Thoughts for the New Year

Posted on December 22, 2010 | Filed Under K&R Success StoriesK&R WorkshopsQuestions & AnswersValue | Leave a Comment

Email in-boxes are getting flooded with “Thanks for your business” and “Best wishes for the New Year” emails. While there is a certain mechanical nature to these, if you have a relationship, the sentiment is a reasonable one.

So…if you are one of our clients, you have probably already heard from us, but…

Thank you for your business. Our most sincere hope and one of the driving values of K&R is that we have provided a service which has had a positive impact on your business.

Whether you are our client or not…

Please accept our best wishes for success in the future, both personally and professionally. In addition to the daily concerns of our personal lives, we wish for improved conditions in the world on all fronts.

At year-end many people look back, and then forward.

We are in the midst of reviewing K&R’s mission, values, and our 2010 performance. Here is one set of data which could be useful to you if your business is in the planning cycle for 2011.
We looked at a random sample of evaluation forms received at K&R’s various Negotiation Training sessions, and here is what we found:

• Attendees’ overall satisfaction with K&R skills training is exceptionally high. On a 100 point scale, we rated a 93.8.
• 100% of our attendees believe that the skills we teach are useful, and 81% of them say they will use them within the month following the session. 26% say they actually use the skills within 2 days.
• 100% of attendees believe they will get a repeatable benefit from the skills.
• Attendees report that they expect to shorten their sales cycles by an average of 2.8 weeks.
• While not all people estimate a quantified outcome, those who do believe that their results will improve by 20%.

If you need a return on investment for your sales team that is essentially immediate, shortens your sales cycle, and can improve your financial performance by 20%, please consider K&R Negotiation Skills Training in 2011. If you don’t need that, then carry on as you are.

Happy New Year. (td)

Got a question? email a K&R negotiator directly at: ask@negotiators.com

We Have Stuff. Buy it!

Posted on December 6, 2010 | Filed Under Motivations, Objectives, RequirementsPersuasionSellingValue | Leave a Comment

In our negotiation sessions, we often get into the discussion of how being so busy saying what you can do it makes you not busy enough saying what your client needs. In an example brought to us for comment, there was a good executive summary (well, not that good, but let’s pretend it was)… on page 18 of a 200-page proposal. If executive summaries show up on page 18, what comes first? Generally speaking, it is stuff about the seller and the seller’s offerings, and not about the client or the client’s needs. An executive would never reach it.

To make it worse, the “seller stuff” is in the wrong form. For example, the seller makes statements which are in concept like these:
• “Our coffee is fair trade.”
• “We roast and deliver daily.”

Instead of statements like these:
• “Your policy is to support reasonable returns for your suppliers. To support that, we offer coffee which we buy under fair trade guidelines.”
• “You told us your clientele is very sensitive to coffee freshness. We roast and deliver daily.”

We just reviewed a client proposal sheet for a multi-multi-million dollar agreement, and every line was about the supplier, not about the client needs.

The shorthand for the first approach is “We have stuff, you should buy it.” For the second, “We understand your needs and our offerings support them.” The first requires the client to make the connection between what you offer and their needs and interests. The second puts the client’s interests first, and then makes the connection for them.

We used coffee in our example, but these errors are all too common in our primary client set, high technology hardware, software, and services providers.

In many cases, the client can make the connection. However, your odds of success will improve if you help them along the way. Don’t say, “We have stuff”. Say, “These are your needs, and our stuff supports them.” You’ll be more successful with your clients. (td)

Got a question? Email a K&R negotiator directly at ask@negotiators.com.

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