If you think your team needs “Negotiation Skills” Training, you could be making the biggest mistake EVER! First, people don’t define what they mean by “Negotiation Skills” when it comes to sales training. Here is how to better define it, and be careful of buzz words. At the end of negotiation training, we want the team to be better at ___, ____, and ____. (Hint: Cannot be “closing more deals”) Here are some examples. I have seen when it comes to negotiation training, it often means doing a better job of qualifying and discovery. The tactics in negotiations are many times the same in qualifying: How to use open/closed-ended questions, Psychological Mirroring, Emotional Labeling, earning the right to ask questions through Respect Contracts. Yes, negotiation strategies do exist, but they are often fruitless if you haven’t done more before you reach that point.
- Ability to walk away from the deal – If the rep, manager, C-Level will not walk away from bad deals, then negotiation skills training will be meaningless.
- Discounting Hangover – Too many discounts reduce your teams’ courage to hold pricing and confidence to do so, and more importantly, it reduces their confidence in the leadership team.
This means your team thinks you (they) plays favorites, does things on a whim, and sends conflicting messages. Then when you (they) decide not to give a discount (no matter your justification) you “blame the rep”. It’s not their fault. “It’s your (Managements’).
So, before you hire “the worlds greatest negotiator” you now need to fill in the following blanks as an executive. After negotiation training I will STOP ____, _____, and _____ which f’ups my team.
Am I right? Am I wrong? #ReactToMe!
