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Sales Negotiation Skills

By:Doug Dvorak

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Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -Tolstoy

In any economy, learning to close the deal is a challenge for your workforce. Especially in these tough times, sales and marketing training can make the difference for your staff.

Sales coaching institutes often present negotiation as a three step process.

Step 1
Help Them Know Before They Go

Self awareness and self control are critical currencies in negotiations. Business sales training is absolutely critical in learning the art and skill of negotiation.

Knowledge is power and this begins with the salesman’s grasp of his own strengths and weaknesses. What personality traits does he possess? A sales team consultant will ask him to look closely at these characteristics. Is he hot tempered, depressive, shy, or easily distracted?

How about his patterns of social interaction? Sales training personnel encourage work candidates to consider other impediments to building buyer rapport too. Does a novice salesman prefer only the sound of his own voice, laugh a little too loudly at his own jokes, shout over another’s words, or become restless during a long conversation?

In a gentle and humorous way, motivational sales training can prove why self probing insight and honesty early on, aids your workforce to begin grasping one of the most critical rules for negotiation: self wisdom is power; the corollary follows; self knowledge gives you a private power and confidence which cannot be broken.

Some workers are oblivious or disbelieve just how their unpleasant personal presentation can make or break their future in sales. More such tough doubters often generally respond to the exciting and unflappable group energy from a motivational speaker.

Sales training speakers are here to help all comers grasp that this education will lead them to greater skills and wisdom. It can often be followed up with sales training articles which the day’s lesson.

Many novice sales people misunderstand just what character behaviors work best. They envision ruthless power brokers who either close a deal or toss it across the table and storm off if argument fails. If your staff beliefs in this gunslinger model, a strong sales speakers team has the words and wisdom to help.

Many new salesmen do no grasp that some of the toughest negotiators also have the capacity for incredible patience; such negotiators hang in there when anyone else would have given up. They can wear down the opposition, sometimes winning concessions refused at the outset. Self control is a skill which requires considerable practice.

Great negotiators truly listen and observe. These negotiators recognize when to be silent and still. For them, body language, non word cues, hesitations, awkward laughs or glances away all tell who and how is trying to shifting the power equation. A sales coaching institute has the experience to decipher these critical elements and the kills to impart their lessons.

Empathy. No, skilled closers don’t confuse negotiation with bartering, nor with conflict resolution, but they grasp that this is a session of searching for joint incentive. Negotiation involves leadership and the best leaders know how to motivate even the most reluctant recruit. Being aware of how you would feel– in your buyer’s shoes—doesn’t mean you collapse in kindness, but it does give you valuable information. Like the other traits of the skilled negotiator, empathy gives you the power of knowledge. Putting someone at their ease can build their sense of trust in you. You can anticipate how one individual might respond to a particular sales suggestion.

Empathy, being able to imagine another’s emotion and state of mind, lets you foresee the dance of the deal. Unless you are a sociopath, true empathy requires honor, compassion, and quality. Protect your reputation; it will be one of the only means to building long term client trust and faith. It is the basis of much of your own personal command and power. Sales management consulting and employee motivational speakers can be the difference in encouraging your staff to take a hard look at just what it takes to begin and develop these talents.

Empathy, and lessons it can teach, are felt to be a core need for a good salesman or negotiator. Combined with the others listed above, positive traits help avoid impediments to effective communication—without them negotiations fail before even shaking hands at the first deal. Your workforce will not pick up these attitudes by osmosis. A sales coaching institute has the experience and an employee motivational speaker has the inspiration punch to persuade your staff to sit up and take note.

Sales team training provides a caveat.
Believe in yourself and act like you do so. In sports, visualizing a positive race, picturing a series of perfect pitches, or envisioning the swish of your three point only net shot, a has been known to impact a competition by as much as twenty percent. This is a number which a sales professional considers as well. Having done the hard homework, see the sales scene before it happens. Envisage yourself speaking calmly, responding well to all questions or challenges, knowing when to offer non monetary incentives and picture a great close to the deal. It’s not a replacement for hard work, but can this technique can feed your subconscious the poise which translates into triumph.

A sales management consultant is key as they will help you learn to practice with fellow salesmen, recording your own voice, and speaking before a mirror.

The sales training may also have an employee verbally review or informally and anonymously test their grasp of the company product line; this can aid memorization greatly. All the confidence in the world won’t help staff unless they know the product backwards and forwards and believe in it just as much as you believe in yourself. Is your product unique? Does the buyer have no other option? If so, you stand ready to position yourself much more strongly and your workers understand it.

Read, ask, and learn all you can about your company too. You cannot venture out on even the simplest sales call without knowing your company’s bottom line for each deal. A bottom line is a number, value, condition which—if you cannot achieve—dooms you from further negotiating unless you are very, very good at bluffing. If you return from a sales call having achieved less than a bottom line, prepare to leave with your hat in your hand, your company would have wished you had walked away from such a ‘deal’.

An aside here, deals are rarely closed in such a formal setting as a sit down table meeting, such a term is shorthand for the ways and places deals really do close: while hosting your buyer at an event, following up a series of faxed pitches, or even flash negotiations after a cold call.

Step 2
The Action Heats Up

Negotiations involve subtle leadership which lead the buyer to feel satisfied he has joined the winning team. You are not here to swap proposals.

Before your salesman walks into negotiations, he must analyze his sales pitch carefully. He should be well aware that the first thing the buyer will try to do is negotiate over price. As a subtle leader, this is the last aspect he should enter into discussion. Does your salesman grasp this?

One tactic, one sales coaching institute offer is to encourage negotiators to consider whether an option or addition exists for your employee to pre introduce to your current proposal that which can then be revoked as a gesture of cost reduction?

A sales and marketing training team can relay just what you want your novice force to grasp. Their motivational speakers can put your salesmen right in the scene:

Before you walk in, determine whether you can adjust upward what your price pitch will be without ruining the negotiation. If they sit through this marked up proposition, you have additional leverage for other concessions. The growth your employee has made through sales management training is now serving him in good stead. While most parties understand what is about to occur, you may have to initiate this stage without a clear invitation from a buyer.

Once your salesmen get to this level, they are often requesting business sales training themselves. They are no longer reluctant learners, but are grateful for the education you are providing them. Some of the following language will now also include their interests and hopes for more sales Training Speaking.

Once a salesman has engaged with the other company, he should not get take discussions lightly. He are representing your company now and he must be are fully prepared for serious and potentially lengthy negotiations. A worker can’t walk off the field because he’s tired, hungry, or bored. Worst of all guard against this time when you are most likely to rationalize taking a poor deal

Be careful the negotiator for the company is talking to the right people. A worker does not want to negotiate’’ for some time only to be told that his listener doesn’t have permission to negotiate.

Let your worker know, his concessions may pretend to seem dragged out as this helps his audience save face and feel it is their turn to ‘compromise’. In actuality no adjustments are off the cuff but preplanned and prioritized to the fullest extent possible.

These are just a few of the tactics sales skills training can make second nature for your company’s sales recruit.

Step 3
Make Your Leadership Count, Closing Time

Both your employer and you have benefited from your new found knowledge. Motivational Sales Training has helped you really reexamine yourself and be open to a new way of understanding negotiations.

Just as your company have a bottom line, realize your opponent or client buyer has one as well. If the salesman pushes his buyer him past this bottom line, he loses any chance for the deal. Sales Management Training teaches your employees how to manage such an event.

Look for signs the buyer is getting close ready to crash the whole deal. Is he getting irritable, trying to stall the process, or rehashing items he previously accepted? To make this deal succeed, keep the buyer close but not over the edge. Let him close graciously and save face. He may not even be fully aware of his relief, believing instead he has done well. Such good will engendered builds trust in you as a leader and in your company as a whole. If the negotiations are satisfactory, don’t linger. This is not an idle chat. Making the sales final can ace out your competition, show you honor and respect your opponent’s time, and further

On the other hand, if you don’t like the way things are going, try wresting leadership back with silence. Pausing, letting nothing escape from you, often freezes listeners and makes others uncomfortable. This hush lets them know you are displeased and nor not letting negotiations proceed. Much of this depends on your market strength and penetration; will they have to play with you or risk hurting themselves? If so, and negotiations are unsuitable, halt the meeting or indicate you need time away to consider.

Companies rise and fall based on their sales staff strength or weakness in negotiations. Developing proficiency in the complex task and art of this true basis of all sales is enhanced by sales training consultants who can provide a stable of services including motivational speakers, sales training articles, and sales management consultant. The depth and breadth of such help may include personality interviews, practice sessions, negotiation walk through and follow up assessment, education of negotiation and leadership techniques. Mastery of negotiation skills is a profound education;

About the Author:

Doug Dvorak helps companies and professionals achieve results through customized, creative and non-traditional sales training systems that are “one size fits one” and developed to the unique business needs and “sales pain points” of each client. He is available to speak on these topics.

For more information visit https://salescoach.us or call 847-359-6969 FREE

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Copyright 2008 The Sales Coaching Institute, Inc.

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Doug Dvorak, CEO of DMG International, is the Author of the forthcoming book “Build Your Own Brand” (Pelican, 2009)