“The more of these tactics that you cover in sales training, the better you’ll be positioned when it comes to the final negotiation.”
Sales Training Aspect part1: UNDERSTAND NEGOTIATING STYLES
Before getting involved in any negotiation, you need to understand that there are three basic “styles” of business negotiating. According to Murphy, these are:
- Style #1: Competitive. The negotiation seen as a win-lose proposition. Concessions by one side are viewed as a victory for the opposite site and the emphasis is on having your side win at all costs. Such negotiations generally damage customer relationships, because one side ends up feeling as if they got screwed.
- Style #2: Cooperative. The negotiation is seen as a give-and-take proposition. Both sides are trying to be fair to one another, and see the need for a long term relationship and thus the negotiation is all about compromise and on not losing too much. Such negotiations seldom damage relationships, but they don’t improve them either.
- Style #3: Collaborative. The negotiation is seen as a win-win proposition. Both sides see their goals as aligned and work together to forge an arrangement that moves both agendas forward. The emphasis is on finding a way for both sides to win, big time. Such negotiations are the building blocks of strong customer relationships.
Needless to say, collaborative negotiations are ALWAYS in your best interest, and in the best interest of the prospect and must be incorporated in your sales training.
However, you can’t be collaborative unless the other party sees the negotiation that way, too. If a prospect is convinced that the negotiation is a competition, you’ll sometimes need to play that game, even as you gradually lead the prospect into a more cooperative attitude.
Sales Training Aspect part 2: BUILD YOUR NEGOTIATING POWER
When negotiating final terms of complex deals, sales pros tend to feel as if the customer “holds all the cards.” After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune, right? Wrong.
Your goal throughout the sales cycle is to strengthen your position so that you enter the negotiation from a position of equal power. There are seven ways to do this:
- Tactic #1: Eliminate or thwart competitive threats. Convince the customer that your product or service is the only one that can adequately fulfill the customer’s needs.
- Tactic #2: Develop multiple contacts inside the customer firm. Provide perspective by understanding the motivations and politics inside the customer’s firm.
- Tactic #3: Exhibit the ability to see beyond the obvious. The customer can’t know everything about the firm, much less the market, so being an “outsider” gives you the ability to see situations more objectively.
- Tactic #4: Create legitimacy from consistency.Know the strengths and limitations of your offerings, adhere to your firm’s policies, and be willing to explain why they make sense.
- Tactic #5: Develop a theme of mutual success. A productive relationship is based upon mutual respect and understanding, and a sense of working together to achieve mutual goals.
- Tactic #6: Generate a solution that matches the prospect’s needs. Your value to the customer skyrockets when you help the customer to crystallize needs and visualize the right solution.
- Tactic #7: Differentiate yourself from other sales reps. Communicate clearly how you, as an individual, are a unique resource to the customer and use your own unique personality to your advantage.
The more of these tactics that you cover in sales training, the better you’ll be positioned when it comes to the final negotiation. What’s more, these tactics also tend to frame the future negotiation so that it’s much more likely to cooperative or collaborative, rather than competitive.
Prosell have sales training programs that have been designed to put in place the skills and disciplines to succeed in the current economic environment and come out ahead of the competition.
