Categories: Sales Process | Sales Negotiation
Negotiation isn’t a one-and-done event that happens at the end of the sales cycle. It’s a process that should be ingrained in your organization and the way you approach selling. If your margins are suffering, it could be because your organization doesn’t view a sales negotiation as part of an overall strategic process.
Establishing value should start at the beginning of your sales process and be carried through to the final stages of negotiating your deals. When you go head-to-head with competitors, there is as much differentiation in how you sell, as there is in what you sell.
Play Your Best Hand
Successful sales negotiators do their best work before buyers even realize negotiations have begun. They know that buyers are more likely to share their needs and discuss key business issues early in the sales cycle. Remember, when you play your cards late, you’re stuck with the hand you’re dealt. Start playing earlier and you’ll gain latitude in negotiating the deal.
That’s why viewing negotiation as an event is a fundamental mistake. When you’ve worked hard to articulate your value throughout the sales process, why would you abandon value and negotiate on price during the final stages of the deal?
If you find too many of your negotiations coming down to price, it may be because your sellers aren’t capitalizing on the value they’ve communicated in the sales process, during the negotiation.
Effective sales negotiation has to be part of the organization’s approach to its sales process. Yes, it is an individual skill set that takes training and practice. BUT, if you view negotiation as a process throughout the entire sales cycle, it will develop as an organizational competency that involves the whole company.
Shifting your mindset and approaching negotiations as an organizational competency will help improve margins, increase revenue and grow the likelihood of repeat business.
By approaching negotiation as a value-based process, you maximize the opportunity to establish differentiation among your competitors. You also create the necessary internal alignment that creates a repeatable process that sellers can execute in the field, no matter the customer.
Do you think your sales team could improve margins by developing a negotiation process?
