Insights on Business and Sales Negotiation
Join us for insights on how to negotiate a winning balance, where where both sides understand and appreciate the value they receive. As a result, you are more likely to forge a long-lasting relationship that yields more and better opportunities in the future. This idea underpins K&R Negotiations’ Win Wisely™ approach and underlines the importance of using leverage wisely.
Advance Fee Fraud - Again
In September of 2008, we wrote about the concept of “Advance Fee Fraud”, and how sellers fall victim to the tactic from buyers in various forms. A couple of those include promises of future business “if you give me a good deal now”, or “if we do a successful proof of concept”.
Sometimes this practice is known as a “Nigerian 419 scam”, although that’s a bit unfair to Nigeria. However, a recent article we saw on InternationalReporter.com brought it all back when it stated, “Nigeria dropped nine places to 130th position out of the 180 countries ranked on the global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2009 by Transparency International (TI), a global anti-corruption watchdog.”
Review our article – don’t let a buyer convince you (as a seller) to advance them a…
T-Mobile Credibility and Leverage... Again
You may recall our October article about T-Mobile’s Sidekick user data loss problem, or may have read some of the 25 or 26 million references available via a search for “T-Mobile data loss”. It is a simple, real-world example of how loss of credibility can hurt your business.
T-Mobile’s public statements allow us to make some estimate of the business value of this temporary service loss, and the long-term credibility loss that goes with it. Add these up:
The estimated cost of lost business in sales of Sidekicks and the far larger long-term loss from sales of service plans when T-Mobile temporarily suspended sales of the Sidekick after the outage.
The cost of the $100 “service vouchers” that were offered to users inconvenienced or impacted by the outage.
The 14%…
Principled Concessions™ - The short version
In our workshops, we teach the concept of a “Principled Concession™”. Many people hear this and confuse it with the related but different concept of trading concessions in a negotiation. They think of common examples like these:
“If you buy 2, I can discount the second one by 50%.”
“If we reduce the scope by providing service 12x7 instead of 24x7, we can lower the price by 20%.”
“We can finance your total $100M payment for this project, at a cost to you of $1M.”
These “offers” follow the least-acceptable form of changing your position. It is a more acceptable form than this one:
“I’ve sharpened my pencil, and I can offer you an additional 12% off the price.”
It is easy to see that the first three are preferable to the last one. The 12%…
Forensic Forecasting - More business in 2009
We have added an article on Forensic Forecasting to the K&R Web Site. The article begins:
“Forensic” is an adjective meaning “appropriate for use in legal or public discussions”. In today’s popular culture it often refers to the use of technical analysis for criminal cases. We’re not taking your sales forecast to court, but we can tell you how to improve its accuracy - and your results. When year-end measurements are coming, improving your results can have an even bigger impact.
You can read and download the complete article here: Forensic Forecasting
Best Wishes for every success in closing more business in 2009.
Effective Persuasion - The "stint work" story
Recently, the Mayor of Kingston NY and the President of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) for the area got to air their beliefs about a work rule in a public forum – the Kingston Daily Freeman. Their views were most likely collected independently, but were aired in the single major local paper. Let’s see how well they used persuasion skills on the constituency.
The work rule under discussion was one referred to as “stint work”. Under this rule, the city-employed garbage collectors have the option of working until their route is complete, and then calling it a day. If, for example, they hustle through the job in 4 hours, they can leave. But they still get paid for 8 hours. To us, some of this can be described as workers’ discretion - for example they skip…
More on Lose Credibility, Lose Leverage
Well, after last week’s “Lose Credibility, Lose Leverage” story about T-Mobile, Microsoft and the Sidekick, we can barely keep up. Hitting the news this week: Microsoft and T-Mobile recover (sort of), IBM and the state of Indiana, “Balloon boy”, Raj Rajaratnam arrested, Energy Star© appliances that are not actually more efficient…
Where will it all end? Google those, and get the scoop. All of these fall into a fundamental category of credibility and the impact credibility has on leverage. Will Rogers said, “Rumor travels faster, but it don’t stay put as long as truth.” There is plenty of opportunity in the interim to feel pain, and if the rumor and truth coincide, the long-term outlook can be grim. Preserve your credibility. (td)
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Creating Value-Based Leverage
In this short video, learn why negotiation is really the art of finding agreement.
Mladen Kresic introduces the concept of value-based negotiations leverage and why it is a powerful tool for moving conversations to an agreement.
