Getting Breakthrough Negotiation Results
Suppliers are pretty smart. They are smarter than you think actually. Did you know sales people spend up to 40% of their time in training, while purchasing on average spends less than 2% of their time in training?
It’s no wonder they are able to be so capable in selling solutions. And as the old purchasing saying goes, “a solution looks suspiciously like a good or service, except it costs a lot more.” 
Here’s the deal. Suppliers are well trained in negotiations. More than most purchasing professionals.
What does this mean to you? It means when you aren’t prepared, or aren’t prepared enough, they will know it. They WILL know it.
But the issue continues. They are not going to tell you that they don’t feel you are prepared. They are actually trained on how to respond. They are sure as heck not going to let the cat out of the bag and send you back to the drawing board for further planning.
What kind of responses do suppliers come up with? Their goal is to show you that the knife is cutting deep, and that you are the one wielding it.
In fact, they will also make you feel like a superhero in the process. Be prepared to hear things like this:
“Nobody has ever been able to drive this kind of negotiation outcome like this before with us. I had to break every rule in the book to make this happen, and getting this deal done required approvals all the way up to the head cheese. You should really feel good about what you’ve negotiated with us. This is not the norm. ”
Pretty compelling, huh? The problem is almost none of it is ever true.
You see, there is only one thing that defines a good deal, and that is DATA. Benchmarking, competitive bidding, favorably written Most Favored Customer contract clauses, cost models, value analysis – these are what define a good deal.
But the supplier’s goal is to keep the focus away from those things, because then suddenly things become difficult. Data is difficult to refute.
It’s not their fault for doing all of this by the way. Think about it, are any of your suppliers non-profit organizations? Probably not. They are in the business of making money. That’s their job.
So you need to do your job. Don’t judge your negotiation skills and capabilities be judged based on a supplier’s response, words, or actions.
Judge your negotiation skills and capabilities by your preparation, and look at what the data tells you. Let the data paint the picture.
Not only that, let the data guide your strategy. Negotiations are won and lost before they ever start – it’s all down to how you prepare, and what sort of analysis you do, and how you use it.
On top of that, you need to get your behavioral strategies down pat. We’re not trying to “get the upper hand” – that’s a 1950’s strategy.
We’re trying to identify what unique motivators your supplier has and determining how to leverage those to create intrinsic motivation models for them to give you an even better TCO value proposition while still feeling good about the deal.
There is an art and science to achieving breakthrough negotiation results, and I want to key you into these strategies. I want to give you a chance to learn the powerful and game changing insider secrets I’ve developed to give you the tools to generate these kind of breakthrough negotiation results.
To that end, I invite you to join us on my upcoming Advanced Purchasing Excellence Training Series Webinar, “Negotiation Strategies for Breakthrough TCO”.
To learn all about it and join us, Click Here Now.
Talk with you next week!
Omid G
