Power Negotiating for Salespeople

Roger Dawson

• Publisher: Career Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781632658616
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Negociación

Master negotiator Roger Dawson turns his attention to the person on the other side of the desk—the salesperson who’s trying to close a deal with the most favorable terms.

The goal of most negotiations is to create a win-win situation. Imagine if you could win every negotiation and leave the other person feeling like he or she has won too? This book teaches you how to be the power sales negotiator who can do exactly that. You will always come away from the negotiating table knowing that you have won and that you have improved your relationship with your buyer. Roger Dawson gives salespeople an arsenal of tools that can be implemented easily and immediately.

In addition, he shows salespeople how to:

• Master the nine elements of power that control negotiating situations
• Ask for more than you expect to get
• Negotiate with individuals from other cultures
• Analyze personality styles and adapt to them
• Master the 24 power closes

Power Negotiating for Salespeople  is not a dull, dry treatise full theory. Nor is it a handbook of tricks and scams meant to manipulate others. It is the most complete book ever written specifically for salespeople about the process of negotiation and will enable any salesperson to take a quantum leap in sales.

Praise for Dawson’s Books:
“I can’t believe it! Here’s a book that is packed with wisdom that will help anyone improve their life and yet it is easy and fun to read! Amazing!” — Og Mandino, author of  The Greatest Salesman in the World

“A fast, entertaining read that should be required reading for anyone who deals with people. Highly recommended.” — Ken Blanchard, coauthor of  The One Minute Manager

“Roger Dawson’s great book will help you create and expand one of the most critical skills to life-long success.” — Anthony Robbins, author of  Unlimited Power  and  Awaken the Giant Within

Section Seven

How to Control the Negotiation

Chapter 29

Negotiating Drives

You probably don't think much about what is driving the buyer because you tend to assume that what drives the buyer is the same thing that drives you, which is getting the best deal. Sociologists call this “socio-centrism,” meaning that you tend to feel that the buyer wants what you would want, if you were them. Power Sales Negotiators know that what we would want, if we were them, may have nothing to do with what the buyer really wants.

Poor negotiators get into trouble because they fear that they will be vulnerable to the buyer's tricks if they let the buyer know too much about them. Instead of wanting to find out what is driving the buyer and revealing his or her drives to the buyer, the poor negotiator lets his fears stop him from being that open.

Power Sales Negotiators know that the better we can understand what drives the buyer—what the buyer really wants to accomplish—the better we can fulfill the buyer's needs without taking away from our position.

Let's look at the different things that drive the buyer when he or she is negotiating with you. Recognizing and understanding these drives is a major key to win-win negotiating.

The Competitive Drive

This is the drive that salespeople know best and it's why they see negotiating as being so challenging. If you assume that the buyer is out to beat you by any means within the rules of the game, of course you will fear meeting a buyer who might be a better negotiator than you or someone who is more ruthless than you.

The Competitive Drive certainly exists at most car dealerships. The car dealer attracts customers by offering “the lowest prices in town” but pays its salespeople based on the amount of profit they can build into the sale. it's a gladiatorial approach to negotiating: The customer wants to buy for the lowest price even if the dealer loses money and the salesperson loses his commission, and the salesperson wants to drive the price up because that's the only way he can make any money. Sound the trumpets, let the spectacle begin, and may the best person win.

Competitive Drive negotiators believe that you should find out all you can about the buyer but let the buyer know nothing about you. Knowledge is power but Competitive Drive negotiators believe thatbecause of this, the more you find out and the less you reveal, the better off you'll be.

When gathering information, the Competitive Drive negotiator distrusts anything the buyer might tell him because it may be a trick. He gathers information covertly by approaching the other employees at the buyer's company. Because he assumes that the buyer is doing the same to him, he works assiduously to prevent the leaking of information from his side.

What's causing this approach is the assumption that there has to be a winner and there has to be a loser. What's missing is the possibility that both sides could win because they are not out for exactly the same thing; and by knowing more about the buyer, you can concede issues that are important to the buyer but may not be significant to you.

The Solutional Drive

This is the best negotiating situation and the one we all enjoy. This is when the buyer is eager to find a solution and is willing to calmly discuss with you the best way to do that. It means that both sides will negotiate in good faith to find a win-win solution.

Solutional Drive negotiators tend to be wide open to creative solutions because they feel that there must be a better solution out there somewhere that hasn't occurred to them yet. It takes an open mind to be creative. Just look at some of the variables that buyers and sellers could propose in a simple transaction such as buying a house:

1. The cost of financing to the buyer could be adjusted by letting the buyer assume an underlying loan. Or the seller could carry back all the financing and remain liable for the underlying loan (called wrapping the underlying).
2. The buyers could accommodate the sellers by giving them more time to move out or find another home. The sellers could even lease back the house from the buyers for an extended term.
3. The price could include all or some of the furnishings.
4. The sellers could retain a life estate in the house that would enable them to stay in the house until they die. This is a great idea for elderly people who need cash but don't want to move.
5. The broker's fee could be renegotiated, or the broker could be asked to take his fee in the form of a note, rather than in cash.
6. The buyer could move in but delay the closing to help the seller with income taxes.

The great thing about negotiating with someone who is in the Solutional Drive is that they have cast nothing in stone. Company policy or tradition does not restrict them—they feel that everything is negotiable because everything was at one time negotiated.

Short of breaking the law or their personal principles, they will listen to any suggestion you care to propose because they do not see you as being in competition with them.

It sounds like the perfect solution doesn't it? Both sides cooperating to find the perfect and fair solution. However, there is one caveat. Buyers might be feigning when they appear to be in the solutional drive. Once you have put your cards on the table and told them exactly what you are prepared to do, they may revert to Competitive Drive negotiating. So, if it seems too good to be true, be wary.

The Personal Drive

You may encounter situations where the buyer's main drive is not to win for winning's sake, or to find the perfect solution. The main drive may be for his personal profit or aggrandizement.

A case that quickly comes to mind is that of an attorney who is working on a fee basis rather than a contingency basis. The attorney would make more money if it takes a long time to find a solution. True, it might be a better solution, but the improvement may not be worth as much as the extra fees, so you're the one who has to balance your Solutional Drive with the attorney's Personal Drive. When you run into this, you should see what you can do to satisfy the attorney' personal need for more fees. It may be the promise of more business in the future if he can wrap it up quickly.

Or you may have to revert to a Competitive Drive if the attorney is being difficult. If you feel that he's reluctant to support what you feel is a reasonable compromise, it may be in your best interest to threaten to take your solution over the attorney's head to his client. He won't appreciate that, of course, but if he feels that his client would accept the compromise if you went over his head, you may force him to accept your solution.

Another example of the Personal Drive would be a union negotiator who wants to look good to his members. In that case, it may be in both your best interests to make an outrageous initial demand. Then he can go back to his members and say, “So, I wasn't able to get you everything you wanted, but just listen to their opening negotiating position. I was able to get them all the way down from that for you.” If you had made a more modest opening negotiating position it might have been difficult for him to sell it to his members because they didn't feel that their union fought hard enough for them.

Another example of Personal Drive would be a young buyer who wants to look good to her company. She may have scheduled an inspection tour of your assembly plant that has cost her company a great deal of time and money. So, the last thing she wants to do is go back empty handed without a signed contract, so if your Drive is Competitive, your best strategy might be to establish that she has a time deadline and stall the negotiations until the last moment.

You might be able to reach a terrific settlement in the limousine on the way to the airport if she'd rather agree to anything than go home empty handed.

The Organizational Drive

You may find yourself in a situation where the buyer seems to have a fine Solutional Drive. He really wants to find the best solution, but the problem is that it has to be a solution that he can sell to his organization. Because of this, his drive has to be Organizational: Even if he found the perfect solution, could he sell it to his people?

This happens a great deal in Congress where the senator or congressperson is eager for a sensible compromise but knows that he or she would get ravaged by the voters back home. In close votes, you'll see this all the time. On both sides of the house, the politicians who have the support of their voters will commit quickly. Those who will be in trouble in their state or district may want to support their party but are reluctant to toe the line. So, the party leadership counts noses to see how many votes they need to win by one vote. Then they let their members who would be most hurt by voting for the bill, vote no. The ones who would be least hurt are led, like lambs to slaughter it always seems to me, and made to vote for the bill.

When you're negotiating with buyers who must please their organization, they may be reluctant to lay out their problems for you because it would seem too much like collusion. So, you need to be thinking, “Who could be giving these buyers heartburn over this one?” Is it their stockholders, their legal department, or perhaps government regulations that they would have to circumvent to implement the best solution? If you understand their problems, you may be able to do things to make the solution more palatable to their organization. For example, you might take a more radical position with the other people at his company than you do at the negotiating table. In this way, your compromise gives the appearance of making major concessions.

A company hired me once to help out when the assembly workers' union went on strike. The union negotiators felt that the solution they had negotiated was reasonable, but they couldn't sell it to their members who were out for blood. We arranged for the local newspaper to interview the president of the company. During the interview, he expressed sincere regrets that he was caught in a difficult situation. The union couldn't sell the plan to its members and the president couldn't sell anything better to his board of directors and stockholders. It appeared that the strike would soon force him to move production from that factory to their assembly plant in Mexico. The next day the workers' spouses opened up the newspaper to read headlines that said, “Plant to close—jobs going south.” By the afternoon of that day, the spouses had put enough pressure on the workers that they clamored to accept the deal that they had previously turned down.

If you're dealing with a buyer who has to sell the plan to his organization you should always be looking for ways to make it easier for him to do that.

The Attitudinal Drive

The Attitudinal Drive negotiator believes that if both sides like each other enough, they can resolve their differences. The Attitudinal Drive negotiator would never try to resolve a problem by telephone or through an intermediary. This person wants to be face-to-face with the other person so that he or she can get a feel for who that person is, believing that, “If we know each other well enough, we can find a solution.”

Former President Jimmy Carter is very much an Attitudinal negotiator. He initiated contact with the North Koreans when they were refusing to back down on their nuclear weapons program. He met with Haitian General Cedras right up to the brink of war and pleaded with President Clinton for just a few more minutes to reason with the General. When he finally reached a settlement he actually invited that bloodthirsty dictator to come to his church in Plains, Georgia, to teach a Sunday school class!

The problem with that kind of negotiating is that it can easily lead to appeasement of the buyer. The Attitudinal Drive negotiator is so eager to find good in the buyer that he can readily be deceived. The classic example of Attitudinal negotiating was when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of England made a last ditch effort to avoid war with Adolf Hitler. He returned to England triumphantly proclaiming that he had averted war by giving away only part of Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler had already figured out that he was a chump and it didn't take the rest of the world long to agree with Hitler's assessment.

Certainly it helps that the buyer and you like each other because it's hard to find a win-win solution without that. The problem is that this is a two-way street. At the same time that you're working to have buyers like you, the buyers are working to have you like them. If you both like each other so much, you're just as likely to make concessions to them as they are to you. Power Sales Negotiators know that something is far more important than having the buyer like you: You must create a solution that is in both sides' best interests. Then it is mutually beneficial for both of you to support the buying arrangement and see that it flourishes.

In the next chapter, I'm going to teach you the questionable gambits that buyers can use to get you to sweeten the deal. Unless you're so familiar with them that you spot them right away, you'll find that you'll be making unnecessary concessions to the buyer because you think that it's the only way to get the order.

Chapter 30

Questionable Gambits and How to Counter Them

Many a salesperson has had to endure an embarrassing interview with a sales manager who can't understand why the salesperson made a concession that the manager didn't think was necessary to get the sale. The salesperson tries to maintain that the only way to get the order was to make the concession. The truth was that the buyer out-maneuvered the salesperson with one of the questionable gambits outlined in this chapter.

There's no point in getting upset with the buyer who does this. You must deal with the world the way it is, not the way you would like it to be. Power Sales Negotiators remember to concentrate on the issues and think of negotiating as a game....