Sales Negotiation Strategies and Techniques™
Contrary to popular perception, closing and negotiating are not isolated events that happen only at the end of a sales cycle. They both happen during virtually every telephone call and meeting with your prospective client. This program is designed to help sales professionals and sales managers, or anyone in a customer-facing role, learn to effectively resolve customer issues, overcome objections, close without being pushy, and apply proven negotiation strategies and tactics when necessary.
Today’s marketplace is no place for the timid. Sales professionals and sales managers must be equipped for the harsh realities of fierce competition and aggressive, often predatory, buying practices. This brand new program has been created to address these complex challenges and comes in two flavors: one for “discrete” (one at a time) sales transactions such as capital investments, and the other for the “flow” sales environment for those who negotiate yearly or multi-year contracts for products and/or services delivered over time.
- Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives
After completing this program, participants will be able to:
- Understand your prospective buyer’s desired future state and help them quantify value in order to validate and justify your price.
- Understand and influence your buyer’s “perception of value” and use that knowledge to establish effective competitive differentiation.
- Identify and overcome buying obstacles and roadblocks before they become objections.
- Craft and ask effective closing questions to find out if your customer is ready to take the next step in their buying process.
- Utilize proven techniques such as the “trial close” to distinguish real objections from decoys.
- Employ proven negotiation techniques such as the “trade off,” the “counter offer,” and the “hypothetical resolution” to minimize price erosion and protect profitability.
- Utilize the Sales Excellence Negotiation Process to overcome objections, reach mutually beneficial agreements, and bring business to closure.
- Internalize and apply the Top 10 Rules of Effective Negotiation to position yourself to win while commanding a premium price.
- Learn and practice the Top 10 Most Effective Negotiation Techniques as well as how to avoid the traps and tricks employed by savvy and predatory buyers.
- Create a comprehensive Account Growth Strategy for every important account so that you are consistently “playing offense” and presenting new ideas to maximize profits for you and your clients (trade partners).
- Map out the relationships you and others within your company have already developed that may provide relational leverage and develop a plan to expand your relationship footprint both immediately and long-term.
- Leverage a business case or return-on-investment (ROI) projection to validate your pricing, terms, and conditions.
- Clearly establish the parameters of your own pricing, terms, and conditions and establish a good estimate of your customer’s parameters so that you know exactly what’s negotiable and what isn’t.
- Develop a thorough Request and Resolution History that reminds you and your client of all the concessions, favors, and promises you both have already made that might need to be factored into the current negotiation.
- Establish a primary and secondary negotiation strategy that you will use in your upcoming negotiation (line review) as well as the top three tactical maneuvers you intend to employ for each.
Utilize the Negotiation Planning Tool to prepare the requests you intend to make (and what you might be willing to trade for them) as well as what requests you expect your client to make (and what you might be willing to trade for them).
- Embody the philosophy of “scoring on defense” by turning every customer request into an opportunity to trade a portion of what they want for several specific things you want.
- Employ the Customer Request Worksheet to evaluate how to respond to complex customer requests and determine what you stand to gain or lose if you say “yes” as well as what you stand to gain or lose if you say “no.”
. . . and much more!
- Workshop Agenda
Workshop Agenda – Two-Day Format
Day One – Morning Session
How negotiation facilitates closure
The changing dynamics throughout a buying process
Broadening your relationship footprint (exercise)
Selling value and “profit” instead of products and services
Day One – Afternoon Session
Playing offense and learning to score on defense
Employing effective closing questions and techniques
Identifying the Top 10 Objections in your market (exercise)
Handling and overcoming objections – The “counter moves”
Negotiation role play number one
Day Two – Morning Session
The difference between bidding and negotiating
Rules for effective bidding
Introduction to the Sales Excellence Negotiation Process
Rules for minimizing price erosion
Day Two – Afternoon Session
Top 10 rules for effective negotiation
Top 10 most effective negotiation techniques
Best practices for dealing with “buyer best practices” (exercise)
Negotiation role play number two
- Delivery Options
Delivery Options
OnSite Workshop
When this program is delivered onsite at your offices or another facility of your choosing, the most common format is a two-day workshop filled with interactive discussions, small group exercises, and a variety of role plays custom-tailored to your industry and selling environment. Participants will be asked to share real-world examples of common customer objections and requests to which the group will apply what they have learned. This program is a very popular addition to a scheduled sales meeting or kick off and can be configured as an intense one-day workshop if necessary.
Web Workshop Series
This program can be delivered as a series of six (6) one-hour Web Workshops (web conferences) to groups of any size once a month, once a week, or at a rate that fits your learning goals and objectives. This gives participants a chance to digest and apply what they learn between sessions making it an ideal approach for companies with a distributed sales force who need to avoid the expense of travel and time out of the field.
- Video Highlights
Video Highlights
Video coming soon. . .
