Real World Negotiations

We have many images of negotiation thanks to the media. It could be movie scenes of tough negotiations or reports on political negotiations with rogue states led by lunatics. Most of these representations however have very little relevance in the real world of business. A lot of the work done on negotiations focuses on “tactics”. This is completely understandable for any transactional based negotiations. Those one off deals where there is no great likelihood of any on-going relationship between buyer and seller. This is false flag.
 

The aim of sales is not a sale. The aim is repeat orders. If you want to be permanently in 100% prospecting mode then transactional selling is fine. That gets tiring tough as you have to spend all of your time hunting because you can’t farm. Now there will be some cases where that is how it rolls and there is not much you can do about it. The majority of salespeople though are trying to strike up a lifetime relationship with the buyer, so that the orders keep coming rain, hail or shine.
 

The style of negotiations for this play is completely different to the one-off, transactional occasion. In this world “tactics” are only partially relevant. Going one up on the buyer isn’t sustainable in a continuing relationship. They remember and they don’t like it. They either dump you as the supplier or they even it up down the road. They don’t forgive you though.
 

Technique has a role in the sense that there are certain best practices in negotiating which we should observe. The philosophical starting point is key. What are we trying to do here? Are we trying to build an on-going business relationship where we become the favoured supplier or are we after a one –off smash and grab deal? If you want the lifetime value of the customer to be your main consideration, then you have a lot of commitment to win-win outcomes.
 

The consideration of the communication style of the buyer is another important negotiating consideration. How we communicate with the buyer will vary, if we know what we are doing. Clueless salespeople will have one default mode – the way they personally like to communicate and that is it.
 

Professionals understand that if the buyer is micro focused, we go with them on facts, detail, evidence, testimonials, proof etc. If they are the opposite, then we talk big picture and don’t get bogged down in the smaller details. We describe what success looks like. If they are conservative, self-contained and skeptical we drop the energy level to match theirs. We don’t force the pace, we spend time having a cup of tea to build the trust in the relationship. We mirror what they like. If the buyer is a “time is money” hard driving type, we don’t beat around the bush. We get straight down to business, we lay out the three reasons they should buy and then we get out of their office pronto.
 

With this analysis in mind we prepare for the negotiation by analyzing the buyer’s perspective. We use what we know to build up a picture of what they will need from the deal we are negotiating. We match that with what we can provide and we amplify the value we bring to the equation. We set out our BATNA – the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement”. This is our walk away position.
 

We have analysed the potential of this client by looking at their lifetime value as a buyer. This can have a big impact on how we see the pricing. When negotiating with a big multi-national buyer I had to take a painful hit on my pricing. I only agreed to this though, because the volume in the first year was very substantial and the understanding was that this would be repeated annually. It may not become annual, who knows, but if it does then this is a major feast of guaranteed farming that allows a better balance to all the hunting required.
 

In another case, I “fired” the buyer because their pricing requirement was too low. There was no prospect of any on-going business and the volume was not attractive. We all have our positioning in the market. If we want to maintain that then we have to be prepared to reject low ball offers that damage our position and our brand.
 

In most cases, sales negotiating requires a holistic approach rather than a “mechanical” tactics driven approach. Decide what type o relationship you want with the buyer. If it I win-win, then we are looking at trade offs for pricing against volume and repeat business. Leave all that tricky negotiating palaver to the fantasy world of Hollywood movie scripts. Let’s negotiate in the real world.