If you're in B2B selling, you should always be negotiating!

Hello Sales Reset Community

In your B2B selling role, when do you get to the negotiating stage of your sales process?

For many salespeople, negotiation is the stage they reach after they’ve done everything else. They’ve done their prospecting, discovery, presentation, demonstrations and proposals.

For some salespeople, negotiation is the last tricky bit. It’s when customers ask for discounts and special deals.

The theme of your Weekly Sales Reset this week is that negotiation starts MUCH earlier!

The big idea is that we’re negotiating all the time.

It’s just that some of us aren’t sufficiently aware that we should constantly be negotiating. So, this week is all about remembering to negotiate. All of the time!

Negotiating is a mindset. Equal rights for salespeople!

Win-Win Negotiations

You already know this: The key to effective negotiating is ensuring everybody wins. We call it Win-Win.

The simplest way to negotiate is to remember how it works. “If you give me some of what I want, I’ll give you some of what you want.”

Your goal is to make sustained progress toward helping your customers achieve the success they need with your products and services.

The best negotiators take great care at every stage to achieve these outcomes with no surprises.

Here’s how Win-Win negotiation works at each stage of most sales processes:

• Prospecting: “If you give me some of your time, I’ll give you some valuable insight and market knowledge.”

• Discovery: “If you give me sufficient background about your unique situation, I’ll outline the most significant aspects of our products and services that might improve key areas of your performance.”

• Presentation: “If you bring additional stakeholders to the presentation, I’ll bring my expert colleagues so they can give you greater insight”.

• Proposals: “If you collaborate with me in co-creating proposals, I’ll ensure all the needs of your key stakeholders are included in our proposals”.

• Maintaining Momentum At Every Stage: “If you’re prepared to schedule another meeting, I’ll write up everything we’ve reviewed so you can share our discussions with your colleagues more easily.”

Remember that in B2B selling, you’re constantly negotiating.

Our single recommendation at the start of this week is to remember that in B2B selling, you’re constantly negotiating.

You must ensure that whenever you want your customers to do something for you, you offer a win-win trade-off and clarify what you propose to do for them.

If they’re not prepared to commit to their side of the Win-Win you’re proposing, think carefully before committing your time. Their reluctance might be the signal you need to disqualify this opportunity and invest your limited selling time elsewhere.

Join us in our FREE Workshop this week

Join us on Tuesday at 4:30 pm UK time for this week’s Sales Reset Stories Workshop.

Every week, we share stories about the theme of our Weekly Sales Reset in a small group discussion. It will be great to hear your stories and learn from your experiences!

How are you getting on negotiating all the time?

Have a great week!

The Sales Reset Team

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