Flip the Script on Sales Negotiations

How do you feel about negotiation?

For most of us, if we had to describe “negotiation” we imagine the back and forth pull and tension we’ve felt when buying a car or a house.

And most sellers don’t love negotiation either—the fine line between giving away your margin or having to walk away from the deal produces sweaty palms and nervous salespeople who don’t want to lose a deal.

This is tough to improve on as sellers if we 1) don’t practice or work on this skill and 2) we feel like there is a winner and a loser.

Enter The “Script Flip” on Sales Negotiations

Part of my practice (and now, training) and improvement for negotiation came with adopting a different mindset about what is actually happening during the negotiation process.

Recently, Paul Watts, of The Sales Reinvented Podcast, produced a series of shows about top Negotiation skills and practices. To solve the first issue – practice – check out this series with some top notch advice, insights, and resources to improve your skills at Negotiation.

Paul is working hard to improve the perception of the sales profession and he runs a damned awesome interview. This is my 2^nd time around on the podcast—contributing to the negotiation series, I shared my perspective on what it means, what it feels like to negotiate.

How to prime your mindset shift by redefining negotiation

• Negotiation is where we try to equate cost with value
• Negotiation can be the process to align goals with outcomes and price

Instead of feeling like negotiation is “conflict” where there’s a winner and a loser, try shifting the object of negotiation—or the object of closing any sale, to being fully aligned with your customer in value and price.

Take a listen to the six ways we work to make negotiations less painful and more profitable on my episode and check out the rest of them to improve your skills.