reaching your negotiating goal.

Question For You: Do you think that it is possible to say “no” too much during a negotiation?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

How many times have you really wanted something only to discover that its price was too high? What did you do then – give up and go away? As sales negotiators we are taught that everything can be negotiated; however, in our personal lives (as well as our professional lives), if we see a price written down, we shrug our shoulders and say “well, that’s that” . Turns out that we’ve been getting it wrong all this time…

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5 Keys To Sales Negotiation Success

Friday, January 15th, 2010
Image Credit You Can Never Have Too Many Sales Negotiating Keys

You Can Never Have Too Many Sales Negotiating Keys

How can you become a better sales negotiator? For such a simple question, there seems to be no corresponding simple answer. I guess that we all know that the best sales negotiators seem to always know what to do and when to do it. Now if there was only some way that we could pick up those same skills! I believe that the right way to reach this level of sales negotiating skill is to develop the same set of skills that the really good negotiators have. I’ve got five of them for you to learn right here…

Things That You Need To Know

Today’s modern cars are wonders of invention. However, they all seem to be so complex with wires, computers, and whatnot. Sales negotiations today are pretty much the same way: they have become much more complex in part because we all have access to so much more information.

In order to deal with the new challenges of today’s sales negotiations, you’re going to need some more tools. Here are five tools that you should have in your toolbox:

  • Two Ears: It’s too bad that these things don’t come with an owner’s guide. Your ears are your single best tool for determining what’s going on with the other side of the table. The best sales negotiators have the ability to listen very carefully and to then focus all of their senses on just what the other side of the table is really trying to say.
  • A Really Big Calendar: All too often I’ve seen sales negotiations go off track because one or more of the teams was too focused only on the short term. The best sales negotiators have the ability to see time for what it really is: the sum of the past, the present, the future, and the really far out future. If you have the ability to see time as one big continuous sliding scale and to understand where the deal that is being negotiated fits on that scale, then you’ll be able to make better decisions.
  • Deal Knowledge: No matter how good of a sales negotiator you are, you still cannot just show up at a negotiation, sit down, and then strike a good deal. You need to have a good understanding of what you have to offer the other side, what they have that you want, as well as the environment in which you are trying to strike a deal. .
  • A Sense Of Humor: As we work hard to improve our sales negotiating skills, this is the one thing that we too easily overlook. It turns out that when the negotiations reach a roadblock, or when tempers flare up, having the skill that allows you to take a step back and say something that gets everyone to laugh is invaluable. Sometimes this is the only thing that can restart a negotiation.
  • The Christmas Spirit: Well, maybe not Christmas itself but at least the ability to both give and take at the negotiating table. If you show up thinking only about what you will be able to squeeze out of the other side of the table, you are in for a long an fruitless negotiation. Likewise, if you are too focused on keeping the other side of the table happy, then you’ll walk away feeling like you did not get a good deal.
  • A Risky Personality: The world that we live in contains risk. Every deal that we negotiate increases the amount of risk in our lives. If we have the type of personality that allows us to deal with this kind of risk, then we can deal with all of the uncertainty that it takes to strike a deal with the other side of the table.

What All Of This Means For You

As they like to say in sales negotiating circles, if you’re not getting better, then you must be getting worse. This really applies to your sales negotiating skills — what have you done lately to acquire the skills that the really good negotiators have?

We’ve discussed five tools that if they aren’t already there, need to be added to your sales negotiating toolbox. Once you have mastered these skills, you’ll be ready to close more deals and close them quicker!

How important do you think a sense of humor is to a sales negotiation: critical, nice to have, or don’t need it?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Don’t you just love movies? Whenever there is a negotiation going on in a movie, be it with hostage takers or closing a big business deal, there is always the picture of the noble solitary sales negotiator doing his / her best to close the deal against almost impossible odds. Can you tell me what is wrong with this picture?

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5 Sales Negotiating Skills For You Should Be Working On Right Now!

Friday, January 8th, 2010
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Stamina Is Only One Of The Skills That Every Sales Negotiator Needs

Stamina Is Only One Of The Skills That Every Sales Negotiator Needs

Is it ever too early to talk about planning on what negotiating skills you should working on next? Hopefully not because that’s what I’d like to have chat with you about. In order to be a world-class sales negotiator, you have to master literally 100′s of different skills from learning how to mange your negotiating power, how to prepare for a negotiation, etc. On top of all that, there are five areas that most sales negotiators overlook and yet, they may be the most important negotiating skills that you need to be working on…

The Big Five

    You’re not going to find this list of negotiating skills written down in a book or learn them in a class. They come from that school that we all eventually end up graduating from called the school of hard knocks. Read the list and be thankful that you’re learning them now instead of having to realize what you should have known after a negotiation has gone South:

  • Good Judgement: we would all like to have the ability to make sound decisions. The challenge here is that all too often the only way to develop this skill is by experience and we gain that by making poor judgements. The secret here is to become a careful observer of others: watch the decision that they make and learn from them.
  • Patience: in our 21st Century world this is an amazingly powerful negotiating skill that all too few of us seem to have enough of. I hate to say it, but it seems that the younger the negotiator, the less of this skill there is. If you can develop this skill, then you’ll have the willingness to let any negotiating situation take its time and evolve. Not moving too soon can be a very powerful negotiating tactic.
  • Persistence: people who don’t do a great deal of negotiating often are too willing to give up when they run into resistance. Good sales negotiators realize that opposition from the other side is simply another means of communication and as long as you are talking, there is still hope that an agreement can be reached. Never give up!
  • Stamina: nobody ever gets into the field of sales negotiation because they think that it’s going to be easy. It’s not easy. However, the ability to keep at it and put in the hard work that any negotiation requires is what separates the successful negotiators from the unsuccessful ones.
  • Involvement: at its lowest level, any negotiation is simply a conversation between two people. If you want to have this conversation result in a successful deal, then you’re going to have to go the extra mile and connect with the other side of the table on a personal level. It’s this kind of involvement that makes people feel comfortable saying “yes” to your proposal.

What All Of This Means For You

Nobody is a perfect negotiator. We all have a lot still to learn. You should always be trying to find out what you don’t know so that you’ll know where you need to be spending your time working to become better.

We’ve identified five negotiating skill areas that are all too often overlooked by negotiators. We have a bad habit of always looking for the magic “silver bullet” skill that will allow us to become more successful in our negotiations. It turns out that no such thing exists.

Rather, there’s a whole collection of skills that can provide us with what we need to become better than we are today. Take some time and review this list — now you know what you need to be working on.

Do you think that you are a patient person and do you think that this is a skill that you can only develop as you become older?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

How can you become a better sales negotiator? I believe that the right way to reach a higher level of sales negotiating skill is to develop the same set of skills that the really good negotiators have. I’ve got five of them for you to learn right here…

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5 Questions To Find Out If Someone Is A Good Negotiator

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Image Credit Sure, Mr. Spock Was A Good Negotiator, But Are You?

Sure, Mr. Spock Was A Good Negotiator, But Are You?

When you hold up a mirror and look into it, what do you see? Do you see a good negotiator? How could you tell if you were looking at one? This is one of those timeless questions that we are always asking ourselves: am I a good negotiator? Well good news, I’ve got the 5 questions that you need to answer in order to resolve this issue once and for all!

The #1 Characteristic Of A Good Negotiator

Before we dive in and try to ask the questions that need to be asked, let’s start off with an answer. The question that we’ll be answering, of course, is what is the most important skill that a negotiator needs to have?

Lots of people will come up with a wide variety of answers to this question, but in my mind there is really only one answer that rings true: you’ve got to be a good networker. What this means is that you’ve got to be able to get in contact with the people on your team who’s views you’ll be bringing to the table. If you know what they want, then you’ll be an effective negotiator.

The 5 Questions Every Negotiator Needs To Answer

Ok, you’ve waited long enough. Here are the five questions that you need to ask yourself in order to find out if you are a good negotiator:

  1. Plays Well With Others: Do you have the ability to put issues aside and sit down to work with the other side of the table and search for ideas that will allow both of you to reach an agreement?
  2. Just Like Mr. Spock: Do you believe that others would say that you have a logical way of thinking? If you don’t, then there is no way that the other side of the table is going to be able to understand how to create a solution that will appeal to you.
  3. Detail Orientated: Do you take the time to prepare for a negotiation and worry about all of the little details?
  4. Plays With Fire: Can you deal with the disagreement and the confrontation that is a part of every successful negotiation?
  5. Shades of Gray: Can you live with lack of detail during much of the negotiation? Ambiguity is a key part of a negotiation: things don’t become clear until the end of the discussions.

What All Of This Means For You

We all want to get better at this skill that we call negotiating. In order to become better, we need to first realize where we need to develop our skills.

These five questions should serve as a great starting point to help you determine where you need some work. Make sure that you answer them honestly — you won’t know where you need to focus your study and training until you have these answers.

Do you think that it is necessary to have a good relationship with EVERYONE on your team in order to be an effective negotiator?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

In order to be a world-class sales negotiator, you have to master literally 100′s of different skills from learning how to mange your negotiating power, how to prepare for a negotiation, etc. On top of all that, there are five areas that most sales negotiators overlook and yet, they may be the most important negotiating skills that you need to be working on…

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Posted in negotiation skills | No Comments »

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