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Possessing strong negotiation skills is very important, particularly when looking to make a sale. Although selling and negotiating techniques may come easy to some, not everyone is born a natural negotiator. Those who feel intimidated by conflict or disagreement perceive negotiation to be along those lines, however as you will learn there is a lot more to negotiation than confrontation and uncomfortable workplace encounters.
1.Understand the value in what you’re selling
Before trying to sell anything, it is vital that you know and understand the value in what you’re trying to sell, be it a brand, service or product. Through interviewing current and previous customers, you will able to gather valuable market research of your product or service, and allowing you to compare to competitors in the industry.
2.What is your sales strategy?
Regardless of what service or product is being sold, a sales strategy needs to be in place in order to secure deals. A sales strategy involves a plan to position a company’s brand or product successfully to gain a competitive advantage. Well executed strategies help the sales force focus on target market customers and communicate with them in personal, relevant and meaningful ways. A successful sales strategy would convey how their service will best impact customers, ensuring the sales team spends time targeting the correct customers and audiences at the right time. How will you sell your products and services effectively? As sales member, it is vital you know your strategy before you begin to negotiate. Always expect the unexpected, negotiation training and courses can prepare you if situations like these arise. Particularly when investing a lot of money into a product or service, customers would have done a lot of research prior to their purchase. Be prepared to be able to answer and cover all areas effectively and with a vast knowledge. The stronger your sales strategy, the more successful you will be when negotiating with a prospect and securing a deal.
3. Research the industry and competitors
One way to gain the upper hand in a negotiation is by studying competitors and researching the market. Competitor analysis in this instance is intensive research and assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors, and what is currently being done in the industry. This analysis allows you to create both an offensive and defensive strategy to identify opportunities and threats. Understand competitors pricing and their perceived advantages to your prospect base. Staying in touch with your competition and field of expertise will help you in continuing to develop products and services that customers will find pride and value in, and will keep you ahead at the negotiating table, as well as leaders in the industry like The Gap Partnership too helping stay ahead in the negotiation process.
4. Who are your customers?
Understanding consumer behavior is a difficult task and concept to get your head around due to ever-changing idealisms and mannerisms. All marketers and those in the sales industry can profit from the motives and reasoning’s behind why consumers buy. If you do not have knowledge of your customer’s interests, motivation and preferences, it is very difficult to impact their decision and for them to buy into your product. The need to predict consumer behavior is considered a crucial trait for marketers.
Every customer possess’ different traits and behavior patterns. Understanding their interests and motives will allow you to see potential motivating components and gaps in the market. Looking at previous experience in selling, you’ll be able to see a general consensus of customer incentives. Asking specific questions and making sure you pay attention to feedback will allow you to draw conclusions from this information and research.
5.Emphasis the value, not the price
One of the most important techniques when selling a product or service is ensuring you convey the true value of your product, without diving straight into the price. Evidently a big part of sales is profit and this may seem like an obvious way to sell, however to begin with you want to ensure the customer knows that they are buying into something of value. It’s important to understand that the customer cares about the quality of service and product, and that’s when the negotiating process can begin.
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