How to stop your sales team asking for discounts

Hello Sales Reset Leader

How often do your team members ask you to authorise discounts to win some new business?

In this week’s Weekly Sales Reset, our focus is on negotiation skills.

Our experience is that many B2B salespeople have not been trained in negotiation skills. They may not have learned key principles like:

• Never give away anything without getting something in return.

• Win-win is not just a well-known phrase. It’s genuinely available if people consider the relative cost and value of what is achieved by each stakeholder.

The rest of this email newsletter assumes you have read this week’s Weekly Sales Reset“:

• Title: Learn and practice win-win negotiations to win more business!

• Subtitle: Always be negotiating at every stage of your sales process

How to improve your team's results this week

• Evidence of effective negotiation

• Recommended negotiation coaching session agenda

• Expected pushback about negotiation skills

• Negotiation skills role-play recommendations

• Leadership reflective practice

Evidence of effective negotiation

To review the evidence of how effectively your team are negotiating, reflect on recent deal review conversations. How often do your team members ask for special terms?

These concessions to customers can include:

• Non-standard discounts and payment terms

• Delivery outside normal terms

• Customisations to fit specific requirements

• Additional onboarding and training needs

What do you find when you review the evidence of what team members gain in exchange for the offer of special terms?

When your team members ask you for special terms to win a piece of business, what do they typically gain from the customer in return for the concession?

Ideally, you’ll see evidence that team members secure clear and specific agreements from the customer every time a concession is agreed.

What is the evidence that your team members have the skills and the courage to negotiate with their customers assertively and effectively?

Recommended negotiation coaching session agenda

Before leading your coaching sessions on negotiating skills, ask your team members to review the current edition of Weekly Sales Reset.

Here’s this week’s recommended coaching session agenda:

1. Start with a brief review of their experience and results from their previous coaching session.

2. Ask this team member for their observations about structured negotiation and their response to the need to identify and value concessions from different stakeholder perspectives.

3. Review the evidence of negotiation you found in your preparation with each team member.

4. Identify and prioritise a small range of specific practical things that this team member can do differently and better to improve their negotiation skills.

5. Spend some time role-playing (working with these guidelines).

6. Finish the coaching session with agreed and specific action conclusions.

Expected pushback about negotiation skills

So you know what to expect and can be prepared, here are three areas of possible pushback from your team members on the theme of effective negotiating:

1. “I don’t have the authority to negotiate”: Team members may be unaware of just how much opportunity they have to negotiate every element of progress in an opportunity. Whilst they might need permission to agree on some commercial aspects, they have every opportunity to negotiate with you about these needs!
   

2. “Customers don’t have the time”: Effective negotiation takes time. Your team members only get a relatively short period when speaking with customers in meetings. Solutions to this pushback are likely to centre around effective preparation and ensuring greater engagement from customers by maximising the potential value of a solution to their challenges.
   

3. “I don’t have the depth of strategic and commercial knowledge”: Negotiating effectively with all significant stakeholders in a big B2B opportunity requires high levels of knowledge and experience. How can you accelerate the development of your team members so they are equipped and able to play this crucial role?

Now that you know these potential pushback areas, what are your best responses?

Negotiation skills role-play recommendations

1. Big meeting already in calendar: Identify the most important meeting in this team member’s calendar. Clarify the most significant opportunities for negotiation. Develop a list of the key negotiating elements from each stakeholder perspective in terms of cost and value. Role play parts of the negotiation.

2. Stalled Opportunity: Find the most significant stalled opportunity in this team member’s pipeline. Work out how effective negotiation might unlock the situation. Role play to see how it might play out.

3. Recent Loss: Review the most significant recent loss. How might the opportunity have been managed more effectively with effective negotiation? Role play how the meetings might have developed.

(You may find these recommendations about using role-play helpful.)

Leadership reflective practice

At the end of this week, ask yourself these key questions:

We hope you’ve found this edition of Sales Reset Leaders valuable.

Have a great week!

The Sales Reset Team

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