“If you just learn that motion well, you will save yourself infinite amounts of time and energy and money over the course of your career.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 1730
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from David Weiss. David is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Sales Collective and founder of DealDoc. Here he is:
David Weiss: Hey, everyone. David Weiss here with another tip of the day. One of the least focused on skills in sales is negotiation. I would argue it’s probably one of the most important. And here’s why. For every 10% that you give away in discounts, in during your negotiation and throughout your sales process, it’s worth actually close to 40 % in economic value to you. Hear me out on this.
So think for a second what it took you to get to the point you could negotiate with somebody. You had to lose four, five plus deals, maybe up to ten deals. So think about all the time and energy you went into to fill the pipeline with five, six, seven qualified opportunities just to net out to one you could close. Think about all the time and energy you spent there. That is what you are giving away. You’re also giving away for every 10 plus %, you now need to go make that up somewhere else, and the same logic applies. So instead of discounting over and over again throughout the deal.
One, learn to negotiate. And there are great books like Ron Hubbard’s 7 Immutable Laws of Sales Negotiation, but also know when to negotiate. And this is one of the things I think sellers struggle with a lot. They negotiate before they are at the negotiation table because buyers are trained by procurement and through past life experiences to negotiate with you early to give them a better position for when the real negotiation takes place.
So one of the biggest things that you can learn when someone asks you for a discount, just say this, Hey, I’m more than happy to work with you. But we normally have discussions around cost and contracts and terms and go through a very normal negotiation when someone is ready to buy and at the end of the sales process. Is that where we are right now? And if the answer is yes, Hey, fantastic. Who is involved in that process? Let’s put the scope of work and contract and all of those things together. And then let’s do the negotiation in one single pass with all of your asks so I can understand it holistically. And then have them introduce you to the people involved in that process.
And if the answer is no, you say, Hey, I’m more than happy to work with you at the right time on those things. But let’s make sure we’re the right vendor for you, because if we’re not, us talking about cost doesn’t matter. And you pivot back to value, and you pivot back to decision criteria, and you pivot back to the sales process, and you leave all the negotiating for the negotiating table.
If you just learn that motion well, you will save yourself infinite amounts of time and energy and money over the course of your career. So hopefully that tip was helpful. And if I can answer any questions around it, feel free to reach out. Thanks!
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with David and learn more about him, The Sales Collective and DealDoc, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1730. Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!