Sales Skills Development Blog

Win-Win Negotiations

  

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NEGOTIATION IS A BASIC MEANS OF GETTING WHAT YOU WANT FROM OTHERS, AND THEM GETTING WHAT THEY WANT FROM YOU. It is a communication process that allows you and your customer to reach agreement.  It assumes that you and the customer have common interests and would like to reach agreement on terms and conditions relating to doing business. These can include pricing, support levels, quality issues, training, product enhancements, contract renewals, etc.

Corporate Sales Coaches has researched the concepts in this module from a variety of third party sources including the Harvard University Negotiations Project.  We have combined our research on sales negotiations with over forty years of actual personal experience negotiating sales contracts valued in the hundreds of million of dollars.

We define a win/win sales negotiation, as an agreement that is equally beneficial to both sides. The buyer and the seller come out of a negotiation with a workable agreement they both can live with and feel good about.  When this occurs, lasting relationships can develop that benefit both sides. Anything less usually spells trouble down the road.

Salespeople sometimes approach a negotiation from a "defensive position." They believe the buyer may be trying to squeeze them or take advantage of them. They may end up compromising a "preferred" position to get the business.  Negotiations like this usually end up win/loose. They often have an adversarial cloud over them. We will examine the negotiation process and determine the types of negotiations that cause people the most difficulty.

To better understand our approach to reach a win-win, visit the free demonstration of our online course titled "Win-Win Negotiations."