For many years, we have been asking our global clients for the most common and most difficult verbal negotiation tactics they face every day.  Their buyer's comments many sound different, but they all have one thing in common.  Whether buyers are asking for a price discount, an extended warranty or some other concession, the message is loud and clear:  they want something, they want it now and they want it for free... or less!  From our research and from what we have observed, they are very likely to get it!

Trading helps you keep all the pieces of a deal in context, so you can keep the conversation away from price alone. Put simply, trading is the art of asking the buyer for something in return when he makes demands of you - whether for a lower price or other concessions. Trading is the heart and soul of negotiating. Done well, it combats pressure from the buyer to reduce the price of a deal or give away all manner of "stuff" for free, and sometimes less.

"We're in a rush (a 30-day mentality) to get the business, so we tend to give in to customer demands versus negotiating a win/win situation.  Management is often too impatient to work through a negotiation process.  They take the deal and move on, regardless of the fact that we're impacting future business dealings with the customer by demonstrating that we'll quickly and easily relent to their demands when put under pressure, especially if there is a danger of not securing the business in our time frame (i.e., quarter-end or year-end)."*  Does this sound familiar?

In every successful negotiation we have ever been part of, we have found, and even more important, exploited a gap.  For example, a client that specialized in data management services found themselves in a situation in which one of their customers believed that building their own database would be better, faster and cheaper than buying what they said were the outrageously expensive services of our client.  When we helped them analyze this, we found huge gaps between what the customer needed and wanted and the customer's consequence of not reaching agreement - building it themselves.

You're not alone! Many people tell us they are fearful of negotiating.  Most are afraid they don't know what data is needed.  Or they have attended a negotiation workshop that provided them with hundreds of tactics, but are afraid they won't recall what they are. 

It's not unusual to see situations in which neither side has a clear idea of what they really want out of a business negotiation beyond one or two simple items. When people are asked about their negotiation goals, a great many state they have no goals at all.  This is, at least in part, because they approach negotiation with a tactical rather than a strategic mind-set and, as a result, are much more concerned with figuring out how to get there than with where they want to go.  This is a problem because, among other things, not knowing where you want to go can make it very difficult - if not impossible - to get there!

An anchor is a starting point for one aspect of a negotiation or, in some instances, an entire negotiation.  An anchor can be true or false, appropriate or inappropriate, in any given negotiation.* Nevertheless, only anchors that are both true and appropriate can be beneficial to both you and your customer, as only such anchors will enable you to create value.

What does your company really sell?  Technically speaking, Ferrari sells cars.  But the Ferrari brand is all about ego, luxury, money, status, cachet, etc.  If the B2B street fighter is marked by any one skill, value or trait, it is courage.  Courage colors every moment of a street fighter's waking life.  It's not just how she acts under pressure; it's how she acts all day, every day, whether she's under the microscope or, more importantly, when no one is looking.

There's a notion that you never know what's going to happen in a negotiation.  In fact, by answering two questions before you get to the face-to-face part of negotiation, the less likely you will be surprised by anything that comes at you.  Listen to Brian Dietmeyer talk about these two questions in this short video.

When it comes to business negotiation, the only genuine negotiation power resides in 'the gap.'  What's the gap?  It's what you have that the competition doesn't.  And if you think what you have to offer looks exactly the same as the competition, you desperately need a fresh perspective!