It's important to bear in mind that just because a customer asks for something in a business negotiation, it doesn't mean you have to respond.  Buyers sometimes make truly outrageous demands, but that's no reason for you to go back to headquarters to ask for whatever it is they're demanding.  The important thing to remember, regardless of how outrageous the request may be, is to not get emotional about it. 

Where is the future of selling, negotiating and the processes that support it going? We have spent a great deal of time and research answering that question. Selling has evolved from personal relationship skills to salesperson as a consultative or solution seller. Given the changes in the marketplace and the amount of readily available data on your products and services as well as the emergence of an even stronger, more prepared professional buyer, we believe the role of the next generation salesperson focuses on two key skills:

We would like to capture your voice in new benchmarking research.  In exchange for your time, we will offer you a free copy of the results.  In addition, your name will be entered in a drawing for a Kindle reader (should you desire). 

Creating value is, of course, something that has to work for both you and your customer, or it doesn't work for either of you.  Salespeople like yourself have two very good reasons to embrace the concept of value creation.  First, it makes it easier for you to negotiate with buyers because it's easier to divide a larger pie than a smaller one.  And, second, it enables you to make more money by providing you with the ability to make bigger deals, and over time bigger deals mean more money.  However, even though creating a larger pie and a bigger deal is ultimately beneficial to both sides in a negotiation, buyers don't necessarily see it that way.  Because, as a rule, buyers are primarily interested in lower prices, they're less likely than you to be concerned about value-creating trades.  And that's why it's often incumbent on you - the seller - to show the buyer how and why creating value is advantageous to both of you.

There are numerous ways to solicit information about a business negotiation and the more obvious you are, the less likely it is that you'll get the information you're looking for.  When you're validating your estimation of your customer's wish list, are you getting good answers to these three questions?

The sales representative’s role is changing yet again! It is the job of sales professionals to assist customers in understanding how they increase revenue, reduce expenses or improve processes by buying their products and services. How will sales consultants need to evolve? Brian J. Dietmeyer will be presenting on the subject of Breakthrough Selling and Negotiating Strategies at the upcoming TMI & TACK International Asia-Pacific Conference 2012 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on August 28, 2012.

As a B2B street fighter, it's your job to get the negotiation process on track by getting more facts on the table and literally steering the fight where you want it to go.  In other words, you want to start proactively managing the deal versus thinking about negotiation as a tactical response to a professional buyer.  It's all about acting first, not reacting later.  With the three steps below, you will no longer be thinking, "S-O-S! S-O-S! I've got to get my ship out of these stormy waters and live to fight another day!"  Instead, you start thinking, "I'm going to be steering the ship into calmer seas, where I can get a better perspective, make a better deal for me and provide a better solution for my customer." 

We would like to capture your voice in new benchmarking research.  In exchange for your time, we will offer a free copy of the results as well as benchmark your company against  those results.  In addition, your name will be entered in a drawing for a Kindle reader (should you desire).

Begin with a goal to "create joint value and divide it given concerns for fairness in the ongoing relationship."  There are numerous small steps involved in attaining this goal, including estimations of the consequences to both sides of not reaching agreement (CNA) and estimations of items each side is interested in including in the deal.  All of this work done so far has been engineered to bring you to this point -- the point at which you can actually begin to create value.  You create value in two ways.

In case you missed the Breakthrough Selling Strategies: Leveraging Patterns in Negotiation webcast earlier this week, the recording is now available.  Here are some highlights of Brian Dietmeyer's presentation: