How to Become a Better Sales Negotiator

Improving your sales skills can have a significant impact on your success in business as well as in life. When you learn how to negotiate better, you also become better at avoiding problems and resolving conflicts.

So how can you improve your skills as a negotiator? Read about simple tactics and strategies that can enhance your deal-making prowess.

Invest in Online Sales Training Courses

Formal sales training can teach you how to improve your sales performance and craft better solutions. Online sales training courses can improve your focus even amidst distractions such as the other side’s errant behaviors.

Depending on your budget and interests, you can also learn from a personal mentor, online sales training courses, or through role-playing with colleagues. A key tenet of learning a skill is through repetition, so don’t forget to practice regularly.

Develop the Right Mindset

Poor sales professionals often confuse sales negotiations with confrontation. If you arrive with confrontation in mind, you’re likely to miss out on potential value creation. The other side may feel too intimidated to want to give you more than you ask for. In fact, they may reciprocate by taking hard stances, offering you less than you deserve.

Instead, approach each sales meeting as an opportunity to add value for both sides. View the other side as potential partners who may bring you long-term value. What can you add to make your next deal irresistible?

Clarify Goals

Often, we end up with a less than ideal agreement simply because we weren’t clear about what we wanted. The top online sales training courses focus on making learners confident in asking for what they want.

Be consistent in how you present your expectations and objectives. Also, be clear in what you’re offering in exchange. What are the benefits your client stands to gain? What makes your sales offer better than that of your competition?

Deliver Win-Win Solutions

Negotiation is, to no small extent, about satisfying each other’s wants and needs. The whole reason you are negotiating is that you have something the other side considers valuable and addresses their needs. The other side also has something they can exchange that you consider valuable and that addresses your needs.

Skilled salespeople deliver win-win solutions through strategic give and take. You offer something your client values but has less significance to you. In exchange, you ask for something of high value to you.

For example, an employer may find that an employee is willing to work for a lower salary if they can work online from home several days a week. For that job, the employee’s location isn’t very important to the employer, but the salary reduction is.

Silence Is a Tool

Often, silence makes us uncomfortable and nervous. So we try to fill in the gap by talking too much. Don’t be in a rush to fill all the conversation gaps. With training courses, you can practice using silence to reflect upon the offers on the table.

Picture ways you can add more value to the transaction. When you’re nervous and start talking, you may end up negotiating against yourself.

For instance, say you’re buying a car and you make a counteroffer against the sale price. If the dealer stays silent, don’t fall into the temptation of offering higher than your previous counteroffer. Give the dealer time to make their response.

The dealer might accept your lower offer and even throw in some extras. Worst case scenario, the dealer says no, and you now have a chance to introduce your higher counteroffer.

Build Relationships

It’s natural to not want to leave too much on the table. Just as important, try not to take too much from the table. So, as you negotiate, think about how your words and actions can affect your relationship with the other side.

You want the other side to feel you offered value and that you didn’t take advantage of them. Long-term relationships make it easier to earn trust and maintain a business or personal relationship.

By building relationships, you position yourself for:

• More sales opportunities, such as upselling and cross-selling.
• Future referrals.
• Networking opportunities.
• Rights of first offer and first refusal.
• Less need for face-to-face meetings, as your trust enables more online and phone dealings.
• Networking opportunities.
• Rights of first offer and first refusal.
• Less need for face-to-face meetings, as your trust enables more online and phone dealings.