You may have heard the buzzwords ‘Sales Velocity’ recently, but what exactly is it and how can your negotiations impact it?  Sales Velocity is described as how much money you are making and how quickly are you making it.  More simply put, if you consider driving, driving velocity is expressed in miles per hour.   Sales Velocity is expressed as money per day.

Tiger Woods has said that he is in a quest to constantly improve and be the best – I think he made it!  How does he do it? By keeping an open mind to new ideas and concepts, then applying the concepts and practicing.  In Woods' case recently he needed an open mind to a new grip and a new stance.  Once he had these, then he practiced, practiced, practiced.  Practice builds confidence. So how does this apply to business negotiation, you ask?

Sometimes when a customer chooses ‘No Decision / Business As Usual’  they are making the right decision for their organization at that specific time.  Typically customers evaluate each potential project or initiative (either to address a problem or to act on an opportunity), prioritize the projects, and allocate available funds and resources according to project priority.  ‘No Decision / Business As Usual’ results when the proposed project does not reach a high enough level of priority. 

Most people will agree that a successful negotiation results in a ‘win-win’ from the perspective of the buyer and the seller.  To create a win-win outcome, the seller needs to know the buyer’s issues and their buying criteria so that value can be positioned effectively to meet (or exceed) the buyer's needs.

And most salespeople never think about!  It is not human. It is not department or LOB-specific.   But it is there every day.  And very often this competitor quietly causes your deal to ‘go away.'

All sales people are encouraged to learn everything of relevance about the deal while following their company sales process.  Key information about the deal includes the customer’s drivers, decision process, budget, time frames, and more.  To prepare for the negotiation, there is other information about the deal to uncover and validate in advance of the negotiation, in particular the impact of the customer’s preferred alternative (Consequences of No Agreement or CNA) and the trades that would make this a good deal for both sides. 

Have you every arrived for a negotiation meeting to discover that there are people whom you have never met from the client’s side ready to be involved in the negotiation?  Have you ever been given a specified time period (usually 1 hour) for the negotiation and find that almost all of the time is spent on the ‘wrong’ discussion?

So often Sales Professionals say their goal in any deal is to get the ‘win-win.’ But, when asked, the same salespeople struggle to explain what a ‘win-win’ truly means. Do you achieve a 'win-win' when both sides simply agree to a deal? If this is the case, what if the client is not particularly happy with the deal agreed? 

"Let me check and I will get back to you ... "  How many times have you heard this phrase in a negotiation?  Better yet… how many times have you actually said it?  This phrase can be deadly.