Entries by Mladen Kresic

Properly Manage Internal Expectations

Almost every sales organization and every seller operates under some pressure associated with quantifying and then making their sales numbers. The instincts that cause this are positive – the desire to succeed by meeting or exceeding quota, or perhaps to be seen as a top performer within the sales organization. There are three related manifestations […]

Sell Impact or Don’t Sell at All

Negotiation Example: Seeing K&R’s ViO™ Formula in Action At our BrightTALK Sales Expert webinar last month, I spoke about Six Ways to Shorten the Sales Cycle – you can listen to the replay here.  One of my key strategies is to make sure that you always sell solutions that impact the customer’s business.  Unfortunately, in […]

Your Three Rewards from Effective Sales Negotiations

I’m occasionally asked by clients or business colleagues: “What actions can I take that will have the biggest effect on my top line (revenue) or bottom line (profit)?” This is a great question and cannot be oversimplified.  After all, no two companies are alike, and each set of solutions has different competition, sales ecosystems, etc.  […]

K&R Negotiation Associates: Our Philosophy

About K&R’s Business Negotiation Philosophy While some negotiations can be adversarial, negotiations as a defined business activity should be viewed as a positive process. The word itself often creates a lump in the throat if you are automatically inclined to picture tense standoffs, intimidation, manipulation, or a zero-sum game in which one side wins and […]

The Expanding Purchasing Power of the Non-IT Buyer in Technology Purchase Decisions

How to Adjust Your Sales Strategy for More Complex Terrain In our recent executive brief, “Six Ways to Shorten the Sales Cycle,” one of the prime takeaways is the importance of tailoring your technology sales and negotiation process to the increasingly complex customer decision landscape. In great part, this is due to the expanding involvement […]

Why “Musical Chairs” in Your Sales Organization May Be Eroding Your Negotiation Capital

(This post is adapted from K&R Negotiations’ Six Ways to Shorten the Sales Cycle, a complimentary executive brief.) Sales organizations often reorganize customer or territory responsibilities at the beginning of a fiscal year. If your product and sales process is so simple that salespeople (and customer relationships) are as interchangeable as Lego blocks, then frequent […]

Business Negotiation: Three Questions that Will Shorten Your Sales Cycle

(This post is adapted from K&R Negotiations’ Six Ways to Shorten the Sales Cycle, a complimentary executive brief.) Perhaps your strategy-level sales conversations have centered on how to shorten sales cycles. Many companies find themselves mired in protracted sales negotiations, driven in part by the expanding involvement of multiple people (and functions) in the decision […]

No Matter Your Role, You Can Always Benefit By Sharpening Your Negotiation Skills

Negotiations Touch Every Part of Your Life and Career It doesn’t matter whether you’re buying a car or an enterprise software system: negotiations touch every part of your life, every part of your career, and will have a major impact on your personal success. Dealing with a regular client who, at the eleventh hour, wants […]