by Mike Schatzki

I do get out and visit my customers from time to time, but most of my negotiations tend to be done over the phone. I find this difficult. What can I do to improve my technique?

The main obstacle in telephone negotiations has to do with who is prepared to negotiate. Think about it: You are sitting in your office, or maybe driving your car, with your mind on an unrelated problem. A prospect calls you up. She wants to negotiate some of the terms in a proposal that you recently sent to her. What do you think she has been doing for the last 15 minutes? She has been preparing to place her call. 

You, on the other hand, didn’t see this coming. It’s even possible that you can’t remember right away what proposal she’s talking about. What you do? 

If you are not ready, don’t negotiate. Simply take a deep breath and say something like, “I would like to get everything in front of me. Can I call you back in 30 minutes?” Acquire the discipline to request a “time out.” Take the time you need to prepare.

How do you negotiate with a large customer team? I went to the customer’s site expecting to negotiate a deal with only the buyer. But when I walked into the room, there were seven other people there. It totally blew me away. What should I do in a situation like that?

First, don’t panic. This might not be so bad. In fact, it can sometimes work to your advantage.

In my experience, large teams have seldom, if ever, developed a coherent negotiating plan. The members don’t have their act together and often exhibit terrible team discipline.

Whenever I’m suddenly faced with a large group—and it has happened to me a few times—I pull my chair away from the table, far enough so that I can see everybody without having to turn my head back and forth. I now become the focal point in the room. (Interestingly, almost nobody else in a group setting has ever copied this behavior.) Next, I start to try to ferret out information. If their team discipline is bad, several people will talk at once. They might even argue in front of me, giving away information I need.

The key thing to keep in mind is that you are negotiating with one company, no matter how many bodies are there representing that company. It is still a one-on-one negotiation. Listen and take notes. If there are questions you can’t answer, say so and promise to get the needed information as quickly as you can return to your office.

The chief decision maker of the group may feel a lot of pressure to do or say certain things or not to do or say certain things. A strategy that sometimes works well in this situation is the “walk in the woods.” If you are clear on who the key decision maker is and feel that he may need some time alone with you, call a coffee break. See if you can get that key decision maker to walk down the hall with you. Sometimes this approach can lay the groundwork for going back into the larger group meeting with an agreement.

I have a couple of buyers who are always saying to me, “Give me your best price.” Often, when I give them a price and tell them it’s my best, they say, “That’s not good enough.” And then if I do go lower, they say, “I told you to give me your best price in the first place.” What should I do?

This is a buyer’s “gotcha” game, and you don’t want to play it. If you let yourself get sucked into this game, you let the buyer turn the negotiation into a morality play, with them as the stern parent telling you what to do and you as the child, doing or not doing what they say. You need to break out of this trap the moment they spring it on you.

How you do this depends in part on where you are in the negotiation and in part on the personality of the buyer. Some buyers will say, “Give me your best price” very early in the process, before you really know what her needs and wants are and before you’re able to put together a package. In that situation, the best reply is to simply say so: “I can’t give you any price at this point because I’m still not clear on what your needs are or what the best approach would be to meet them.” 

Your objective here is to involve the buyer in a needs-and-wants discussion which, in the early stages of the process, is probably where you need to be. If this request for your best price comes later in the process and you’re pretty clear on what their package needs to be, you probably need to go in a different direction. 

One conceivable approach is humor. If you think you might be able to get a laugh, try something a little outrageous. If you’ve already told the buyer that the standard price for your widgets is $50 apiece and the buyer says, “Give me your best price,” you might reply, “If you really insist, I could offer them to you at $100 each.” What you’ve done is send a message to the buyer that you see the tactic and you won’t play. A tactic diagnosed is a tactic that no longer works very well. 

Another approach is to ask the negotiator’s favorite question, “Why?” This may well leave the buyer tongue-tied, since probably no one has ever responded to “Give me your best price” that way. Her answer may give you an opportunity to move in another direction.

One more: Turn the tables and say, “How about you make me an offer?"

I had submitted a proposal to a company. I had worked extensively with the end users in the plant and was pretty sure I had the inside track. However, in that company, everything had to go through Purchasing. Two weeks after I submitted the proposal, I had to go down to the plant for another reason and I bumped into the purchasing person who was reviewing my proposal. He invited me to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee and then pounced on me to try to negotiate a better package and lower prices. Although I got the contract, I was so startled that I’m afraid I gave away much too much. What do you do in that kind of a situation?

You got ambushed. It’s possible that the buyer just happened to bump into you and had the contract clear in his mind. But it is also possible that he knew you were coming and planned to bump into you.

Unlike receiving an unexpected telephone call, the in-person ambush doesn’t allow you to say, “I’m not ready but I will get back to you,” particularly if the buyer is hinting that if you can reach agreement on the spot, he is prepared to sign a purchase order.

For best results, anticipate an ambush negotiation anytime you are heading to the customer’s site. Have a negotiation plan ready in case you need it.

If you are prepared and are ready to negotiate, then the next step is to try to formalize the process. You might say, “Are you really ready to work out a final agreement here and now?” This is a way of announcing, “I see your tactic, I know what you are trying to do and I am prepared to play along.” Whatever the buyer’s answer, you know where you stand.

Mike Schatzki is president of Negotiation Dynamics and author of Negotiation: The Art of Getting What You Want and a member of the faculty of the University of Alabama. Since 1980 he has conducted negotiation seminars for thousands of sales professionals, including those from wholesale distribution associations, distribution firms and manufacturers who sell through wholesaler-distributors.

For full pricing and ordering information on The Deal Before the Sale: Core Concepts in Negotiation for the Wholesale Distribution Sales Pro, visit NAW’s publication website www.nawpubs.org. A 5 percent discount applies to all online orders.

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