Blog: The Negotiation Edge

At a core level, negotiation is a guided discovery process. That’s why you should always be curious in your negotiations. Otherwise, you can’t discover new information—particularly when you’re the one doing the talking.

If you’re talking, you’re probably explaining. And as Ronald Reagan once said: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

A Thought-Shaping Question™ shapes your counterpart’s thoughts and makes them realize things they might not have thought of otherwise. They are different from Calibrated Questions™ (e.g., What challenges do you face? or How do you handle this process internally?), which are designed to uncover data.

The best negotiators in the world are always trying to learn new skills and figure out what they can do to negotiate more effectively.

Contrary to what you might think, becoming a better negotiator doesn’t necessarily require you to make massive, sweeping changes to your approach. It’s possible to improve your negotiation skills using simple tricks and tactics.

With that in mind, here are four easy tips to increase sales during your next negotiation.

When many people sit down at the table with potential clients, the obvious goal is to make a connection. A good connection can create a lasting partnership that can benefit everyone in meaningful ways. Here’s the problem - frequently they go about this by trying  to establish common ground to form said connection.. When it comes to building a lasting partnership, common ground is a weak foundation.

Instead of establishing common ground, good negotiators build a real connection by expressing genuine understanding through tactical empathy. It’s an easy way to improve sales, and build a vast network of business relationships

If you are genuinely trying to understand the other side and build rapport, then you will be standing on solid ground even if the deal falls apart. Because you know exactly what this person has experienced, you can pick things up where you left off when the situation warrants.

No matter how effective your sales team is, it can always improve.

If you’re on the fence about whether it’s worthwhile to invest in sales negotiation training, keep reading to learn four of the top  reasons you may or may not decide to  bite the bullet and set aside the resources needed to get your team to the next level.

A lot of salespeople go into meetings with potential buyers and spend their time trying to educate them about their products.

But that’s awareness stage stuff. It’s really the job of marketing, and not what your counterpart who’s already agreed to sit down at the table needs to hear. 

Every top-performing sales team is focused on the same thing: getting consistently better results over time. 

If you’ve ever seen practically any movie that involves police officers, you’re familiar with the good cop/bad cop negotiation strategy. During an interrogation, one cop is super nice and the other is a complete jerk.

Though this strategy might lend itself nicely to the silver screen, it’s not something you should ever rely on in the world of high-stakes negotiation. Here’s why:

Whether your sales team is crushing it every month or struggling to reach targets, you can always get better results.

One of the main reasons sales teams don’t reach their full potential is because they bring the wrong tactics to the table.

If your goal is teaching your team to negotiate better deals, here are three lessons you’ll need to get across to achieve that objective.

Many sales negotiations have moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of sitting across the table from someone, sales teams are now hopping between phone calls and Zoom calls to engage the other side and close deals.

Just because your sales negotiation opportunities may have moved from the physical world to the digital world doesn’t mean you need to forget the Black Swan skills and teachings you’ve learned over the years. In fact, our guidelines still apply to virtual sales negotiations.