<\/p>\n
Why is your deal stuck? Why do they keep coming back with \u201cNo\u201d? Our negotiation coaching experience shows that opponents say \u201cno\u201d for a small number of reasons. It\u2019s often one of these:<\/p>\n
To uncover what\u2019s holding our negotiation back, we consider each of these possibilities in order.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve spent a lot of time selling this deal, but we\u2019re stuck. The most common mistake is to assume it\u2019s all about price. We lower our price and get rejected. It\u2019s time to consider our list: What happens if all our selling hasn\u2019t painted a vision in our opponent\u2019s world that they can share? That\u2019s on us. We should fully expect to be rejected if our opponent doesn\u2019t share our vision. Try to provide a simple clear vision statement and ask, \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d, \u201cor \u201cWhere did we lose you?\u201d Once we get clarity and agreement on the vision, we can look to the next possibility to see if that explains why our deal is stuck.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve confirmed that our opponent agrees with our vision. Their business will benefit by the use of our new Wizbang. They need the Wizbang to operate 24\/7 at 150 cycles per minute, but we\u2019ve never run it at that speed. What data can we provide to build confidence in our product? And: What happens when they accept the data?<\/p>\n
We have clear agreement from our opponent on our shared vision. The data they asked for blew their team away, but when we ask for clear decisions, we get \u201cno\u201d \u2013 or worse, \u201cmaybe\u201d from their team leader. What\u2019s going on? It could be that our opponent doesn\u2019t have the authority to say, \u201cyes,\u201d but how do we find out? We rely on interrogative questions from the beginning: \u201cNow that we have agreement on our shared vision, what happens next?\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve requested data to support our performance claims. If you\u2019re impressed by the data and results of our testing, what happens next?\u201d Often these kinds of questions will provide clarity that our opponent\u2019s representative has the authority to make decisions. In other cases, our opponent may be a blocker for the real person of authority.<\/p>\n
Only when we\u2019ve ruled out the prior three reasons for rejection do we consider our opponent may be bluffing in order to gain advantage. To expose a bluff, we first ask for clarity to see if they can hold their position under scrutiny. Ultimately, to expose the bluff we may need to call it by accepting their decision. And when we accept their \u201cno\u201d or their rejection, we don\u2019t walk away. We can say, \u201cOK. We understand and accept your decision. What happens next?\u201d<\/p>\n
Our startup client ABC made a proposal to BigCo, for about $10M in services. After preliminary agreement to move ahead, the business team at BigCo introduced ABC to their procurement department resulting in the followi
\nng message from John, their Vice President: \u201cWhile ABC\u2019s service is the preferred solution for BigCo, your price is far more expensive than the next 3 responses to our RFP. We require you come back with a lower price in order to continue.\u201d ABC was confident they had agreement on a shared vision of what the service would provide to BigCo and had provided convincing data on how they could provide the services to meet BigCo needs. BigCo\u2019s price rejection therefore was most likely due to lack of authority or a bluff. With our coaching guidance, ABC responded with key champions from the business team copied: \u201cWe\u2019re surprised with such a large price difference that our proposal is still in contention. What is it about our service that still has us under consideration? We would respectfully like to ask for clarity, are you officially rejecting our proposal on behalf of BigCo?\u201d This question asks procurement if they have the authority to reject. If not, it puts procurement into an internal negotiation with their business team. The result was BigCo (business team) accepted the ABC proposal without a reduction in price.<\/p>\n