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Influencing vs Negotiating
Written by: Sue BarrettArticle Overview: It has often been said that very strong negotiation skills are critical to being a high performing sales person. However, findings from our "sales force fitness" profiling work, where we profile critical qualities for successful sales performance in many businesses, large and small, is telling a very different story.
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Influencing vs Negotiating
It has often been said that very strong negotiation skills are critical to being a high performing sales person. However, findings from our "sales force fitness" profiling work, where we profile critical qualities for successful sales performance in many businesses, large and small, is telling a very different story.
Before you invest your training dollars into negotiating skills training for your sales team, you might like to think about investing it into influencing skills training instead.
Why? The ability to positively influence prospects or clients towards your brand and product offering - more so than negotiation - is what is needed in today's market.
Products/solutions are often quite clearly defined and a salesperson's ability to negotiate price and value-added services is limited in today's market.
We are now finding some companies are setting prices for their sales teams with no room for negotiation, thus eliminating price negotiations altogether.
(Not always a bad thing if you ask me, given all the pricing discounts I have seen sales people giving away unnecessarily over the years.)
So what is a sales person to do now?
We are consistently hearing in interviews with high performing sales managers and sales people that the ability to positively influence the client is a more critical competency than the skill of negotiating. This has direct relevance to the emotional intelligence (EI) area of managing others emotions.
The emotional management of others is the skill of influencing the moods and emotions of others. A sales person's ability to:
- Influence a prospective customer to say ‘yes'.
- Overcome a customer's reservation towards a new product.
- Help a client feel enthusiastic about a product they recently purchased.
- Plan with a client how to best engage their ‘economic buyer'.
In addition, we are finding that:
- Accurately reading the client, gauging their reactions and then adjusting your own style is also being highlighted as a key competency of high performing sales people. This is relevant to the EI competency of recognising emotions of others, emotional reasoning and managing others emotions.
- Building relationships and trust is also critical. For the past three of our major corporate projects in assessing "sales force fitness", it has been cited as a key point of competitive difference. The ability to build trust-based relationships is influenced by a number of EI competencies - emotional self awareness, emotional awareness of others, ability to influence others' emotions and emotional control.
Remember everybody lvies by selling something.
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Article Tags: critical competency, critical qualities, different story, emotional intelligence, emotional management, influencing skills, li li, negotiating skills, negotiation skills, p products, price negotiations, products solutions, prospective customer, s market, sales managers, sales performance, sales person, salesperson, successful sales, value added services
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About the Author: Sue Barrett RSS for Sue's articles - Visit Sue's website  Sue is one of the leading voices commenting on sales today. Sue has a unique way of getting to the heart of the matter - she combines extensive knowledge, research, insight, and practical experience with a deep sense of compassion to bring forth a more enlightened way of thinking and participating in the world. This makes her stand out from the usual crowd of existing business commentators. Her ability to distill complex ideas and relate them to life's everyday challenges and opportunities has audience members and readers leaving with a stronger understanding of "self" and how they can begin to achieve excellence through purposeful action. Presenting and writing on a wide range of topics about the world of 21st Century selling Sue's presentations and articles include sales philosophy and culture, sales leadership and coaching, sales training, selling skills, resilience, neuroscience in selling and more. Sue's articles are some of the most widely read in Australia and she is gaining a following overseas as well. Besides publishing on Barrett Sales Blog site, Sue has been the lead sales writer for www.smartcompany.com.au since 2007, and is also regularly published on other highly regarded publications such as Australian Anthill Magazine, Niche Magazine, Marketing Mag, Business Chicks, and Business Deals. Click here to visit Sue's website   What are the benefits of a CRM system in your business Selling and managing are not the same Getting back to basics Sales Leadership A Clear Message and a Fit Sales Force How do I lead and manage a virtual or remote sales team |
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