Learn and practice win-win negotiations to win more business!

Hello Sales Reset Community

When you’re selling, how much thought do you give to negotiating?

Is negotiating something that only happens towards the end of your sales process when you’re heading towards conclusions?

At Sales Reset, we strongly recommend that you remember to negotiate constantly and effectively at every stage of the sale!

Your goal is to achieve outcomes that satisfy all stakeholders' key interests, often called "win-win negotiations."

As you become an increasingly skilled negotiator, everybody will win:

• You will achieve your sales goals.

• Your company will achieve their planned commercial results.

• Your customers will achieve all the outcomes they expect from using your products and services.

The first thing to understand is what we mean by negotiating. Let’s get into it!

How you'll improve sales results this week

• What is negotiation, and when should I negotiate?

• Cost and value differences to unlock negotiations

  • Low cost to them, high value to you

• How to negotiate - the four stages

• Potential challenges

• How to practice negotiating this week

• End of week - reflective practice

What is negotiation, and when should I negotiate?

For people in sales roles, negotiation is how salespeople and their customers reach agreements that enable everybody to maintain progress and momentum in an opportunity.

Negotiation occurs when people give something valuable to other stakeholders and get something valuable in return.

Negotiating with customers starts from your very first contact. You’ll need to negotiate to get a space in their calendar to meet! Your customers have so many other priorities; why should they give away any of their precious time to talk to you? What’s in it for them to meet with you?

Your initial approach to them will only succeed if they believe there’s likely to be an effective exchange of value between spending time with you and what they’ll gain from the meeting.

Cost and value differences to unlock negotiations

The key that unlocks negotiation is that stakeholders place different values on all the things that can be included in a negotiated agreement.

You need to identify the things that have:

You also need to clarify the things that have:

Low cost to you, high value to them

Identify things that are valuable to the other stakeholders that might not cost you a lot.

Examples:

• Access to expertise: You can arrange for your customer to have access to your colleague’s technical expertise. Instead of simply giving this valuable resource away, seek to get something in return. For instance, ask your customer to bring one of their significant colleagues to the meeting.

• Business Case Co-Creation: You can offer to lead the process of developing a business case that will be included in your proposal document. You want to do this anyway, but please remain aware of the value to your customer. Your competitors don’t do this, leaving the customer to do all the work of creating the business case themselves!

Low cost to them, high value to you

Identify things that will not cost the other stakeholders a lot but are valuable to you.

Examples:

• Longer-term commitments for recurring needs instead of placing an order only for the immediate requirement.

• Case Study Testimonials: Seek agreement in advance that you can tell the story of their success with your products and services.

In your negotiation, seek to exchange these elements with different costs and values so that everybody wins!

How to negotiate - the four stages

The four stages of negotiations are:

1. Prepare: Carefully consider what you seek to achieve and what’s important to the other stakeholders. This is when you can think about the relative costs and values we’ve just considered.

2. Propose: Make your proposals about what you’re offering and what you need in return. “If I give you something you want, here’s what I will need in return”.

3. Bargain: Have the courage to challenge other stakeholder’s proposals with alternatives. Enjoy a period of bargaining as you make progress towards your win-win agreement.

4. Conclude: At the end of the negotiation, ensure that everybody shares the same conclusions about all the major aspects of the agreement.

Potential challenges

Lack of Confidence: If a salesperson has a poor pipeline and insufficient opportunities, it can be tough to have the confidence to negotiate assertively. The solution is obviously to develop and maintain a stronger pipeline! Then, you can have all the courage you need to be brave and assertive in your negotiations.

Insufficient customer engagement: For negotiation to work, all stakeholders must want to negotiate sufficiently. It’s crucial that you work hard to establish sufficient evidence of the potential value to your customer of what you’re selling. Then, your customers will want to negotiate and find a way forward that is a win-win for everybody.

Unaware of relative costs and values: If you’ve never considered the relative costs and values of each element of a negotiation, it’s impossible to negotiate effectively. You’ll need to do the first exercise in the next section!

How to practice negotiating this week

• List of negotiation elements: Prepare lists of things that are Low cost to you, high value to them, and Low cost to them, high value to you.
  
  It might be a good idea to work on this exercise with your sales team leader and colleagues.
  

• Prepare for negotiations: Check your calendar for upcoming meetings where you will have the opportunity to negotiate. Use the structure above to plan your approach for preparing, proposing, bargaining, and concluding.
  

• Role-Play: Practicing negotiations to develop skills and prepare for upcoming negotiations is a great time to use role-play! Have a go at role-playing with colleagues who have read this newsletter or with your sales team leader.

End of week - reflective practice

At the end of this week, ask yourself these key questions:

We hope you’ve found this Weekly Sales Reset valuable.

Have a great week!

The Sales Reset Team

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