Sales Negotiation Training Best Practices Blog

Taking Control of the Negotiation

2011-09-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

Can effective sales negotiation training put you in a position to take control of the negotiation?

The results of our exhaustive sales negotiation study of Fortune 500 firms in multiple industries over 3 years in 19 countries showed that, the answer is Yes!

We learned that you can anticipate that as much as 97% of your buyer’s sales negotiation tactics will focus either on their alternative (usually your nearest competitor) or price (a discount or free service/product).

The good news - preparation for a sales negotiation instantly becomes simpler. It also means that sales negotiation training can help you to gather the right data on the negotiation before the actual event. It’s called “fire prevention.” This way you don’t react to your customer’s demands but take proactive control of your sales negotiation outcome.

Data puts you in a position to effectively, credibly and professionally handle the tactics used by buyers the world over.

Sales Negotiation Tactics are Predictable

2011-09-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

Sales negotiation is tricky, with many twists and turns. Do you catch yourself wishing you’d had more sales negotiation training? Or that you could have predicted which verbal tactics the team on the other side would follow?

We wanted to determine if there was a pattern to sales negotiations. In a study in 19 countries that took over 3 years and involved Fortune 500 firms from many industries, we collected a list of the “most difficult” and “most common” verbal negotiation tactics. Guess what! The pattern of the buyers’ verbal tactics was consistent 97% of the time.

Buyers generally follow 2 options:

1. The Alternative (comparing your product/service to the alternative, most often your nearest competitor) and
2. The Price (asking for either a discount or a free service or product)

Sales negotiation training can now prepare you to anticipate not hundreds but only two general strategies.

Sales Coaching and Its Impact on Revenue

2011-08-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

A sales manager wears many hats as a team leader but, ultimately, success as a sales leader will be measured by the team’s revenue. Does wearing a hat as sales coach make enough of a difference in the bottom line revenue to warrant his investment in the time and effort? Our study of 121 professionals at a major North American financial services firm show that not only does sales coaching make a significant difference but that sales coaching could as much as double your revenue.

Each participant was asked for one example of how “coaching conversations with your manager have made a significant difference in a sales situation.” These were verified to include the situation, specific coaching, and results over the last three months. The Coached Group created 2x more new revenue (from $4,412,000 from the un-coached control group to $9,387,000 from the group who received sales coaching over the same time period).

The Link Between Sales Negotiation & Customer Loyalty

2011-03-28T16:24:00.001-07:00

In a recent sales negotiation quarterly poll, a large % of respondents stated that "ensuring the best customer loyalty and satisfaction" was keeping them up at night.

A 5% increase in customer service loyalty can boost profits by as much as 25% to 85%. Research has shown that satisfied clients lead to greater profitability and growth.

Read more about some of the best sales negotiation training programs, practices and make the link between industry leading business sales and service...

Search for the Right Sales Negotiation Training Resource. Right Now.

2010-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

Introducing a powerful new Search Tool to help you track down the right Sales Negotiation Training & Best Practice Resource right now. Search this blog and the vast collection of corporate training communities and related best practice blogs with a single click.

Step 1 - Locate the Search Tool to the right of this post

Step 2 - Type your keyword search phrase. eg. Performance Culture

Step 3 - Click Search

Step 4 - Review the results, sorted by:

This Blog | Sites Linked to this Blog | Recommended Blogs

See illustration below. Enjoy.

Sales Negotiation Research Study Results

2010-09-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the past 12 months, we conducted an online research study where visitors to our website were anonymously surveyed across an area of topics related driving sales performance through investments in human capital. In particular, one such survey asked respondents the following question:

What Sales Negotiation Issues Are Keeping You Awake at Night?

From a list of predefined responses, here are the results for your viewing pleasure.

Getting new clients--43%
Expanding current clients--22%
Increasing margins--13%
Selling bigger deals-19%
Other--3%

How would you answer the above question regarding sales negotiation, sales coaching best practices sales training best practices in general?

Sales Negotiation Best Practice Resources

2010-05-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

From time to time, we like to provide visitors and subscribers to this blog with a refresher on where they can find helpful resources devoted to best practices in the area of Sales Negotiation and Influence Performance, and related areas.

We hope you find these resources insightful and relevant:

Enjoy!

Research Report: Driving Sales Performance Via Negotiation Skills Development

2010-03-31T03:40:00.000-07:00

Below is an abstract of a research report focused on the business impact of human capital investments targeting sales negotiation skills development and on-the-job application.

Our clients tell us that salespeople must embrace the art of sales negotiation to be effective both internally and with their clients.

Until now however, there have been few statistically sound studies that demonstrate the impact of negotiation skills on sales performance.

This study aligns with our belief that effective business sales training must both change behavior and in this instance contribute towards sales revenue growth.

The sales negotiations research looked at 120 sales people in a large US-based Corporation and focused on 3 key areas:

Work Performance
Skills Improvement
...

Download the entire sales negotiation research report PDF...

The Link Between Recession Proof Selling and Sales Negotiation

2009-11-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

What the heck is going on? Each day seems to bring dire news of additional layoffs, missed forecasts, and unpredictable weather ahead.

With little visibility, many of our clients are certainly being cautious with a strong emphasis on increasing revenue, cutting costs, and doing more with less.

While companies that face failure must do what it takes to cut costs, we believe that you cannot "save your way to success." In order to succeed, companies must grow top line sales revenue and do more with less.

Top line business sales growth can and does occur during a recession. What are you doing to ensure that it happens for your team?

Consider these questions for a moment:

Are you giving price concessions in order to win business?
Would you like to increase margins and revenue?
Is it important to increase win-rates in competitive situations?
Are your sales cycles too long?
Do you have unbalanced relationships with your customers?

Unless you can answer “yes” to all the questions above, you may want to learn more about our Sales Negotiation Training and Coaching expertise.

Coaching for Sales Negotiation Performance

2009-04-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Did you know that effective sales management can create a competitive advantage that greatly impacts revenue growth, sales retention, and client satisfaction?

Sales leadership training can create effective sales managers and elminate a long- term problem for many organizations.

Promoting highly effective salespeople to the role of sales manager seems to fail as often as it succeeds, and there is little documented evidence of sales managers' independent contribution to organizational value.

Our research shows a 29% increase in top-line performance due to some critical few skills of sales managers independent of the skills of their salespeople.

Learn more about how to use Sales Management as a source of competitive advantage...