Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Negotiations by a Attractive and Action Centric Seller and Buyer

Negotiations - Influence to Win

The business-to-business (B2B) sales negotiation is a conversation between a seller and a buyer to reach an agreement beneficial to both. To achieve a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), both engage in multiple rounds of discussion. The back-and-forth nature of these discussions is driven to gain the upper hand over the other side by finding their reservation point (breaking point), BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement), and any helpful information that will assist in bargaining.

In sales, to influence and win negotiations, a lot of preparation is required. This includes collecting information about the other side's negotiation style, motivation, risks, BATNA, concession, reservation, and timing. Without preparation and gathering of this information, the chances of winning negotiations are minimal. Sometimes, even after gathering information and practice, negotiations can still be lost or suspended indefinitely because of changes in the political landscape, financial upheaval, change in priority, a pandemic outbreak, or other unseen factors. 

The gathering of information and preparation for negotiations is time-consuming and is often challenging. Elements of nature and their attributes are applied to overcome this difficult task of preparing the groundwork for influencing and winning negotiations.

Let us explore how a seller or a buyer leverages elemental attributes learned in previous sections to position and influence their respective stakeholders with the intent to win.

Fire Natives Negotiation

Fire means Action and Excitement

 

Negotiation Behaviour  

o fire represents the heart, so these natives interact with honesty and openness; the sharpness of fire is reflected in their sharpshooting style conversation

o they have no hidden agenda and lose their cool if the opposite side is not transparent

o they lack depth in conversation 

o they use charm to impress upon others

o they are competitive and like to take control of the conversation 

Argument

o fire being sharp, they are data-driven and emotionless

Motivation

o to get the limelight from winning a deal or to be seen as visionary 

Concession 

o they are open and transparent in making concessions through the bargaining mix

Reservation

o they are open and willing to share their own reservations during the conversation with the other side

Positioning 

o futuristic and innovative, new beginnings or new business

Risk Appetite 

o is higher

o gaps can be found in their risk mitigation approach, and the opposite side can identify these gaps to negotiate

Secrecy 

o being impulsive and talkative, it's tough for them to hide information   

Information Gathering

o they are not research-driven, so they struggle with information gathering

Preparation

o they are impulsive and always appear to be in a hurry; thus, they miss attention to detail and often lack comprehensiveness in their preparation

o they rely on their charm and brilliance

Objection Handling 

o they are open to grievances

o they don't address the root cause of the objection because they lack depth and are impulsive

o they get emotional and angry on too many objections 

o their objection mitigation is anchored at themes like innovation and opening new revenue stream

Time

o being agile and impatient, they prefer to wrap up negotiations swiftly 

o they don't use time as a means of bargaining 

Comms Style 

o they are swift and use strong words

o they prefer lots of visuals and data

o they respond immediately and expect the same from the opposite party 

o they are prone to making mistakes 

BATNA

o because they open up in conversations quickly; therefore, they end up sharing information with the opposite side

o it's difficult for them to leverage this option (to use an alternative)

o they often prefer not to apply BATNA 

Price

Reservation and Target Price - their openness and purity make it hard to hide this information from the opposite side; therefore, they end up signalling their range or preference and letting the opposite side gain higher bargaining spread

Offers - don't believe in the multiple or back-and-forth nature of making an offer; they prefer to make one or two offers only

Environment To Influence 

o fire requires air (oxygen) to ignite and spread; therefore, an external environment or a well-ventilated indoor environment is preferred for influencing a fiery native

More can be read in the book at amazon.com

 

Why B2B sales deals are refused

Winning and losing are part of any sales process. Every deal and opportunity enriches a sales professional's journey with insights and experience. Learning is a lifelong journey and we learn more from losing deals than winning. It’s important to reflect upon key reasons for refusal leveraging 2nd loop learning, even if we made a reasonable offer and catered for various factors in play. Frustration kicks in easily when negotiations in good faith backed up by a genuine offer fail, hence it requires a new approach to tackle and win. The key to winning is getting a handle on why stakeholders refuse a good or generous proposal. 

Following are the key reasons why deals are refused: 

No Closure was Proposed or Reached - The back and forth nature of negotiations often lead to numerous proposals to sweeten the deal. It is important to put a line in the sand and tell them what is the final proposal to close it, without drawing a closure line, you run on a risky slope and in the process setting up wrong expectations. 

Failure in providing a Good Purchase Experience No alt text provided for this image 

Didn’t give a Face Saver – it is important to give a face sever to the client because we don’t know who in their hierarchy has said what to their stakeholders for clinching a deal. 

Didn’t Respect their Restrictions – Need to respect clients' constraints and restrictions and show more flexibility in navigating around their environment. 

Couldn’t Justify or Articulate the Value - Sharing and telling a story around the value is important, even if the proposal is sound and covers all aspects.

What do you think, would like to learn from your experience and journey. Please do share your thoughts. #Sales #Advisory #Deal making #Negotiation

1st published on linkedin

Key Tips on Negotiation

 Key Tips on Negotiation from the book, Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss.

• A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. 
• Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. 
• People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. 
• To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. 
• Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. 
• Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart

B2B Sales - Sellers From Mars and Buyers From Venus - III

Excerpt from the upcoming book at amazon.com  - "Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales"

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Negotiations - Influence to Win  

The business to business (B2B) sales negotiation is a conversation between a seller and a buyer to reach an agreement that is beneficial to both. To reach a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), both engage in multiple rounds of discussion. The back and forth nature of these discussions are driven to gain an upper hand over the other side by finding their reservation point (breaking point), or their BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) or any useful information which will assist in bargaining.

To win negotiations in sales a lot of preparation is required. This includes the collection of information about the other side's negotiation style, motivation, risks, BATNA, concession, reservation, and timing. Without preparation and gathering of this information, the chances of winning negotiations are minimal. Having said that, sometimes even after gathering information and preparing, negotiations can still be lost or suspended indefinitely because of change in the political landscape, financial upheaval, change in priority, a pandemic outbreak or any other unseen factors. 

The gathering of information and preparation for negotiations is time-consuming and is often challenging. To overcome this challenging task, elements of nature and their attributes are leveraged in preparing the groundwork to influence and win negotiations. 

Let us explore how a seller or a buyer leverages elemental attributes, learned in previous sections, to position and influence their respective stakeholders with the intent to win.

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Space (Ether, Metal) Natives Negotiation

 

Part 2 on Persona Mapping in B2B Sales can be read here 

Part 1 on Marrying Elements of Nature with B2B Sales can be read here