Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Painless Negotiation: Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal … for Everyone
    The Painless Negotiation: Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal … for Everyone
    The Painless Negotiation: Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal … for Everyone
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    The Painless Negotiation: Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal … for Everyone

    By Steve Thompson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Painless Negotiation leverages the principles of The Compelling Proposal to turn "negotiations" into straightforward business discussions on how to best maximize the value in a deal for both parties.

    Using just three key concepts, anyone can accurately diagnose which side has the power, how compelling a deal is and to whom, how to trade to overcome obstacles, and how to frame the "right negotiation" to implement the best negotiation strategy.

    Negotiating the "right way" then means ensuring we always trade (versus concede) and that no single thing is ever taken off the table—or agreed to—until the whole deal is agreed to.

    From the book:

    "The formal negotiation is ... where either all the good things you've done can pay big dividends, or all the 'sins' you've committed will have to be atoned for."

    "Not creating value when selling and/or failing to ensure value delivery from previous purchases ... are the primary reasons that deals get stuck at the point of negotiation."

    "While it may seem counterintuitive, it is easier to negotiate a deal with a dozen deal levers on the table than with just one or two."

    "How you manage the negotiation with procurement will have a big influence on how the customer feels about the deal they make with you."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateOct 19, 2021
    ISBN9781544525204
    The Painless Negotiation: Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal … for Everyone
    Author

    Steve Thompson

    Steve Thompson is a fully time-served welder with 25 years experience in all aspects of welding and a particular expertise working with exotic pipework such as stainless steels and copper alloys. In 1989 he joined a newly-formed company intending to specialise in mould, tool and die welding repairs. He found there was little information on the subject, so he started to collect together notes, materials and diagrams on the techniques which made the job easier. The book has grown out of this process and its practical and accessible style is a direct result of Steve's first hand experience.

    Read more from Steve Thompson

    Related to The Painless Negotiation

    Related ebooks

    Negotiating For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Improving Your Close Rate

      Mar 26, 2019

      Improving Your Close Rate
      2 min read

    • Article

      Choosing Sales Activity That Determines The Best Outcome

      May 27, 2019

      IN THE NEXT look at our “8 levers of sales growth” series I tackle the decision between doing more volume of sales activity generally or focusing on more targeted sales activity. It seems like a simple answer, but it isn’t always as obvious as you’d

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Powerful Ways To Grow Your Sales

      Apr 22, 2020

      If you have ever failed, you know something that those who never tried don’t. You learn much more from failure than you do from success. If you pay attention. However, salespeople are failing every day and missing the opportunity to learn. I’ve disti

      2 min read

    • Article

      Simple Works

      Jun 17, 2018

      Simple Works
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Thinksales Approach

      Jun 17, 2018

      The Thinksales Approach
      1 min read

    • Article

      Sell Like a Human

      Mar 29, 2017

      Sell Like a Human
      1 min read

    • Article

      Flipping the Value Creation Model

      May 1, 2018

      HISTORICALLY, MARKETING has been based on an ‘Industrial Age’ approach. Marketers saw what they believed to be a customer need, developed a product bearing what they considered to be ‘value’, and then tried to find buyers seeking that value. This ‘su

      5 min read

    • Article

      Key Considerations For Organisations Looking To Transform Customer Experience

      Jul 7, 2019

      Businesses can’t simply decide to transform one day, then jump straight changing for change’s sake. It’s essential to plan the transformation carefully and understand the barriers and opportunities that could arise. Equally, some research suggests bu

      2 min read

    • Article

      Level 4 Value Creation™

      Aug 9, 2017

      Are you experiencing a reduction of profit margins? Battling to differentiate your offering? Struggling to win new business? • Prospects who don’t understand your differentiation increasingly commoditise your offering • Not creating greater value exp

      1 min read

    • Article

      Strengthening Yourcompetitive Advantage

      Jun 30, 2021

      • Have you developed an up-to-date profit and loss statement?• Do you understand your current strengths and weaknesses?• Have you clearly articulated what needs to change in your organisation, and why?• Have you clearly mapped your change process? Ar

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Execution Trap

      Nov 2, 2016

      An obvious fact and one that is well-known to every executive tasked with growing revenue in their organisations is that it’s not getting any easier. And that is before we even begin to feel the potential impacts of Brexit, a Trump administration and

      2 min read

    • Article

      Building Good Client Relationships

      May 14, 2021

      There are many pillars that support good customer relations (and hence business success); amongst these are recognition, acknowledgement and praise. The fresh-produce sector provides many opportunities to practise these. Indeed, they are essential it

      1 min read

    • Article

      Strengthening Your Sales Management

      Jun 30, 2021

      1. Providing clarity and support • Is your team prepared for ongoing volatility and uncertainty in the months ahead?• Are your Managers adept at countering the emotional impacts of stress and its impact on productivity, for themselves and their teams

      2 min read

    • Article

      How Small Businesses Can Benefit from Big Data

      Apr 28, 2020

      Attention is a scarce resource. Consumers sift through hundreds of ads every day, forcing many small and midsize businesses to compete for the attention of their target customers. But it’s not just audiences who are overwhelmed; to reach these potent

      2 min read

    • Article

      From Impossible To Possible:

      Mar 13, 2020

      From Impossible To Possible:
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Tools Of Attention

      May 15, 2019

      The technology of the day is of vital importance to marketers. It doesn’t just define how we make what we sell, it defines how we connect with those we sell to. Modern marketing has only been around for a little over 100 years. What many believe to b

      4 min read

    • Article

      You, The Advisor.

      Jun 16, 2017

      You, The Advisor.
      1 min read

    • Article

      Claiming Your 4 Superpowers

      Jan 21, 2021

      Claiming Your 4 Superpowers
      4 min read

    • Article

      5 KEYS TO RESOLVING Cross-Functional Rivalries IN YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

      Sep 30, 2020

      The challenge is as old as business itself: How do you get people in different parts of an organization to work together to solve common problems? Yes, COVID-19 has hastened a great coming together – across functions, disciplines, industries, geograp

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Painless Negotiation

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Painless Negotiation - Steve Thompson

      SteveThompson_Ebook_Final.jpg

      The

      Painless Negotiation

      Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal…for Everyone

      Steve Thompson

      copyright © 2021 steve thompson

      All rights reserved.

      the painless negotiation

      Anchor Your Way to a Great Deal…for Everyone

      isbn

      978-1-5445-2521-1 Paperback

      isbn

      978-1-5445-2520-4 Ebook

      Contents

      Foreword

      1. Are You Aiming at a Great Deal?

      2. Preparing for the Right Negotiation

      Case Story Continued

      3. Negotiating the Right Way

      4. Case Story Conclusion

      Summary

      Notes

      Foreword

      It has been a long and highly competitive sales process, but the key decision makers have assured you that your company is the one they want. Now it’s time to meet with procurement. Wasting no time, the procurement manager says, You may believe you’ve won the business, but by my evaluation the competition is just as good, technically—maybe even better. They appear faster, and they’re certainly cheaper, and if you don’t sharpen your pencil, there’s no way I can award the business to you and your company.

      Does this situation sound familiar? If so, you know exactly how it feels to hear these words.

      Your first instinct is to panic. But stop and think about it for a moment. If the competition is truly better, faster, and cheaper, why is procurement wasting their time talking to you? Wouldn’t the deal already be awarded to the lowest bidder? You can be sure that the procurement manager is telling your competitors the same thing, and the whole thing may start to feel like a game at this point. But let’s be clear, it’s a game you can lose dearly if you don’t know how to play it—that is, if you aren’t prepared to negotiate.

      As a seller, you must be comfortable with the certainty that you will always have a competitor who is more desperate to win the business than you. In other words, there will always be a competitor with less qualified sales pipeline who will therefore undercut you by competing on price alone.¹

      But if price were truly the only issue, the salesforce would be obsolete. Buyers could simply add your products and services to a cart on the internet. We know it’s not that simple, and this is exactly what you must bear in mind when procurement tries to make you think it is. Hold your ground (see sidebar)!

      There are few words a salesperson hates to hear more than your price is too high. Yet they are entirely predictable and should be expected for virtually every B2B sale. Why are most sales reps unprepared to respond effectively? This has perplexed me for years. After all, how often do you hear your price is too low?

      Negotiating effectively begins with selling and positioning effectively to set up the right negotiation. Then you must have a strategy to manage expected negotiation tactics that procurement will throw at you, such as your price is too high.

      One notable aspect of B2B deals is their inherent complexity. There are usually more than one or two items (deal levers) on the table, and you are selling to an outcome facilitated by various products or services (or both), while determining appropriate volumes, discounts, a close date, payment terms, ancillary services, and follow-up support—not to mention terms and conditions, like penalties and warranties.

      This complexity is an advantage to you in negotiations because it gives you so many options and increased flexibility. As you will see, it is much easier to negotiate a deal with multiple deal levers on the table versus a deal with only one or two items up for discussion. Yet most sales reps fail to take advantage of this gift of complexity and are therefore woefully unprepared to interact effectively with procurement. Not only are they unprepared to handle the inevitable your price is too high tactic, most times their selling organization can’t even tell them what a good deal looks like, much less the minimum they will accept. This is especially true during the final few days of a quarter, when a good deal tends to get downgraded to basically any deal. And that’s exactly what they get.

      This book addresses an all-too-common challenge sellers present to buyers: not being prepared to negotiate a deal with them and thus delaying the decision to award. In these pages we will explore capturing the value in not just any deal, but a great deal for both you and your customer. This is the fourth volume in the five-part Must-Win Deals Series. The first book, Must-Win Deals, reveals the four common things we, as sellers, do to make it challenging for customers to award us key deals. It also explores the idea of pursuing not just any deal, but a great deal. The second book, The Irresistible Value Proposition, reveals how to develop a value proposition that gets the customer excited about doing business with you right now! The Compelling Proposal then showcases the proposal as a strategic tool to reinforce trust and credibility, making it easier for the customer to choose you (and sell internally), while managing the uncertainty inherent in the real world. The final title, Can’t-Lose Accounts, delves into delivering the promised value, making renewals simple, referrals enthusiastic, and upselling and cross-selling opportunities much more bountiful. I hope you derive great value from this journey!

      It bears repeating that approximately half my work involves training and consulting with procurement specialists, purchasing management, and purchasing executives with some of the largest companies in the world. In these engagements I help them position and negotiate better, more strategic deals with their key suppliers. (As I write these words, I am in Asia helping a buying client position and negotiate critical deals with their top-tier suppliers.) As a result, my viewpoint encompasses more than just the sales side of negotiating, and I want to show you a different perspective from the other side of the negotiating table.

      So, what is

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1