articles
negotiation articles
getAbstract recommends B2B Street Fighting
Marie Dudek - January 17th, 2012
The just released summary of B2B Street Fighting is now available from getAbstract. In this Abstract, you will learn:
1.What the latest business-to-business (B2B) negotiating trends are
2.How to get the best possible B2B deal during a negotiation
3.How to use the “three counterpunches” to move the buyer from price to value.
getAbstract recommends this intelligent approach to B2B sales reps and those who must negotiate with tough-minded buyers, winner-take-all procurement officers and savvy sourcing executives.
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Redefining Negotiation: Driving Adoption and ROI
Marie Dudek - September 14th, 2010
The Think! 3-phase approach to driving training adoption and ROI is based on primary research outlined in our white paper entitled “Enable Your Growth Strategy.”
We surveyed 20,000 sales executives, human resources managers and performance improvement consultants to determine if they had been involved with a sales training initiative that went beyond training and was successful in becoming deeply “embedded into the DNA of the organization.”
We found 150 companies that had done so and studied them further with surveys and focus groups. We know from this research that the quality of the Intellectual Property itself also drives adoption and ROI. It needs to be simple with recognizable benefits for the team and the organization that are both immediate and easily measurable.
Our 3-phase approach to business negotiation training is based on this research.
Using Technology to Combat 97% of Negotiation Tactics
Brian Dietmeyer - August 16th, 2010
There is a commonly held belief that negotiation is a random event; we never know what someone is going to say or do. For the longest time, many individuals negotiating business deals have thought this to be true. It has led to negotiation strategies that involve long lists of tactics, countermeasures, effective responses, interpreting body language and recognizing bluffing techniques. The problem is these tricks and tips cannot be scaled for a global sales force. More importantly… they just don’t work!
The most common verbal negotiation tactic in the world is…
Redefining Negotiation: Driving Adoption and ROI
Brian Dietmeyer - July 9th, 2010
The Think! three-phase approach to driving training adoption and ROI is based on primary research outlined in our white paper entitled “Enable Your Growth Strategy.” We know from this research that the quality of the Intellectual Property itself also drives adoption and ROI. It needs to be simple with recognizable benefits for the team and the organization that are both immediate and easily measureable.
What factors need to be considered when developing a sales training initiative around B2B negotiation? Let our research findings assist you in knowing what to consider.
Velocity magazine article “Who is in charge of the care and feeding of your value proposition?”
Marie Dudek - August 31st, 2009
Value as a living ecosystem
The Strategic Account Management Association’s (SAMA) Velocity magazine asks, “Who is in charge of the care and feeding of your value proposition?” To help answer this question, writer Brian Dietmeyer of Think! Inc. explains why your value is a living, breathing thing — an ecosystem that needs proper feeding and watering — and how to reassess it.
Click here for the full article.
Who is in Charge of the Care and Feeding of Your Value Proposition?
Brian Dietmeyer - February 10th, 2009
Value as a Living Ecosystem
If you were to poll ten cross-functional leaders in your organization and ask the following questions, what do you think the quality of the answers would be?
- What is the definition of value proposition?
- What is our value proposition?
- Who owns the care and feeding of our company’s value proposition?
- Is there a connection between your value proposition and what salespeople say and do at the customer level?
Chances are, for every leader you asked, you would get a different, equally qualified response. More importantly, what do you think the business impact of the disparate answers would be? Especially given the current state of the ecomony? If your value proposition is gauzy internally, it will be so to customers and result in even more pressure on prices and margins…
Linear “Training” vs. Integrated “Solutions”
Brian Dietmeyer - July 22nd, 2008
Most organizations view training initiatives as a “linear” sequence of events. Unfortunately, this perspective fails to address the “interconnectedness” between the process of selling and the process of negotiating. If a sales force requires both sales and negotiation training, the all too typical approach is to first train the entire sales force on selling skills and then circle back and rollout negotiation training as a separate and seeminly unrelated activity.
At the risk of oversimplifying this relationship, selling (opportunity management) is about creating value in the mind of the customer while negotiation is about capturing that value in a deal which benefits both sides. They go hand-in-hand…
The New School of Negotiation
Brian Dietmeyer - March 31st, 2008
You may be making negotiations harder than they have to be!
Negotiating a deal has been made more complex than it needs to be and that’s far worse than confusing, it’s disempowering.
What keep any deal afloat or makes it sink isn’t pulling one perfect response out of an arsenal of a dozen, two-dozen or 200 negotiation tactics. Whether you’re haggling over the price of a flea market watch or trying to close a global, multimillion-dollar deal, every negotiation hinges on only two elements…
Want Negotiation Power? Continuously Expand and Exploit Your Value
Brian Dietmeyer - December 13th, 2007
I turned away a client the other day, the senior vice president of sales for a major manufacturing organization. It could have meant tens of thousands of dollars in potential business for Think!
“You’re problem isn’t negotiation – - it’s a value proposition that’s just too simple. Fix that and most of your negotiation issues will solve themselves,” I assured him. “You’ve got to be willing to find a way to give your customer more than your product’s face value. Otherwise, I can’t help you…”
Manage Smarter Article – The Bottom Line: Redefining Negotiation
Marie Dudek - November 27th, 2007
Keep your sales team from getting eaten alive
By Dave Stein, Founder, Chairman & CEO, ES Research Group
- as published in Manage Smarter, the online home of Sales and Marketing Management Magazine
Any sales manager will tell you that negotiation is one of the required skills for success in sales. Yet few salespeople are equipped to go one-on-one with the increasingly experienced and tough corporate buyers and purchasing officers with whom they must negotiate in order to make a sale.
Even some companies that provide guidance for pursuing the most complex sales opportunities not only leave money on the table, but allow the perceived value of their brand to be whittled away during negotiations.
To read the rest of this article, click here.