Negotiation Skills Articles

About this Article:
This article, from Bill Fryer, provides really practical advice and information that will benefit anyone who works in a sales environment.

Opening Words:
1. Don't be greedy. If you always try to profit from the first sale, you ignore the real value of the customer. This is a mistake. If you don't invest as much as you could to get customers - you won't get as many profitable customers as you might. Also, your competitor, who does know the value of a customer, can outspend or underprice you - or both.

2. Concentrate on customers more than prospects. Research by McGraw-Hill into why retailers lost customers showed that 68% went elsewhere because of indifference or the attitude of their salesforce. Only 14% went because they were dissatisfied with the product or service and only 9% went to the competition. Your customers will remain loyal if you pay them attention.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in sales or responsible for the development of sales skills in others.

Article Overview:
In this article Jeremy explains how we can all develop our negotiation skills. The article covers several areas, including cultural expectations and challenges, myths about negotiating and the negotiator's dilemma.

Opening Words:
We all have to negotiate at one level or another, whatever our job. Often, there can be huge sums at stake. Yet, many managers, responsible for negotiating even quite critical issues, whether for contracts of supply, purchases or employment, let alone day-to-day differences of opinion with colleagues, have never been trained to negotiate professionally.

The requisite skills are often held to be 'self-evident'. But they are not!

Useful Reading For:
Anyone wanting to develop their negotiation skills.

About this Article:
In this article, Buffy Sparks considers the fact that people, in general, love to buy, but hate to be sold to. She explains simply the two types of buying motivation, and the importance of turning needs into wants.

Opening Words:
To understand buying motivation we must first look at the reasons why we buy products and items ourselves.

There is nothing magical in why people buy certain things; in fact the answer is quite simple.

People LOVE to BUY, but HATE to be SOLD to.

It is the combination of these four words that causes a great deal of trouble; any combination of the four words other than the sequence displayed above and there is no sale.

Suitable Reading For:
Anyone involved in sales and sales techniques.

Article Overview:
This short article from experienced life coach Fiona Reed provides some useful advice and tips for influencing managers. It explains the preparation that will help you sell an idea to your manager.

Opening Words:
If you want to influence your boss or someone who has authority to affect your actions, a good way is to have a well thought out plan. Sometimes it is said, 'well, just ask for what you want', (which is easy to say although maybe hard to do), but will that get the result you seek?

A better question to ask yourself is, ‘What can I do to ask in a way that is likely to get a 'yes'?’ This is something altogether trickier. It involves work to prepare, but is far more likely to deliver the goods and get the ‘yes’ you want. It involves a plan to go 'upwards' with solutions and not problems. This is key. People who have any kind of power to agree to something you want or not, will have their minds racing with 'yes, buts' all the time you’re speaking, because they will be involved in the decisions, the cost and disruption caused by the solution you’re proposing. So the clearer you can be and the more thorough your prior thinking, the more likely you are to be able to quell those racing thoughts before they’ve taken hold.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone who needs to influence decision makers to ensure a positive outcome is reached - that's everyone at some time or another!

Article Overview:
In this Article, Tony Atherton discusses the Salami Tactic, often used during negotiations, and how to counter it.

Opening Words:
Some negotiators just love to play tactical games. In this article we will look at one of the most widely known negotiating tactics and think about how to rebuff it. In our negotiating skills courses we discuss this and other tactics in some detail and practice using them and rebuffing them.

Salami sausages are big things (often spicy) that are eaten a slice at a time, they would be indigestible if taken in a single large piece. This aspect has led negotiators to use the name for a negotiating technique that tries to do just that: to win concessions in small doses (slices) when the other party would probably reject them if they were put on the table all at once. It is often used on a party that is mainly concerned with damage limitation.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in negotiations.

Article Overview:
In this article Tony discusses why the art of making concessions is a crucial skill in negotiations.

Opening Words:
You often hear that someone in a negotiation gave away a concession. It's an interesting phrase 'gave away' because good negotiators, whether professional or amateur, rarely give away concessions. Some, as a point of principle, never 'give away' a concession. Someone with good negotiating skills 'trades' concessions.

By its very nature a concession – however easy it is for you to make or however trivial it might seem to you – is worth something to the other party. Therefore good negotiators put a value on that concession and will exchange it, or trade it, for something they want in return. Whenever you think about making a concession always ask yourself the question – What am I getting in return?

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in negotiations and sales people in particular.

Article Overview:
This superb article from Calum Coburn is essential reading for anyone involved in negotiation or sales. It explains some of the common tactics used in negotiation by those focused on short term benefit, and gives clear advice for neutralising these without resorting to the same manipulative approaches.

Opening Words:
Prior to the 1980’s, many companies focused their negotiation training on tactics. Although the following tactics will yield a short term result, we don’t advocate their use in a business context. The reason we don’t advocate their use is due to both the long term damage they will deliver to your business relationships, and the questionable ethics of using manipulative tactics. Once you have mastered the Principled Negotiation Model, the need for manoeuvring to gain a small short term advantage will be made redundant. These tactics are designed to extract value out of the other side without making any value contribution or creation. They are thus Win-Lose by nature.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in negotiations or sales.

Article Overview:
In this article Nicki Davey shares her experience of training in the third sector from both sides of the fence.

Opening Words:
In response to recent Training Zone discussions about supplying training to the third sector (i.e. charities and not-for-profit organisations such as housing associations, social enterprises and community interest companies), here are some observations based on my own experience as a training provider and my previous experience as Head of Learning and Development for a large national charity.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone interested in providing training to the Third Sector.

Article Overview:
Jeremy Thorn, Non-Executive Director and coach to several fast-growing companies, offers some tips on making more effective sales.

Opening Words:
1. Find out all you can about your prospective customers, all their past contacts and transactions with your company and their probable needs, before you ever meet them. You can’t possibly know all that you will need to know about them in advance, but the prospects you meet will not be much impressed if you know nothing about them at all!
2. Practise a powerful introduction. If you don’t believe passionately in your company, its products, and what you can offer, why should anyone else? But don’t present yourself ‘off the cuff’ each time...

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in sales or responsible for the development of sales skills in others.