You Thought The Sale was Closed and Now The Customer Wants to Negotiate!
Many of us love selling, but dread negotiating. To sell in the B2B environment, we are the eternal optimist, problem solver and relationship builder and feel real good when we get the verbal yes for the sale. Then the client asks to negotiate and possibly send you to the dreaded procurement officer.
For me, negotiating is a bit stressful, because entering into negotiating seems to start from a low trust stance, less information sharing, and many times a feeling that the end outcome must be Win – Lose.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s look at some of the keys to negotiating from a Win-Win collaborative perspective.
My observations on minimizing negotiations are insightful.
Smart, clever customers force poor sales people to negotiate early in the sale cycle and squeeze for benefits as the sales cycle moves forward.
Smart sales people create collaborative business discussions first using well practiced selling skills to uncover circumstances, issues and then satisfy core customer needs with benefits to minimize or even eliminate negotiations.
When clients approach me for sales negotiating training, 90% of the time the root cause is poor selling skills of the sales team. World-class clients know that coaching and improving sales people selling skills is the best antidote for better negotiations. Imagine the sales revenue growth if your sales team effectively uses professional selling skills for win-win closing and skills that create win-win consultative negotiations.
Our global research indicates that moving to the close requires the sales person to uncover and satisfy 2.84 needs. This means that satisfying 3 or more needs in every sales interaction helps move the B2B sale forward and reduce the possibility of protracted negotiations.
Even more powerful, in competitive situations, satisfying customer needs with your exclusive benefits makes negotiating easier and creates drawbacks and objections when your competitors meet your client again.
People like to buy from sales people they trust and like. Your ability to build rapport and trust as a problem solver and loyal customer champion, make possible negotiations more collaborative. This means you may have to adapt your selling and communication style to connect and serve the customer.
Remember you, the salesperson, is the biggest competitive advantage your company has in building relationships, trust, and the case for the customer buying from you and your company. Your cumulative impact of attitude, skill, knowledge and professionalism can swing the sale and reduce painful negotiations.
What happens if you have to negotiate? Let’s first look at the difference between selling and negotiating.
SELLING IS THE PROCESS BY WHICH YOU:
- Satisfy customer needs with your features and benefits.
- Resolve customer concerns.
- Seek customer commitment to accept certain deliverables, terms and conditions, and price.
When you are able to develop the customer’s interest, but unable to gain his/her final commitment, it may be due to differences between you and your customer concerning the specifics of deliverables, terms and conditions, and/or price. When you are unable to resolve these differences with your selling skills, you negotiate.
NEGOTIATING IS THE PROCESS BY WHICH YOU:
- Resolve differences in deliverables, terms and conditions, and/or price.
- Transform conditional customer commitments into final commitments.
We already highlighted smart customers many times try to force a sales person to negotiate too soon. Salespeople can make negotiations unnecessarily difficult by negotiating when they don’t have to or by negotiating too soon:
- Before there is a mutual interest in making a commitment
- Before they have enough information
To avoid such situations, begin negotiating only after the four negotiation criteria have been met. The four criteria are:
- Gain a conditional commitment from the customer.
- Propose deliverables, terms and conditions, and price.
- Attempt to resolve each customer concern with selling skills.
- Confirm that all customer concerns or needs have been expressed.
Until you meet the four negotiation criteria, try to sell the value of the deliverables, terms and conditions, and price you initially propose. When you meet the four negotiation criteria, you are ready to make the transition from selling to negotiating.
The skills of professional negotiating will be outlined in my next sales blog. For your reference you may want to download a summary of our key charts from our Professional Sales Negotiations training and coaching program.
This week, why not focus on more skillful business discussions to get your customers to buy first, rather than getting sucked into negotiating and lengthening your sales cycle?
