As we come to the start of a new year, most of us review where we've been and where we're going.  If you'd like to confidently stride into all of your upcoming business negotiations, you'll want to read these four tips!

Tip #1:  The Four Key Premises of Value
Value is not a trophy or mission statement you come up with once, put up on a shelf and take down occasionally to dust.  Value is a living, breathing thing; an ecosystem, if you will, that really does need to be properly fed and watered.  It is not a list of static statements!

I recently heard a renowned negotiation guru refer to Professional Sports Agents as “Parasitic Intermediaries.” I immediately had a flashback to the movie Jerry Maguire, and the famous line: “show me the money!” However, if we think about it, it does make quite a bit of sense. Why would someone hand over their power to negotiate to another? Agents will usually tell you it’s because they have more ‘experience’ negotiating and are more ‘familiar’ with the details and mechanics of negotiating with major league franchises; and in most cases, that may be true. However, they do not know, better than you, what it is you value, want or need.

In many respects, hiring an agent is similar to a company hiring a purchasing manager that buys on behalf of his company, but is solely focused on his interests (political or financial). If he is not focused on the needs of the company as a whole, or of the specific stakeholders he serves, he is in effect an agent. Companies, as well as professional athletes need to make sure that they are protected from possible conflict of interest issues. These items increase trust and collaboration, and promote better long-term results: 

1. Manage:
   1. Mutual understanding of long-term goals and objective’s ranges.
   2. Limited authority to make commitments.
   3. Communication throughout the process.
   4. Alignment of compensation with your interests.
2. Insist on expanding the pie:
   1. Find creative ways to make the pie bigger for both parties.
3. Analyze all options:
   1. Understand the moving parts of the deal, and;
   2. The consequences of no-agreement for both sides.

In our work with major buying organizations we find that very few purchasing decisions are made based on price alone.  Virtually every purchasing organization we have experience with evaluates suppliers with a matrix and price is simply one of the many criteria.  In most instances, the lowest priced supplier does not get the business.  Buyers are charged with supplying their organizations with the lowest total cost of ownership solution.

What we’re hearing today from procurement professionals is a desire to “increase internal share of spend and reduce rogue buys.”  As a salesperson if you’re not sure what this means, you need to know.

We know that face-to-face communication is a rich medium because we transmit both visual and vocal cues, while e-mail communication has neither. On one side e-mail may seem to be a more “business-like” approach, but it also eliminates rapport building and subtle body-language communication as well. Studies have shown that e-mail negotiations have five major implications:

I was recently sent a copy of a HBS article entitled “Seven tips for managing price increases.” I think that in today’s economy, it is not only tough to get a price increase approved by a customer, but it is something we shouldn’t have to deal with at all. So I asked myself: Why do we (as B2B salespeople) put ourselves through this time and again? Because, no matter what the reason for wanting the price increase might be, it is not going to be well-received by our customers. In many industries, such as the chemicals industry, price increases are nothing more than a necessary evil that everyone has learned to deal with. So, instead of thinking of all the tactics and maneuvers that can be used to introduce price increases; why don’t we find a way to avoid them altogether?

It seems that most of us, even younger salespeople, were taught to sell by upselling our own products and services. This model is completely outdated given the current demands of procurement agents and business people.