Unlock the Secrets of Effective Sales Negotiation

Stop ‘Buying the Sale’: Master Sales Negotiation and Protect Your Margins

Avoid Common Negotiation Mistakes and Learn to Negotiate Like a Pro

Salespeople Often Negotiate Poorly … Without Realizing It

Too many sales professionals unknowingly “buy the sale” by offering unnecessary discounts, freebies, or concessions to build deal momentum and close a sale. In complex and competitive markets, this strategy diminishes profit margins and trains customers to expect more for less.

What salespeople consider negotiation is often “bargaining or transactional concession-based selling” to close a deal or meet monthly, quarterly, or yearly sales quotas.

The High Cost of Poor Sales Negotiation

Imagine this: You offer free add-ons, samples, faster delivery, discounted prices, or better payment terms early in the negotiation – only to realize your customer views all of that as the starting point for ongoing negotiations, not as part of any final agreement.

Unfortunately, salespeople often end up trapped and are now frequently forced to make additional concessions to keep the momentum and close the deal.

Key lesson: Most salespeople and sales teams don’t track the value of what they’re giving away, and even worse, they don’t know how to reclaim concessions, manage value, or make concessions “pay for themselves.”

Why Salespeople Default to Making Monetary or Value-based Concessions:

They haven’t been trained in using a structured negotiation process.
They neglect doing proper research, planning, and preparation.
They misunderstand the customer’s decision-making process and the criteria they use.
They rely on weak phrases like “price quote” instead of creating solution-focused proposals.
They don’t fully grasp the cost of concessions or the perceived value (or lack of it) in the customer’s eyes.

Five Sales Negotiation Strategies That Actually Work

Plan Every Sales Negotiation Carefully
Never assume the current situation. Research decision-makers, diagnose needs, and anticipate potential objections.
Track and Assign a Value to Each Concession
Understand both the financial and non-financial costs of every giveaway—samples, support, delivery, etc. – and learn how to leverage this value during contract renewal or pricing negotiations.
Strengthen Proposals and RFQ/RFP Responses
Develop compelling capability presentations, solution- and price-based proposals, and avoid using low-value language like “quote.” Position your offering and solutions strategically.
Reinforce Negotiation Skills Annually.
Customer negotiation skills are improving, and yours should be as well.
Learn to Counter ‘Situational Power’
High-performing customers are using their situational power to leverage and extract value from vendors. You need strategies, tactics, questions, and questioning techniques to push back confidently and effectively.

Unfortunately, I can’t share all of my ‘how-to’ secrets in this blog post. In this post, I’ve covered some high-level insights into this topic.

Hire me as your negotiation skills trainer or coach to learn proven strategies, tactics, questions, questioning techniques, and tips that can help you improve results.

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