Category — Sales Negotiation

When a sales lead comes to you regarding your company’s products and services, it’s natural to look at such an event as good news – and in many cases, it is.

Too often, however, the reality is that a number of these inquiries – especially those that begin by saying “I need for you to give me a price on _____” – may not be what they appear to be. In fact, in quite a few cases, they may be nothing more than a waste of your time.  Read more...

Imagine for a moment that you are preparing for a heated final negotiation to secure a very important deal for your company. What will you do if your customer asks you to: “lower your price by X dollars in return for the deal?”

Should you bring in your manager to assist? What will prevent your customer taking your negotiated offer and sitting on it forever? Or worse, what if your customer allows the expiration date of the offer to expire but still requires the negotiated deal? The following 10 commandments of negotiations will help you close the sale and still give your customer all that they are looking for.  Read more...

1. Never negotiate with anyone who is not qualified to negotiate. If in doubt, ask your contact how they’ve handled a similar type of negotiating in the past. Listen for names, dates and other details that will provide clues as to their level of responsibility.

2. Never put things into writing unless you’re prepared to live with them. Once an item is put into writing, it becomes an anchor either for you or the customer. This is especially critical when negotiating with a professional buyer who will use anything put into writing as leverage.  Read more...

Successful negotiating requires you have a strategy. The clearer your strategy before negotiating, the more successful you will be.

At the core of the strategy is what I refer to as the “3 Ts of Negotiating: Trust, Time, and Tactics.”

Trust – The more trust you and the other party have in each other, the less need there will be to negotiate. The risk is in knowing whether the trust is real or perceived.

* Trust only comes through time and the quality of interactions you have had with the customer.  Read more...

How many times have you heard:

* “You’ve got to drop your price by 10% or we will have no choice but to go with your competition.”

* “You will have to make an exception to your policy if you want our business.”

* “I know that you have good quality and service, but so do your competitors. What we need to focus on here is your pricing.”

* “I agree that those special services you keep bringing up would be nice, but we simply don’t have the funds to purchase them. Could you include them at no additional cost?  Read more...

Virtually everyone in sales is required to negotiate. After conducting hundreds of workshops and working with thousands of people during the last decade, I have discovered that most sales people are not as effective at negotiating as they could be.

However, I do come across great sales negotiators from time-to-time and have noticed that they typically have a few things in common. Here are the characteristics they usually possess.  Read more...

Sales is a contact sport and prospecting for new business is the name of the game! You will never meet a salesperson that failed because they had too many prospects to talk to. For the majority of salespeople, finding new customers is without a doubt the most difficult and stressful aspect of the profession.

Prospecting should be viewed more as a mindset rather than merely as an activity. It is something you need to be constantly aware of because you never know where your next prospect will be coming from. It really doesn’t matter how competent you are or how well you know your product line, if you don’t have a qualified prospect in front of you, you don’t have a sale.  Read more...