Negotiation: A Change in Attitude
Nesh Thompson | November 25th, 2008 - 12:01 am‘Negotiation’ is a funny word. Think about it. In most situations in life where the word ‘negotiation’ is used you may assume one of several things. Firstly, that two or more parties want to resolve an issue, and that secondly, coming together to discuss it will find a common ground in which to resolve that issue and in so doing satisfy all parties as much as possible. Generally, ‘negotiation’ is considered a benevolent and worthy tool in ones arsenal.
Unfortunately, in the real world, negotiation is one of the most adversarial battlegrounds of political, egotistical and personal manouvring in modern communication. Think of situations where you need negotiations in order to make a deal and you will be in one of the most stressful situations in the world. These may include ‘hostage negotiation’, divorce proceedings (In the UK, negotiation and counselling may be a legal requirement before final divorce proceedings are heard), divorce settlement etc.
In to this mix we have to add the humble business negotiation. So humble in fact that some companies don’t let their sales people take part in this part of the deal but have an entire department of lawyers who specialise in ‘negotiating’ business deals on their behalf – and you know things are serious if lawyers are involved. The problem is that negotiation in business doesn’t actually fit into the mentallity of the sales process because a sales person ideally is ‘all about the client’. Throughout the entire process, from lead to close, the sales person should be focusing on questions like “what do you want?”, “What is your problem and how can I fix it?”. Negotiation is actually the opposite, it is all about me, “What do I want?”, “How am I best protected in entering this business relationship?” and “How much can I afford to give away and what can I hope to get?”.
Yet, don’t sales people have to negotiate as well? Not everyone works in a company whose legal department handles all negotations. Yes, the majority of sales people have to negotiate in order to make deals and in this respect some are sorely lacking because they don’t have the ability to switch from sales person to negotiator.
A lot has been said about avoiding price before developing a value in your product and in today’s economic climate this is going to be harder to avoid but this very situation highlights the very real problem in sales – negotiating way too early. Sales people think they are doing their client a favour by discounting their products because they are in the mentallity of “how can I fix your problem” but price is in the realm of the negotiator and should be about “protecting your own interests ie: margin”.
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