A previous employer sent its sales people on a Karrass Negotiating course, I was new to sales so found it very useful. It helped me see that there was much more to successful and creative negotiation than just haggling over price..
During the course we learnt many interesting techniques designed to help us reach that creative win-win that forms the foundation of any healthy new business relationship.
Through lectures and role playing we worked through the scenarios presented, each side would have some insider information to guide them.
Your production team prefers their solution but their price is too high
We have a large surplus of product and storing it is costing us money
We have cash flow problems, get a deal with spread payments even if it costs more
Production is on hold until this deal is made, every day with no deal costs us $10,000
Delay negotiations, we don’t have enough product to fill the order yet.
The challenge for the negotiator is to ascertain the other sides pain points and areas of flexibility while revealing as little as possible of theirs. Read the rest of this entry »
A headhunter approached me, said I had been selected because of my background and asked me to come in for an interview.
Myself and 5 other people sat in a room and an x Navy Seal turned recruitment consultant told us we were the best of the best. The company he was representing was amazing and if we wanted to commit ourselves to excellence come back on Wednesday for 3 days of assessment.
You know the interview scene in Men In Black.. it was that.
Apparently he had served all over the world as an intelligence expert and one of the marketable skills he had brought back to civilian life was the ability to asses people very quickly. It was his job to find out who we were, our core values and eliminate 90% from a 100 person group. The survivors would get interviews on Friday.
I believe curiosity is my best quality; I value it very highly and this Navy Seal had piqued mine. Read the rest of this entry »
Reward systems and the cause and affect of human behavior fascinate me. We are all driven by reward; people often think reward = money but that’s not actually true for most of us. It could be recognition, love, independence, security, adrenalin, power, a better afterlife or a thousand other things.
We are complex so for most of us it’s not just one thing, it’s a mixture, with some more prominent than others at different times in our lives.
The systems we design and live in greatly affect how we achieve our goals at work and in our private lives. Read the rest of this entry »
He proposes that products, especially B2B products are so complex that although we like to think that in this information/social-recommendation age we know about all the products that can help our business perhaps we are missing out.
Perhaps those sales people we work so hard to block from our day could have advice that is valuable.
Selling to us is hard because we dig in. We operate from the idea that we already know it all. We are resistant to sales calls. We avoid sales people when they walk up to us. We tell them we are all set, before we let them talk. We build a giant wall, difficult for sales people to climb. We feel good about it. We feel like we are winning. But are we?
Having spent the best part of 10 years in B2B sales, reseller channel management and consulting I have to disagree. But perhaps it all depends on your definition of sales person. Read the rest of this entry »
If you lead a sales team you are probably dividing your time between approving last minute deals and planning for next year. Changes in the market place and the needs of your business drive new product and marketing strategies. They in turn affect your budget plan, sales strategy, forecasting and targets.
That’s a complex inter-departmental web of strategies to worry about. How’s your 2010 compensation strategy looking?
Caught this commercial yesterday and had to share, it reminded me of sales trips north from London to visit Psygnosis or Gremlin.
Preparing for a meeting is a ritual. It doesn’t matter if that meeting is internal or external, product demo or interview. If it’s important you should be prepared, confident and “ready to kill it”
As an executive your time is high value; your sales team know this and use what time you give them to arrange meetings with clients or prospects who need that CEO love before they sign the deal. At trade shows your staff fill up your meeting calendar, what free time you do get you spend meeting the people that walk onto your booth.
One such executive recently told me “everyone I meet wants my product, its great!” but I know his sales numbers don’t reflect that version of reality. He is suffering from rockstar syndrome; he only meets people who get into, or past his entourage.
I have written before about the importance of getting out of the office and meeting customers; Customers; do not disturb and Michael Ray Hopkin did a great piece on how especially advantageous this strategy is in tough economic times when your customers and competitors are grounding their staff; Communicating with customers.
I think a significant new trend in 2009 is the birth of the prosumer game developer.
Both Unity and Epic have made significant moves in the prosumer space in 2009.
An argument for public pricing is not an argument against direct sales unless knowing the price is the only value your sales people bring to the client.
A headhunter approached me, said I had been selected because of my background and asked me to come in for an interview.
I have just finished reading 
As an executive your time is high value; your sales team know this and use what time you give them to arrange meetings with clients or prospects who need that CEO love before they sign the deal. At trade shows your staff fill up your meeting calendar, what free time you do get you spend meeting the people that walk onto your booth.