Negotiation Skills

Moving to Value-Driven Negotiations

When it comes to negotiating, does your sales force understand what really drives their customers’ satisfaction? Based on insight from world-class salespeople, all of our negotiations training transforms salespeople into negotiators who turn every negotiation into a successful, collaborative win. We work from the proven premise that every negotiation involves multiple dimensions of interests, and our training offers a straightforward model to use for planning and engaging in negotiations effectively

All of our training is co-created with you, but we find these to be great negotiators’ core behaviors:

• Identify the complex undercurrents in any negotiating situation and distinguish its various components
• Understand the customer interests that drive negotiating behaviors and outcomes
• Apply high-impact questioning techniques to uncover each party’s negotiating interests and options
• Explore high-value, low-cost options to increase the range of potential solutions
• Create solutions that address multiple dimensions of value
• Preserve and enhance relationships through cooperative negotiation techniques
• Apply negotiation best practices at every stage of the negotiation

We typically develop negotiation skills through designed experiences that put salespeople in realistic scenarios where they can practice the new negotiation behaviors and get feedback in real time from their peers.

More often than not, we incorporate activities like the following into our negotiations training:

• Initial mock negotiation — to establish a benchmark for what drives satisfaction in a negotiation. Salespeople realize that negotiations have multiple solutions and that negotiating price does not necessarily drive satisfaction.
• Common interest analysis — learn that interests drive negotiating behavior and understand the categories of value those interests might address. Participants then consider their customers’ typical interests and their own interests during negotiations, realizing that meeting as many interests as possible will result in success.
• High-impact questioning — participants self-assess their questioning skills and learn how high-impact questions can uncover hidden interests and options.
• High-value, low-cost options — learn a new method for identifying potential options that are high in value to the customer but low in cost to the seller.
• Mock negotiations — in pairs, as customer and salesperson, participants role-play a customized, complex mock negotiation related to challenges they face on the job. They apply best practices and determine how to overcome unexpected obstacles that arise.