“Do not negotiate alone. Even if you can make all the decisions, pretend that you can’t.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 650
How about you? Why Paper Process is so important?
Join the conversation below and check out the links!
David Weiss on LinkedIn
641: MEDDPICC® Series (Metrics)
643: MEDDPICC® Series (Economic Buyer)
646: MEDDPICC® Series (Decision Process)
648: MEDDPICC® Series (Decision Criteria)
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Outreach’s David Weiss is back to continue his 9 part series on MEDDPICC®. Here he is:
David Weiss: Good morning everyone out there in the Sales Success Community. And this is David Weiss with a continuation of my MEDDPICC® Series. And today we are on Paper Process. So the reason why MEDDPICC® exists versus MEDDICC® is that there is an added P for MEDDPICC® because there is a distinct difference between a business process, that decision process encompasses, and a legal process, where is the reason for the P. The reason for that is lawyers and God bless them, do not care about what the business wants, they care about protecting the business against enterprise risk.
So just because your buyer says, Hey, we want this, we want it. Now we want to go to live media. This is amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The lawyers are like, well, that’s nice, but what about security? What about compliance? What about, you know, data? What about, you know, this? What about that? What about identity and warranty and all of the things that go into a legal contract. And there can be a huge difference between when a deal, when you think a deal will close, and when it actually closes. And if anyone out there has ever committed to their boss, boss’s boss, whoever saying, I’m getting this deal this month, raise your hand out there virtually. Have you ever had it not come in when you said it would? I’m sure you have, so have I. And that is why Paper Process is so important. It’s because it allows you to actually commit. And unless, you know the paper process, you cannot commit a deal. You can’t, you don’t know the details needed and you will likely be wrong.
So the purpose of a paper process is to understand all the legal components that go into it. So those are things like, do they have an inside or outside counsel? I’ll tell you right now, if they have outside counsel, the deal is going to take longer to sign. I remember a deal that I worked on that took over two months because outside counsel decided to write all 30 pages rewrite all of them to their verbiage, just so they could bill because they get paid by the hour. So understand inside, outside counsel, I understand how busy they are. Know when they’ve, when they’ve, we’ve done deals like this in the past, how long has it taken? What is their turnaround time average? What type of red lines they always ask for? Do they always ask for a deeper InfoSec review? Do they always ask for the specific warranties or indemnities or clauses or, you know, they’ll only sign certain term deals or, you know, figure out what type of red lines you can expect.
Confirm who was signing it. Confirm when they’re signing, get down to the granular details to the, are they, when are they going to be out the office? Do they have vacations planned? You know, also see if there’s any incentives tied to listen, if you can, and it doesn’t need to be monetary incentives, it could be implementation fees. It could be a priority on implementation. It could be a certain tier or level of service. Prepare your give to gets around those things. They want a discount. We want a reference. They want a shorter term. We want a video testimonial. They want free implementation. We want, you know, a higher cost. They want a lower cost. We want longer-term. Figure out your gift to guests. And don’t just give out anything away from free, for free.
And my last tip, do not negotiate alone. Even if you can make all the decisions, pretend that you can’t. When you enter a negotiation, set the frame. Literally, I say these words, we are not negotiating today. You and me, we’re not negotiating. I am here to sit next to you, not across from you at the table, and understand what are your asks. And I will not negotiate with you until I understand all of your asks. Holistically, all of them. Then get all of the ask, then ask them, Hey, what are your priorities? I can’t give you everything. I think you know that, but what are the big rocks and stack rank them for me? Okay.
So now that I know your priorities, while at the same pace, you’re not gonna get everything. If I was to be able to get you this, could you get me this? If I did this, could we get this? What a fear? What if you’re a bunch of what-if scenarios? That is your negotiation call. You take all of that information back. You work with the powers that be, and then you come back with your final proposal and you discuss it.
And again, you enter that conversation and say, Hey guys, again, we’re not negotiating. I don’t make the decisions on this. You’re insulating yourself. You’re maneuvering. You’re giving yourself out and you then present it. You see what they say. You see what the things they want. And then you’re like, Okay, cool. Here’s the feedback from my team on this? Or I think my business will say that. What do you think? And after you do those things, then you go back. Even if it’s you making the decision, you tell people, you need to go back, you have internal conversations and then you come back with your stance.
So those are some best practices around negotiation. I love talking about this stuff. So if anybody needs help with it, feel free to reach out to me. Thanks guys.
Scott Ingram: For more about David Weiss, who has contributed a ton to this sales success community. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/650 and we’ll have a variety of links for you there.
Then be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss the rest of the series and come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!
MEDDPICC® is a federally registered trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, exclusively
licensed by MEDDIC Academy, and is being used with permission.