Negotiation is one of the most valuable skills you can cultivate in life. You probably learned this early on, when you honed your skills as a child trying to convince your parents to buy you a new video game or must-have shoes in exchange for doing extra chores. If you failed, you might have been disappointed, but you probably knew you could always ask for that video game when your birthday rolled around.
As an adult, however, the stakes are far higher, and in the world of business, negotiation is truly a make-or-break skill—and there are few second chances.
If you work in sales, you might have realized that a lifetime of negotiating with family and friends hasn’t quite prepared you for successful sales negotiations in a business setting. Thankfully, sales negotiation consultants are masters at this skill, and you can draw upon their expertise to inform your own negotiation tactics.
Why You Need Sales Negotiation Consulting
Sales can be hit or miss. Sometimes you or your team will close a sale successfully using a particular tactic, yet the same tactic might backfire spectacularly in the next negotiation that comes your way. And while no one can promise you that you’re going to close every sale you try for, sales negotiation consulting aims to raise those odds significantly.
If you or your sales team are struggling to win deals or navigate challenging business situations, expert guidance from consultants can help you overcome these obstacles.
Could Make or Break The Success Of Your Company
It may sound dramatic, but a poor sales team could spell the end of your business. The best products and marketing departments in the world are not going to bring in enough money to cover everyone’s paychecks if the sales team isn’t closing enough sales. Sales negotiation consulting is an expense, but it’s one that can give you a very nice return on investment.
There Is An Art To Negotiating
An effective negotiator knows how to make prospects feel comfortable and receptive to collaboration. There is some instinct involved in knowing how to put prospects at ease, but it’s also a skill you can learn with the help of consultants, who have shown countless others before you how to be effective negotiators.
Of course, we suggest you focus on the win-win as part of your strategy. The best negotiators understand what all the parties need and can convey a genuine desire to ensure everyone walks away happy. One area that we like to focus on at RCG is storytelling. Facts and figures are nice, but when you present them as part of a relatable story, it’s far more effective in selling your value to your target audience.
In fact, cognitive psychologist Jerome Brunner reports that people are 22 times more likely to remember facts that are wrapped in a story (1). Stories peppered with data are the ultimate approach, as they stimulate the left and right brain to think and inspire action. Our consultants can show you how to leverage this no matter what you’re selling.
RCG’s Sales Negotiation Process
Our consultants can help you implement our tried-and-true sales negotiation process. We’ll outline the basic elements of it here, but this really works best when consultants tailor it to the specific concerns of your industry and company.
First, you’ll need a good strategy in place before you even start negotiating, and it needs to be dynamic so it can adapt to the different situations you are likely to encounter. The rewards of successful negotiation are probably fairly obvious to you, but you also need to know the risks involved before you start. This often-overlooked aspect can inform your approach and raise your chances of success.
At RCG, we also place a lot of emphasis on knowing when to pull the trigger, so to speak. It isn’t always easy to tell when you should agree and close a deal and when you should keep negotiating, and getting this wrong could cause you to lose out on the sale entirely. Few things are worse for a salesperson than watching a prospect walk away just when the deal was all but done. Let us help you make sure this doesn’t happen. We’ll also share tactics that you can use during negotiations to keep your prospect engaged and make your strategy as successful as possible.
Master The Key To Any Sale: Closing
Every aspect of negotiation is important, but if you can’t close the sale, everything that came before was essentially a wasted effort. Thirty-six percent of salespeople say that closing is the most challenging aspect of the sales process, according to HubSpot (2).
Sales negotiation consultants give this aspect the weight it deserves, equipping you with the right skills to close the sale and reap its rewards.
Schedule A Consultation With Sales Negotiations Experts
If you are ready to learn how you and your team can improve your negotiation skills, schedule a consultation with the sales negotiation experts at RCG Consulting.
