Whether it’s golf, relationships, or sales negotiation, it helps in the execution if you can grasp a basic understanding, what I call the big picture, before you get to the details.

Part of the big picture in Sales Negotiation is that there are Four competency levels of negotiation: the Novice, the Competent, the Advanced, and the Master. As I go through these, see if you can place yourself in one of these levels.

Novice Level
The novice level sales negotiator can accurately discuss the commodities and services offered by their company. They have been thru “product training” and can discuss features, price, how fast, warranty, delivery, etc.

Competent Level
A Competent can articulate Positioning Factors. They can articulate why their products and services are a better choice than the competition. Competent sales negotiators are comfortable with and handle well questions like these an a regular basis:

Why you?
Why should your recommendation take precedence over other options on the table? What separates you in the marketplace? What differentiates you from the competition? (The good ones can do this on two levels – what’s different regarding their commodities and services, and their organization)

Advanced Level
The advanced sales negotiator can articulate not only the positioning factors (what separates their offering from the competition) but can articulate the consequences of each of them. They can get across the “so what” of each positioning point, enabling a customer to see exactly how each positioning factor will make a difference in their business/life. Salespeople have referred to this as “benefits”.

Master Level

The master level sales negotiator not only knows and can articulate
a) the specifics of the products and services available, but

b) the Positioning factors -why their recommendations should be followed – why their idea is a better choice than options under consideration.

c) the consequences of each of the Positioning Factors. The “What this means to you is” that converts every positioning factor into something meaningful to that person., but

d) masters can select the consequences based on the drivers of the other party. This is a high degree of execution, attained by few. It involves knowing or sensing the buyer to a degree that you can accurately determine their motivations and use that knowledge to select the precise consequences that will move that individual to another point of view.

As you can see, this is no small feat. That’s why so few salespeople do it well, and why so many sales negotiations end either without getting the order, or getting it with low margins.

Bob Gibson is the President of
THE SALES NEGOTIATION INSTITUTE
He may be reached at 800-572-8005