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Tips, Skills and Tools For Easy Negotiations

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Negotiations do vary. But whatever the technique, there is the risk of getting off track. That is why it’s important to arm yourself with the basic skills for negotiation – to prevent communication breakdown.

Learn To Communicate

Being clear on what you want to communicate is the first step in any successful negotiation. Having a strong idea to communicate what you want to say and what the other party wants to know is a good starting point.

Get Your Facts Right

Do your research and collect all the relevant facts. It’s vital that you prepare and rehearse all the details of the negotiations. Such details include issues such as your start date, salary and benefits, and how you will end the meeting.

After establishing these factors, you should strive to figure out what the other party wants in a calm and straightforward manner. You should always make sure that you are listening to the other party – it is a sign of respect, and your opinions will be better appreciated.

You can achieve this by repeating the points that the other party makes and by using positive language and feedback.

Avoid Arguments

While negotiating, you should never forget that it is all about finding a win-win solution. Arguments are the last resort and should be avoided at all costs. If you need to convey that you feel that the other party is wrong, do it in a nice way – this avoids creating bad blood and sending the negotiations south.

Of course, disagreements are bound to arise, as everyone thinks differently. If you have to differ on a certain point, do it in a way that does not demean the person you are negotiating with.

You should always remain emotionally calm, no matter how much you are provoked. You should be prepared to compromise and also try to convince the other party to make compromises.

Negotiating Your New Car Purchase

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Whether you are after a brand new, fresh from the manufacturer vehicle or a more time-tested ride, you must be prepared to negotiate when you get to the dealership. Negotiations may be intimidating to individuals who are not accustomed to handling them, but the fact of the matter is that a negotiation is just a game of give and take. To be successful, though, you must respect the seller, the true value of the car, and the overall process itself.

First, before you even consider going down to the dealership, you must do your research. What kind of car do you want? What features are you looking for? What models will best fit your transportation needs? Then, after you have narrowed down the playing field, you have to find out the current going rate for your dream car. This means visiting a variety of websites to compare costs and get a feel for how much you will be expected to pay for your new vehicle. Printing out the different listings may be helpful, as you will want to be prepared and have an offer that the dealership can meet, should it be willing to do so.

After amassing your research you should have a pretty good idea of where you want to start, as far as a dealership goes. Begin with the one that offers the best deal. When you arrive, a sales professional is sure to offer their services, so go ahead and tell them that you already know what you are looking for and would like to see the car that you have chosen.

Before even considering purchasing a vehicle you should obviously take it for a test drive. During the drive, pay close attention to the interior and to how the car handles. If anything seems off, if the interior is damaged in any way, or if the car doesn’t live up to the expectations set by its description, these could be negotiating points that will influence the price of the vehicle.

If you are happy with the way the test drive goes, all that is left is negotiation. Of course, this can be a lengthy process. Many dealerships will match competing offers, so start there if you have found a great deal in another location. If you don’t have a specific price that you are comparing your own purchase to, make sure that you stick by a fair price that you have developed through your research and through reliable car value resources, such as Kelly Blue Book.

If the salesman just will not agree to your offer it’s your decision whether or not you come up in price. Make sure, though, that you never go a cent beyond what you can afford. If you don’t think that the price being demanded is fair you should walk away. Under no circumstances, though, should either party become frustrated, rude, or unprofessional. It may be irritating to have to play the negotiation game, but the truth is that this is how the automobile industry works. Follow these tips, be willing to walk away from a bad deal, and always remain respectful and you should have a positive experience.

Seeking to Improve Your Sales Training? Look to Hybrids

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Plucots? Peacharine? Plueberry? In search for the perfect fruit, breeders are creating new hybrids. These hybrids seek to be juicier, sweeter, and easier to eat. As I walk through the grocery store and notice these new hybrids, it reminded me that a corollary exists for sales training. Just as people buy fruits they’re familiar with, companies have historically brought sales training around easily identified skills like: sales strategy, call execution, and negotiation. Why? Well first, that is how training vendors have organized their training offerings. Second, decision-makers are familiar with these topic programs – they’ve been around a long time and many decision-makers have been through them. However, just as our fruit breeding friends have become more innovative so is the case with sales training companies.

The sales training equivalent of a Peacharine has now been developed, tested, and the results look very promising. Second, if you are a major company in the B2B market you have already done the “topic” programs. Doing another one or replacing one with another is unlikely to move the needle on sales effectiveness. As a matter of fact the replacement approach is likely to lead to a degrading of results because the pluses of having a common language will be lost. Programs that focus only on one topic are not optimized to help a sales team meet a company’s strategic initiatives. To achieve a strategic initiative, effective sales training needs to be organized around achieving the strategic initiative – incorporating whatever skill sets and bodies of knowledge required to drive the initiative. In other words – a sales training hybrid. Today sales people must possess a new integrated skill set to get the job done successfully. They won’t develop this integrated skill set by attending more sales training programs – each containing a piece of the puzzle and leaving it up to sales people to “connect the dots”. Although some will, many won’t. For those of us in sales training meeting this challenge requires the following:

Working with the sales leadership to understand the nature and scope of the company’s strategic initiatives.
Identifying the new skill sets needed to drive the initiative and crafting them into learnable chunks.
Recognizing that programs need to be customizedto a greater degree than in times past.
Crafting hybrid programs that utilize state-of-the-art learning designsthat help sales reps learn the skill sets and connect the dots.
While the plums and cherries individually are quite tasty, there is a place for the Plueberry. The Peacharine won’t move peaches and nectarines off green grocers shelves. And plums and apricots will still be desired, along with Pluots. Well, the same is true with sales training. There is still a need for topic programs to master the sales essentials like how to plan and execute a call. But, there is also an emerging need to take the next step – hybrids are a part of that next step journey.

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