Posts Tagged ‘deal’

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3 Negotiating Tips To Make Sure That A Deal Happens

Friday, March 23rd, 2012
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You can't complete a deal if you don't make it to the end of your negotiation…

You can't complete a deal if you don't make it to the end of your negotiation…

In every negotiation, you’ll eventually run out of things to say to the other side of the table before you’ve been able to reach a deal no matter what negotiation styles or negotiating techniques you are using. I mean, come on, you’ve already said everything. In fact you may have already said everything more than once! You need to be careful when this happens, either side may feel like giving up without having reached a deal. Never fear, I’ve got 3 techniques that you can use when you encounter this situation that are guaranteed to turn things around and keep the negotiation process moving towards a deal:

Busy Work Is Better Than No Work

A negotiation definition states that a negotiation should always be about movement – that’s how we know that we’re making progress. When a negotiation slows down, if you find yourself just sitting there staring at the other side, don’t! This is exactly the kind of event that can cause the other side to declare that no deal is going to be reached and get up and walk out. You need to take steps to make sure that this doesn’t happen.

In order to prevent the negotiations from stalling out when this happens, you need to get busy. Negotiations move forward when there is action going on. Make sure that you are always doing something. This can be as simple as taking notes, entering data into your laptop or tablet, or even writing out some wording that you’re going to want the other side to review. Your actions will indicate that there is still more to do and will prevent the other side from giving up on the negotiations.

Resist And Then Give In

No negotiator likes to be placed under pressure by the other side. However, during almost every negotiation it’s going to happen: you’re suddenly going to find yourself either under pressure all of sudden or you’ll find yourself going down some path that you had not counted on. You’ll react like we all do – you’ll start to push back.

Sometimes negotiators can view this pushing back by themselves as a death knell for their chances of making a deal. Don’t think this. Pushing back when you’re in unfamiliar territory is very natural. Understand that over time you’ll once again start to make forward progress. Give yourself time to understand what’s being asked of you or the new direction that the negotiations are going in and then move forward.

It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

When is a deal a deal? The answer is not until both sides have signed the final agreement. The problem that seem to pop up all too often is that as negotiators get close to reaching an agreement, they stop for the day.

It turns out that this is the wrong thing to do. For you see, the deal that seemed to be within reach at the end of one day, may move farther away overnight. Other people have a chance to get involved and can nitpick at the agreements that have already been made. When both parties return to the table, all of a sudden small unresolved issues are now much larger.

What negotiators need to do is to take the time to press on – when a deal is close, don’t stop until you complete it. I don’t care how late it is, how hungry you are, or when your plane is scheduled to leave. Take the time to complete the deal when it’s close to being done and you’ll walk away as a successful negotiator, not an almost successful negotiator.

What All Of This Means For You

Every principled negotiation has its own set of highs and lows. There will be times in which you are in synch with the other side of the table and you are able to rapidly make progress on a large number of issues.

However, there will also be times when the negotiations start to drag. When this happens it may seem as though there is no way to move forward. Experienced sales negotiators know that it’s always possible to make progress – you just need to know what to do to get things started again.

We’ve discussed three techniques that you can use: using busy work to keep things moving, resisting and then giving in, and not stopping until you’ve negotiated a deal. Every negotiating situation is different and you’ll need to make the decision as to which technique is going to work the best for you.

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

Question For You: Do you think there is ever a situation in which you should stop a negotiation before you reach a deal?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Hear any good lawyer jokes lately? When we are negotiating we like to think that we’re prepared for almost any possibility. However, there’s one thing that can cause the blood of even a seasoned negotiator to run cold: the threat of legal action. All of the negotiation styles and negotiating techniques in the world aren’t going to help you now. What’s a negotiator to do?

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Posted in deadlock | No Comments »

Video: Succeed By Bringing The Ghost Whisperer To The Negotiation

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

Dr. Jim Anderson explains why it can be so difficult to reach an agreement during a negotiation — there are ghosts in the room!

Dr. Anderson shows that the other side of the table has to make sure that many parties have their needs met by any agreement that is reached. He shows you how to make sure that you can “see” all of the ghosts in the room…

If you want to get more negotiating secrets, subscribe to the free The Accidental Negotiator newsletter here: http://goo.gl/Yqf70

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Posted in videos | 3 Comments »

Quick Close Negotiating: 4 Ways To Get There Faster

Friday, June 25th, 2010
Image Credit If You Could Go Fast Or Slow, Then Why Would You Go Slow?

If You Could Go Fast Or Slow, Then Why Would You Go Slow?

I’m pretty sure that any sales negotiator who was given a choice would always choose to close a deal quicker rather than slower. Sure, there are probably some masochists out there, but let’s assume that everyone else would choose the quicker option. Great, now just exactly how do we go about doing this?

Bring The Backup

One way to move a deal along is to spend time before the negotiation thinking about how you believe that it’s going to unfold. As you try to visualize how things are going to go, think through how you are going to be supporting your position at each step of the process.
This is going to bring up a good question of at each step: how are you going to give the other side of the table that little nudge to move in the direction that you want them to go? Once you’ve figured this out, you need to show up at the negotiating table prepared – you need backup.
Whatever it’s going to take to convince the other side to move the way that you want them to move, that’s the kind of backup that you want to have on your side of the table.

Shh – They Can’t Say That!

The quickest way to wrap-up a sales negotiation is to make sure that the other side of the table gets what they want. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, maybe not. Often times the reasons that a negotiation can drag on for so long is because the other side can’t tell you exactly what they want to get out of the negotiation.
It’s up to you to find out what they really need. This often requires you to place yourself in their position and understand their ecosystem. There is always the possibility that they are afraid that the results of the negotiation are going to result in more work for them, or that they’ll be replaced, or that they may come away looking like they didn’t try hard enough to get a good deal.
Once you understand their true goals, you can steer the negotiations to meet these goals and by doing this you may considerably shorten the whole process.

What’s Behind Door #2?

I can tell you from lots and lots of personal negotiating experience, if you’re not careful you can end up wasting a lot of time working on negotiations that are never going to go anywhere.
That’s why before you start any negotiation you need to take the time to sit down and ask yourself “what’s my next option if this just doesn’t work out? ” With a little luck you won’t have to use that option, but knowing what it is can help you to terminate bad negotiation sessions early on and save everyone a lot of needless pain.

Future Vision

You know how it always seems to go: you get done with a negotiation, you shake hands with the other side of the table, and then as you are in the car, on the plane, whatever, on the way home it suddenly hits you “dang, I should have asked for …“.
While there is no way to completely prevent this from ever happening again, one thing that you can do is to take the time before you start the negotiation and mentally picture yourself having just completed a successful deal. Now picture yourself walking away from the table and congratulating yourself. Keep picturing it, keep picturing it – now think about what you might have missed. You’ll be amazed at how many important things you’ll uncover and remember to include in the main negotiations when you do this.

What All Of This Means For You

Nobody ever gets up in the morning and says to themselves, “Gosh, I hope that I get to spend all day locked in a negotiation.” Since we all want to get to the end of each negotiation as quickly as possible, it sure seems like setting the stage to wrap things up quickly would be a good idea.
We’ve covered four different ways that you can do this. Not all of these will apply to every negotiation that you are involved in; however, generally you’ll be able to use at least one.
One side benefit of becoming known as a sales negotiator who can quickly reach a deal is that more people will want to negotiate with you. We all seek to avoid pain, and if you are the answer to making this happen, then your negotiating popularity will soar…

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

Question For You: What do you think is the best way to determine when a negotiation is never going to reach a deal?

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

So what’s the secret to conducting a successful negotiation? Is it taking enough time to plan? Is it picking the right place to hold the negotiations? Turns out that none of these are the right answer. Instead, if you want to be successful you need to do one simple thing: plan for everything to go wrong.

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Posted in planning | 1 Comment »

How To Negotiate To Buy A Car in 2010

Friday, February 26th, 2010
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The Global Recession May Make Buying A Car Easier This Year

The Global Recession May Make Buying A Car Easier This Year

Despite the fact that the world is emerging from a global recession, sometimes the need to buy a car shows up just when you least expect it. If that time has arrived for you, then maybe we should spend some time talking about what you need to do in order to successfully negotiate the purchase of your next car in 2010…

Three Phrases You Need To Know

Michael Royce has spent a lot of time researching how best to buy a car and he believes that you need to understand the difference between three different car buying terms before you first step foot inside of a car dealership:

  1. Sticker Price: this is a fake value – if the car dealership could sell the car to you for this price, then they’d be happy because this value represents a nice big profit margin for them. For you, all this value means is that you should be able to buy the car for much less than this value.
  2. Invoice Price: this is how much the car dealer paid the car manufacture for the new car. In theory, this value does not include any car dealership profit in it and so the car dealer will need to sell the car to you for more than this value. However, if the car manufacturer is offering rebates and other special offers, the car dealer may actually be buying the car for less than the invoice price.
  3. Wholesale price: for a used car, this is the price that the car dealer paid for it. If you look in used car pricing books, they will list both the wholesale price (what the dealer pays for the used car) and the retail price (what the dealer will try to sell the used car for).

Remember: It’s A Game

In order to get yourself into a proper mental state to negotiate to buy a car, you need to sit yourself down and remind yourself that you are getting ready to play a game – it’s a game with very high stakes, but it’s a game none the less.

The biggest challenge that you will face is the simple fact that in this game the other side of the table may be much better at it than you are. The car salesperson does this several times a day, every day. You might think that this gives them an insurmountable advantage over you; however, it doesn’t – most car salespersons are not that good at what they do.

Since many of them only know how to sell a car by following a script that the car dealership has provided them with, you have a fighting chance – if you change the way that the game is played, then you will have gained the upper hand in the negotiations.

Your Strongest Tactic: I Don’t Need This Deal

In sales negotiating one of the most powerful tools that we have is the ability to walk away from the deal. All too often when we are negotiating to buy a car, we forget that we have this option. We’ve spent a couple of hours at the car dealership, we’ve gotten to know the salesperson and maybe even their manager, we’ve filled out some paperwork, its really started to feel like we’re committed to doing a deal with these guys. However, that’s not the case.

The great thing about being a car buyer is that there are a lot of different places that you can buy your car from. You don’t need to complete the deal that you are working on – you can walk away at any time. The other side of the table knows this too and they will do almost anything to prevent you from leaving.

You need to clearly state that you don’t want to talk about monthly payments (that’s like dealing in “funny money”), instead you want to talk about the selling price of the car. Don’t be in a hurry or give the appearance of being desperate (even if you are!).

Make sure that you’ve done your research and know what a fair selling price for the car that you want is. For new cars it’s probably a couple of hundred dollars over the invoice price and for used cars it’s probably $400-$500 dollars over the wholesale price. Start your negotiations there and be prepared to leave if things don’t go the way you want them to.

What All Of This Means For You

Royce makes the good point that even if you do walk out of a negotiating session, leave on good terms. There’s no need to burn bridges – this is just a business deal after all, not a personal attack.

The next day call the dealership back up and see if they still want to deal. It can be amazing how seeing you walk out the door can motivate them to find ways to get closer to the price that you want to pay.

Always remember that buying a car is very much a game that you play every few years. You’ll never do it as many times as the other side of the table has done it, but if you use these suggestions, then you can make the deal work out in your favor…

What’s the one thing that you think that you must do before walking into a car dealership to negotiate to buy a car?

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Remember when every business used to view themselves as an island? This made life pretty simple for anyone doing sales negotiations – it was always us vs. them. Well, it sure looks like someone farther up the corporate ladder has been reading those business self-help books and they’ve decided that there is a better way to go about doing things: partnering…

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3 Rules Of Negotiating Power That You Need To Know

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Image Credit The 3 Rules Of Power In Negotiations Require You To Be Cautious

The 3 Rules Of Power In Negotiations Require You To Be Cautious

Let your mind drift back to the last sales negotiation that you were involved in. When talk finally got around to negotiating a deal, after all of the PowerPoint slide shows, all of the RFP responses, maybe even the product bake-offs, who had the upper hand – you or the other side of the table?

Why Power Matters

The upper hand in any negotiation is held by the side that has the most power. In sales negotiations, power is a slippery thing. It’s hard to tell how much of it you have and likewise, it’s hard to tell how much of it the other side of the table has. Despite all of this, it’s a critical part of the process – “he who has the most power in a negotiation will probably end up being MORE satisfied by the outcome.”

What all of this means is that you’ve got to get better at evaluating the situation: you’ve got to know how to find out how much power you have and how much the other side has.

Power Management: How It’s Done

Sales people have known for a long time that negotiation is a process of information discovery. During this discovery process you learn what your sources of power for this particular negotiation are. That being said, there are three negotiating rules that will help you to learn more about your power during a negotiation:

  • Rule #1 – You Have More Power: The #1 rule of power management in a sales negotiation is for you to realize that you ALWAYS have more power on your side than you think that you do. Even if you think that you don’t have ANY power at the start of a negotiation, then you’re wrong – otherwise why would the other side be negotiating with you?
  • Rule #2 – Power Is Not Real: You need to understand that power is not real. It only exists in your mind and so it is what you think it is. If you think that you are powerful, then you are. If you don’t think that you are powerful, then you won’t be. Of course this means that you always need to picture yourself as being powerful no matter what the circumstances are. Easy for me to say, hard for you to do.
  • Rule #3 – Power Flows: The level of power that we start a sales negotiation with is not constant throughout the negotiations. The other side may make verbal blunders and reveal too much, they may make too many concessions, or do other things that will increase our power during the negotiation. Likewise, if we aren’t careful we can give away our power during the negotiation.

What This Means For You

These three rules of negotiating power are your ticket to success. At the end of the day, every time that we enter into a negotiation we’re hoping that we come out of it feeling satisfied with what we were able to accomplish – we didn’t give away too much and we got what we needed.

In order to get this type of satisfaction we need to have enough power on our side to enable us to get our way on those things that count.

Realizing that negotiating power is a state of mind and that we have control over how much of it we have will allow us to use it to close better deals and close them quicker.

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

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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!

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Posted in power | 3 Comments »

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