Once upon a time there was a negotiating marketplace where the sellers were comprised of huge multinational companies. These sellers were distributed throughout 25 industries. All the sellers had massive sales forces, many of which were the cream of the crop, from national and global account managers to the leadership. These salespeople and their leaders focused on the largest and most profitable customers for their companies. 

Take five minutes to look at what your peers are finding worthwhile reading about B2B negotiation from the B2B Street Fighting blog:

In our rush to wrap up a negotiation and show good faith, many times we make concessions that are either too quick or too costly, or both. This is why, as a negotiator, you need to plan what the likely "asks" might be from your counterpart, and have some trades or concessions to offer up as alternatives. 

Chances are your buyer cannot get the "same thing" cheaper. In virtually every business negotiation where there are professional buyers on one side of the deal and professional sellers on the other, the business solution being negotiated has virtually no chance of being "the same" as what your competitor is offering.

Think! Inc. began working with InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) Franchise Sales & Development in the summer of 2011. The IHG Franchise Sales & Development leaders had placed a high value on the topic of strategic negotiations however this was the first time they had reached outside the company for formal training.  The negotiation blueprinting process has proven to be fruitful in several areas including; more thorough client engagement, understanding both parties alternatives and the impact associated with those alternatives, creative ways to broaden the deal structure, providing multiple offers and proactive deal governance.  

You may never have used the expression Consequences of No Agreement, but chances are that you've thought about them.  After all, you know that something is going to happen if you don't make a deal.  As the seller, your Consequences of No Agreement - your alternative to making a deal - is most likely going to be losing the sale.  Your customer generally has three possible alternatives to reaching agreement with you.  He or she can:

Check out what your peers are finding worthwhile reading:

The connection between the sales function and corporate strategy is tenuous in many B2B companies. Even when given clear direction of their company's revenue, margin, and expense targets, Sales is mostly on their own to determine how they will go about achieving those targets while satisfying the needs of other cross-functional stakeholders in the organization. Departments whose objectives are impacted by Sales behavior implement siloed processes to protect their priorities, often frustrating the sales organization and doing nothing to enhance deal making or the customer experience.  And these gaps between sales and marketing, and other functional areas, too, are taken for granted in many industries.

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? 

Think! Inc. provides research-based training, responsive to the root causes of your unique situation to help your salespeople become more successful negotiators.  All the countermeasures, tactics, behaviors, tips, tricks and gimmicks typically taught by negotiation "training" or other "experts" aren't cures. In fact, they have few, if any, long-term, positive effects on the negotiating skills of an individual or the negotiating competency of an organization. A company training its salesforce in such a traditional soft skills approach to negotiation can expect a 2% bump in negotiation effectiveness.