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.

In the business negotiation field, acute, surface-level pain is often expressed as "our margins are down" or "our salespeople are giving in on price too quickly." Yet these are merely symptoms of a problem that doesn't contain enough information to stage an intervention.  There are many root causes of negotiation problems creating these symptoms and driving this pain - some selling-related, some cross-functional - such as:

If American corporations spend $7.2 billion* every year on sales processes, account management skills, negotiation, and opportunity management training, why aren't these training initiatives being interwoven into the "DNA" of the organization? Interestingly enough, three factors are cited most frequently in our research for failure to implement training initiatives:

"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.

Sometimes a few of your products or services - when compared at the product feature/benefit level - might actually be commodities.  So what do you do then?  Fortunately, when you look at the total business relationship (not just a piece of it) between your firm and the customer, this commodity problem usually goes away.

I'd like to invite you to a fancy restaurant tonight.  But this is not just any fancy restaurant.  It is the type of restaurant you read about in the tabloids because celebrities are always there.  It's the kind of place you normally have to book at least six months in advance.  It's the kind of place with three-hour waits and long lines at the valet stand as the paparazzi peer around to look at someone famous inside.  Now, this restaurant doesn't have a fancy name, but I'm sure you'll recognize it.  It's called the Fixed Price Negotiation.

I recently read an article that talked about how a team member, during the beginning of a deal had "expressed need – the death-rattle of any negotiation." I see two problems with this quick assessment. First of all, it unequivocally highlights the value of having internal alignment when negotiating a deal. Does every team member understand what the negotiation strategy is, its details, what tactics to use and expect in return? Before you can adequately execute a negotiation strategy, internal alignment on the deals' objectives, elements and ranges is a key success factor. Clearly understanding your alternatives, as well as your opponent's alternatives, allows you to put things in perspective and develop gainful communications during the negotiation process.

Determining the answer to this question is important because it affects how both sides think of the negotiation and, as a result, how they behave.  Those who think they have more power in the negotiation tend to overestimate the value of their offer.  As a result, they're more likely to play hardball in the negotiation and are less willing to consider making trades.  And when either side is unwilling to make trades, it makes creating value difficult for both sides and increases the likelihood of impasse.  On the other hand, those who think they have less power are likely to underestimate the value of their offer, are likely to roll over too easily, and, in the process, unnecessarily give up value to the other side.

There are essentially only two kinds of impasses in business negotiations.  The first, the emotional impasse, occurs when a deal is on the table that's better than both sides' Consequences of No Agreement (CNA), but they still don't come to an agreement.  Situations like this are usually the result of one or both sides misdiagnosing their CNA.  The best way to deal with this is to go back and evaluate the CNAs again, validate them again, diplomatically educate the other side about them, and re-present the offer.

I imagine you've heard the old 80/20 rule to guide your listening and speaking, respectively.  This couldn't be more important in a validation meeting, where the primary purpose of meeting is to gain information.  The fact that most customers don't even see sharing information as part of the negotiation actually works to your benefit because, as a result, they're likely to share more freely.  Ultimately, of course, it's trading information that enables you to learn more about what your customer wants and to let him or her know better what you want.  And that, in turn, is what enables you to format offers later that create real value.