Hi Sales Pros, I hope all is well and you’re laying the groundwork for a successful 2024.

Thanks for participating in the survey in our most recent midweek update - the people have spoken and the verdict is: Negotiation. One of my favourite subjects, so I’m particularly looking forward to sharing insight into this.

What It Is:

How about two warehouse workers swapping shifts then? No Sales process there. Unlikely to involve any exchange of money either.

At this point it will be helpful to get an idea as to what we’re actually talking about. Wikipedia defines negotiation as follows:

“Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more parties to resolve points of difference, gain an advantage for an individual or collective, or craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. The parties aspire to agree on matters of mutual interest.”

What It Isn’t:

It may be easier still to approach this one by figuring out what it is not:

Haggling: Say you’re selling enterprise software - the case lends itself to something called Principled Negotiation, meaning something other than the win/lose scenario of straight up or down haggling over the price. The Wikipedia entry has more on this.

Principles:

• Separate the person from the issue

• Negotiate on the basis of interest (as opposed to position)

• Develop good criteria that a good solution must fulfil (instead of skipping ahead to the solution)

• Develop several options

Recommendation & Warning:

I have been trained in and have (sometimes successfully) applied the Harvard Negotiation Project’s approach and would very much recommend you do the same. Many large employers of Sales Pros offer training or subsidise it upon request. I highly recommend making use of any such offer.

Three of the members of the project have written a bestselling book about Principled Negotiation entitled “Getting To Yes” - if there isn’t a formal training offer at your workplace, get this book, read it, apply your learnings, then re-read it. I would even go so far as to check whether a battered copy lives on or near the desk your your Sales Leaders and interpret that as a positive sign.

A word of warning: This method, these principles are important, worth your time and effort, but they aren’t a silver bullet. They take tenacity and courage to integrate into your day-to-day Sales activities. They need to be honed by repetition and improved by continuous, unflinchingly reviewing of your past efforts. They also require moving outside of your comfort zone.

Objections:

There are reservations, objections, personal reluctances to implementing the four Principles. I’ll go ahead and call them out so we can discuss them in order:

• Separate the person from the issue

  • “Why should I treat them favourably?”

  • “If they behave in certain objectionable ways, I reserve the right to react”

  • “I am not going to go out of my way to…”

  • “My personality is part of my Selling success, I’m not going to hide who I am”

  These are all about whether or not you are willing to be an adult/one of the adults in the room. Nobody is asking for anything unreasonable at this stage. Are you willing to commit to applying the four principles and work your way through it, or are you going to spend your time building a thousand walls thinking up hypothetical future situations in which it may not work? If it’s the former, fine, let’s skip ahead. If it’s the latter - fine, this just may not be for you.

• Negotiate on the basis of interest (as opposed to position)

  • “These are just extra steps taking up too much time”

  This merely means negotiating based on the interests behind the positions the parties take. If you see the logic behind selling benefits rather than features this is a no-brainer. You can spend days haggling over 5 percentage points of discount or find out why they’re so important to your prospect.

• Develop good criteria that a good solution must fulfil (instead of skipping ahead to the solution)

  • “This is just delaying the inevitable”

  • “More extra steps - for what?”

  This is the Principle encouraging cooperation. It is likely to be the area in which you build the kind of rapport that enables both sides to strike a deal. It is also the arena for acknowledging the existence of a world beyond the current negotiation, such as a party’s need to be able to sell an agreement inside their own organisation (often called the most difficult Sell - not for no reason.) This is where you physically or metaphorically place the two sets of chairs on the same side of the negotiating table. Yes, do try that!

• Develop Several Options

  • “They’re only ever going to buy one option”

  True, but do think back to the last time you went shopping for a shirt, had the red one and blue one put in front of you and were asked which one they could put in the bag for you.

  How often have you walked out of the shop empty handed in such a scenario?

Depending on your comments below, we may just have a second round of Negotiations later this week or next week.

Have your say on the topic of our next in-depth piece:

Keep your head at perfect selling temperature:

Please include your questions and comments below & see you back here midweek!