Sales: Managing the Sales Negotiation Process

Managing the Sales Negotiation Process

Written by Michael Schatzki

How many times have you heard:

* "You've got to drop your price by 10% or we will have no choice but to go with your competition."

* "You will have to make an exception to your policy if you want our business."

* "I know that you have good quality and service, but so do your competitors. What we need to focus on here is your pricing."

* "I agree that those special services you keep bringing up would be nice, but we simply don't have repparttar funds to purchase them. Could you include them at no additional cost?"

Every time you hear statements like these, you're in repparttar 127138 middle of a difficult sales negotiation. How you handle that negotiation will determine whether or not you close repparttar 127139 sale and how profitable that sale will be. In order to give you a real edge every time, I have listed below some key points taken from my sales negotiation training program.

Don't Believe Everything You See and Hear

Part of a good salesperson's skill is to learn to read people and situations very quickly. However, when it gets down to negotiating, you have to take everything you see and hear with a grain of salt. Buyers are good negotiators, and thus they are good actors. You may be repparttar 127140 only person who has what she needs, but everything she does and says, from body language to repparttar 127141 words she uses, will be designed to lead you to believe that unless she gets an extra 10% off, she's going with repparttar 127142 competition. Be skeptical. Be suspicious. Test, probe, and see what happens.

Don't Offer Your Bottom Line Early in repparttar 127143 Negotiation

How many times have you been asked to "give me your best price"? Have you ever given your best price only to discover that repparttar 127144 buyer still wanted more? You have to play repparttar 127145 game. It's expected. If you could drop your price by 10%, start out with 0%, or 2%, or 4%. Leave yourself room to negotiate some more. Who knows - you may get it for a 2% reduction. You might have to go all repparttar 127146 way to 10%, but often you won't. A little stubbornness pays big dividends.

Get Something in Return for Your Added Value

What if you discover that repparttar 127147 buyer wants to be able to track his expenditures for your products or services in a way that is far more detailed and complex than is standard for your industry? What if your account tracking system is set up in a way that you can provide that information at essentially no cost to you? Often repparttar 127148 salesperson's overwhelming temptation is to jump in and say, "Oh, we can do that. That's no problem." Before you do, however, think about your options. You could throw it in as part of repparttar 127149 package and try to build good will. Or you could take a deep breath and try something like, "That's a difficult problem that will require some effort on our part, but it's doable." In repparttar 127150 second case, without committing, you've told repparttar 127151 buyer it is possible. You may not be able to get him to pay extra for it but you may be able to use it as a bargaining chip in resisting price concessions. Which way you choose to go will depend on who your customer is and on repparttar 127152 situation. However, you do have options.

Voice Mail That Sells

Written by Kelley Robertson

As a business owner, I receive my share of sales calls in a given month. More often than not, I’m away from my desk or out of repparttar

office which means I end up listening to repparttar 127137

messages instead of speaking directly with repparttar 127138

sales person. Here are a few of repparttar 127139

common mistakes I notice and how you can correct them.

Mistake #1 – The message lacks focus or clarity. You are more likely to receive voice mail today than actually connect with repparttar 127140 person you are trying to contact. That means you must be prepared to leave a clear, concise message. Business people are too busy to listen to a lengthy message that is not focused and you lose credibility if you cannot state your objective without rambling. The average executive in an organization receives dozens of calls every day and many of them are from sales people trying to sell a product or service. If you ramble on, your prospect will probably press delete without listening to repparttar 127141 entire message. Keep repparttar 127142 message brief and to repparttar 127143 point. Plan what you are going to say BEFORE you call so you are prepared.

Mistake #2 – The message is difficult to understand. A sales person recently left me a message and he spoke so quickly that I did not understand most of his message. I knew it had something to do with repparttar 127144 Internet and getting top placement in search engines but I couldn’t decipher his company name and most of his message was unintelligible.

If you have an accent, recognize repparttar 127145 fact that some people may find it more difficult to understand you. That means you may have to repeat yourself or slow down in order to be understood. This also applies if you have an unusual name. Make it easy for people to understand you.

Mistake #3 – Phone numbers are rattled off at lightening speed which makes it next to impossible to write them down. Most sales people state their telephone number too quickly. A general rule of thumb is to actually write down your own number as you state it in your message. This may sound simple but I’m sure you have had to listen to some messages more than once in order to capture repparttar 127146 telephone number. Once again, you must make it easy for repparttar 127147 person you are contacting to understand your message. If they have to replay repparttar 127148 message several times they will seldom call you back.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>