4 Seller Negotiation Tactics to Stop Using

Negotiations are, by definition, about give and take.

Even some of your best reps may be employing seller negotiation tactics that simply won’t work.

We’re talking about:

1. Ultimatums
2. Playing dirty
3. Trading up
4. Posturing

These approaches to negotiation need to be retired.

Your company’s reputation — and success — is at stake.

Let’s go there.

Ultimatums

“You meet me at this point or I am walking.”

Who doesn’t love an ultimatum?

Oh, right, everyone.

It’s transparent. It’s kind of unethical. And it’s ineffective.

Sellers are smart. Reps who still employ these old-hat used-car-salesman tactics in any context will quickly see how useless they are. (No shade to used car salespeople — they can be great.)

Instead, Drop the Rope™.

Yes, we’ve said it a million times and we’ll continue to say it because the concept has revolutionized sales for hundreds of enterprise organizations.

At ASLAN, we teach reps: don’t fight, don’t throw down the gauntlet, don’t enter the ring: drop the rope.

Choose cooperation over combat. 

Consider the perspective of the people you are selling to; empathize with them; acknowledge many possible outcomes, and labor toward the one with the highest mutual benefit.

This isn’t wimping out. In fact, there is incredible courage in this stance — I am not going to push you to make this decision. Encourage you? Sure. Arm you with every important consideration? Yep. Equip you with all of the right vision of your success using this good or service? Absolutely. But no fake pressure. Because, at the end of the day, we should all win.

Playing Dirty

We’ve all witnessed salespeople who are willing to scrap and claw their way into a deal. This can take really sophisticated forms: discrediting competitors, undermining confidence, embellishment or overpromising, straight up falsehoods, etc.

To our thinking, this is all the way of the past.

Reps who earn respect and a spot at better and better negotiation tables do so on the merit of their performance. They don’t have to tear anyone down to get there.

If you are a fan of our blog, you know that we have mentioned competitors in the sales training space many times. Sometimes we do so to compare and contrast our services, but our approach is never snarky or belittling. We all have strengths. 

Sure, we wholeheartedly believe that ASLAN sales training is a great choice for most businesses. We’ve put all our efforts into building something outstanding. But that doesn’t mean we’re the only game in town or the only good game in town.

We are competitive. We play to win. But we never do so in a way that compromises our ethics. Because of that, we can count on a good name. We can count on being met with openness and goodwill. It’s a calculated approach and one that aligns with our own morals as well as being a best practice that simply works.

Unsportsmanlike conduct is not the way to win negotiations.

Trading Up

Some opportunistic reps will want to fast-track to the close and, in so doing, race through point people in an attempt to find the big dog.

Enterprise B2B sales can be very tricky. There are landmines of politics and decision makers that reps have to navigate. This can lead to elongated sales cycles and prolonged seller negotiations.

When reps see a pinhole of opportunity, it can be very tempting to pass over someone they’re currently talking to and try to grab the attention of someone at a higher level of authority.

Sometimes this is okay.

But many times reps shoot themselves in the foot by trying to move up ladder without winning every rung along the way.

That tactic can undermine negotiations in a huge way. 

Consider this: the more advocates a rep can win on the seller’s side before even getting to the negotiation table, the better. They’ll automatically have a couple of “yes”s in the pocket. Which is an ideal place to be.

If you have reps who are experts at maneuvering and simply using people to get to authority figures, it will be problematic.

Instead, they need to see work for consistent, steady wins, being patient as a deal gains then sustains velocity.

Posturing

Posturing is all about presentation: it’s what happens when a rep puffs their chest out, walking in with a swag that says — be prepared to be impressed. I’ve arrived.

We’ve alluded to elements of this throughout this piece but felt it deserved its own point:

Reps shouldn’t front.

They shouldn’t posture.

They shouldn’t flex.

There’s a whole cohort of people in the sales game who do just this.

They’re peacocks: they look the part, they act the part, and it’s all about (you guessed it) T-H-E-M.

This is so counterproductive, especially when it comes to negotiations, which are inherently about power dynamics and communication.

Reps who don’t have an Other-CenteredⓇ perspective miss out on most of the story. They miss out on the core motivation and choice factors in play. They miss out on the seller’s actual priorities. They don’t listen long enough to learn, which makes the substance of their negotiation woefully inadequate.

Some can carry this posturing over long enough to intimidate or flex in a negotiation, but what seller is going to feel great about the outcome of that conversation? It’s harmful not just in the moment but also in the long run. Even if the rep wins on these terms, it’s a loss.

Other-centeredness is a lifelong pursuit but one that any rep with any personality type can learn. If you want to learn more about this key concept, get Tom Stanfill’s book, unReceptive. He goes into the idea at length and gives great insights into how reps can be equipped with this powerful mindset.

Better Seller Negotiation Tactics

We’ve talked about the flipside of the coin illustratively in a few of these sections.

Principles like Drop the Rope and Other-Centered Selling.

It’s vital that your reps don’t just stop doing the bad stuff but start doing the good stuff.

If you see hints of your own team’s practices in this list, connect with us.

We’re here to show your reps a better, more effective, way.