Much negotiation training concentrates on the methods buyers can use to get a good deal from salespeople. The buyer apparently has power over the seller. The more challenging exercise is for the seller to negotiate a profitable deal, with straightforward terms and conditions, even when up against a tough negotiator on the buyer side.
Most solution-selling activity is aimed at persuading the customer to buy the product or service. It is not always focused enough on what the customer pays. When buying activity is aimed at minimising the price, negotiation often takes the form of playing one supplier off against another. Selling the product is easy — just have the lowest price. Getting a good price for the product or service demands real skill.
Selling and negotiation are very different skills. In a typical B2B situation the salesperson assumes very little power over the buyer, because the buyer has the ‘power of the alternative’ — other suppliers. The salesperson’s task thus becomes creating a sufficiently great need for the product or service that the customer will pay the price.
Negotiation is a continuous process. Part of the seller’s job throughout the whole sale is to build their power base — so they can negotiate without giving away margin.
1. Qualify the deal properly
Structure the whole process of qualification in a simple framework such as SCOTSMAN®, to ensure time is not wasted on unwinnable deals. Some opportunities will be winnable; you should qualify out of the others quickly.
2. Identify objections early
Buyers may raise objections that need to be tested by the seller — does the deal depend on them being overcome? Objections also come up unexpectedly at the end of the sale. Both types are evidence of weak and/or late qualification. You can accelerate the selling process and increase your chances of winning by early, robust qualification that removes predictable negotiation problems.
3. Acknowledge genuine concerns and overcome objections
Objections can become deal killers. If sellers can’t change the rules and gain the appropriate commitments from the customer, they will lose the deal. By overcoming objections, so-called ‘objection handling’ simply becomes a minor negotiation around the final issues. Do your people know how to do this?
4. Recognise different negotiation styles
Negotiators usually fall into one of five behaviour-based categories, personified as the aggressor, the co-operator, the ditherer, the analyser or the idealist. It’s important for every seller to be aware of these, quickly recognise the tell-tale traits, and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Adopting the wrong style has a negative impact on the negotiation and could well cause you to lose the deal.
5. Shift the power through customer commitments
Sellers must better align themselves with the buying process, seeing it rather like a series of chess moves, where effective need creation and the gaining of customer commitments moves the balance of power in their direction. The customer will want to negotiate on price and terms at the very end of the sale, so knowing how to bargain is critical — and bargaining with a good balance of power is highly desirable.
6. Adopt Commitment Selling
Negotiating, and ultimately winning, the sale is achieved through an accumulation of customer commitments. Ask for timely, appropriate commitments from the prospect that smooth the way forward toward winning. This approach provides structure to progressing the sale by identifying the practical, ongoing steps you need the customer to take if you are to win.
7. Deploy the “close before the close”
It can be difficult to know what commitments to ask for at the end of a sales meeting. A useful transition from the body of the meeting to its close is to ask something like, “What do you think of it?” This is the ‘close before the close’. If the buyer has any concerns, they’ll raise them — and because you’re just being helpful, you can have an open, non-confrontational discussion about what are, in fact, objections. Clearly this is not possible once you’ve asked for the order.
Build the power base on every deal
The thread through all seven is that negotiation isn’t an event at the end — it’s the accumulation of commitments across the whole sale. Sustaining that discipline on every opportunity is exactly what SCOTSMAN® AI does: tracking the commitments gained, naming the next one to secure, and keeping the balance of power building in the seller’s favour, so the final price conversation is won long before it begins.
