A Sales Negotiator’s Friend: The Telephone

What’s your mental picture of a typical sales negotiation? When you close your eyes do you see a lushly carpeted board room with a large oval table in the center and padded leather chairs all around it? If so, then in most cases you are sadly mistaken. An amazing number of sales negotiations occur over … Read more

Even More Giving: 5 More Ways Sales Negotiators Can Use Concessions

You can never say it too many times: in order to reach an agreement with the other side during a sales negotiation, you ALWAYS have to make some sort of concession(s). The trick to doing this correctly is to make sure that you don’t make so many concessions that when a deal is struck that … Read more

Giving To Get: How A Sales Negotiator Makes Concessions

Sales negotiating is all about concessions. You make them, the other side makes them. Finally, if enough has been given, then you should be able to reach a common middle ground where a deal can be struck. The trick is knowing how and when you should make your concessions. Here are some tips from the … Read more

A Sales Negotiator’s Friend: “Just The Facts, M’am”

So there you are, getting ready to fire up your side of a sales deal when all of a sudden you get hit with a volley of facts, averages, and statistics. You’re hit! Each one of those figures came with a sharp point that has embedded itself, perhaps fatally, into your arguments. Is there any … Read more

How Sales Negotiators Can Defend Against The Good Cop / Bad Cop Tactic

I like movies. I especially like police movies. I’m guessing that one of the reasons that I like movies with police in them so much is because it’s almost a given that sometime during the movie the police heroes will resort to using the “Good Cop / Bad Cop” negotiating tactic. Every sales negotiator out … Read more

Sales Negotiators Should Always Have Limited Authority – Or Else!

Do you run the world yet? I’m going to guess that the answer is no (if it isn’t, then we need to talk). When we talk about being successful in a sales negotiation, we often spend a lot of time trying to figure out how we can get more negotiating power on our side. However, … Read more

6 Ways To Break A Negotiation Deadlock (Plus One More)

So how many times has this happened to you: there you are happily negotiating along and then all of a sudden *bang* you run into an immovable deadlock. Some issue or some condition that neither you nor the other side of the table seem to be able to see eye-to-eye on just brings everything to … Read more

Say Hello To The Bogey-Man – A Negotiator’s Best Friend

As a negotiator, the key to your long-term success is to have a number of different techniques that you can use when a situation calls for it. One way to think about this is like a carpenter who has a tool belt with his most commonly used tools on it. As the carpenter is working … Read more