Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value, Second Edition

Book description

B2B sales professionals: resist mindless discounting, level the playing field against tough procurement organizations, and close the deal on your terms! Negotiating with Backbone, Second Edition definitive guide for every sales pro facing the “procurement buzzsaw” – and it’s just been updated with even more powerful strategies and techniques! Where traditional purchasing managers negotiated, procurement officials seek to dictate, through multiple tactics with a single intent: to gain unprecedented discounts and concessions. Premier pricing strategist and sales consultant Reed K. Holden gives you the powerful new strategies and tactics you need to protect your margins and get the right deal. Holden guides you through recognizing what purchasing negotiators are really up to, keep value at the forefront of negotiations, and avoiding the mindless discounting that wrecks profitability. Holden details eight strategies for all types of pricing negotiations, including approaches for negotiating with price buyers, relationship buyers, value buyers, and poker players, reverse auctions, and much more. In this Second Edition, he offers extensive new coverage of establishing your foundation of value, and developing crucial give-get options, including value-added services. This book will be an invaluable resource for every B2B sales professional, customer-facing professional, and every executive responsible for leading successful sales organizations.

Table of contents

  1. About This eBook
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Contents at a Glance
  6. Contents
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. About the Author
  9. Introduction
  10. Part I: The Great Game of Procurement
    1. 1. Tough Selling: The New Normal
      1. Do You Know What the Stomp Is?
      2. The Rise of Procurement
      3. The Myth of the Economic Buyer
      4. Traditional Solutions Don’t Work
      5. The Root Causes to Avoid
        1. Encouraging Desperation Pricing
        2. Succumbing to White Horse Syndrome
        3. There Is Hope if You Prepare and Play the Game Right
      6. It Will Work
    2. 2. Buyer Tells
      1. To Them, It’s a Game
      2. Recognizing Tells
      3. Types of Tells
      4. Evaluating Procurement’s Position
      5. Dealing with Procurement Styles
    3. 3. The Basics of the Game
      1. Understand Your Customer’s Game
      2. Find Your Hidden Power
      3. Qualify, Qualify, Qualify
      4. Avoid the Endowment Effect
      5. Map the Buying Center
      6. Where Appropriate, Build Trust
      7. Delay, Delay, Delay
      8. Do Your Homework
    4. 4. Understand Your Foundation of Value
      1. Financial Value
      2. Having Value Conversations
      3. Making Value Real for Salespeople (You!)
      4. The Value of Trust and Risk
    5. 5. Develop Give-Gets
      1. One Size Never Fits All
      2. Strong Fences
      3. Give-Get Bluffs
      4. Services As Give-Gets
      5. Use the Concepts of Scarcity and Availability
      6. Help Buyers Make Better Choices
  11. Part II: Eight Knock-’em-Dead Scenarios for Winning the Game
    1. Seller’s Position
    2. 6. Negotiating with Price Buyers
      1. Price Buyers
      2. Scenario 1: The Penny Pincher
        1. The Winner’s Curse
        2. Considerations for How to Price the Deal and the Negotiation for Penny Pinchers
        3. Planning the Negotiation for Penny Pinchers
        4. Price Buyers in Trouble
      3. Scenario 2: The Scout
        1. Assessing the Price Buyer Position and Tactics for Scouts
        2. Considerations for How to Price the Deal and the Negotiation for Scouts
        3. Planning the Scout Negotiation
    3. 7. Negotiating with Relationship Buyers
      1. Relationship Buyers
      2. Scenario 3: In the Pack
        1. Assessing the Buyer Position and Tactics If You Are In the Pack
        2. Considerations for How to Price the Deal and the Negotiation If You are In the Pack
        3. Planning the In the Pack Negotiation
      3. Scenario 4: The Patient Outsider
        1. Assessing the Buyer Position and Tactics for the Patient Outsider
        2. Considerations for How to Price the Deal and the Negotiation
        3. Planning the Patient Outsider Negotiation
    4. 8. Negotiating with Value Buyers
      1. Value Buyers
        1. Assessing the Buyer Position and Tactics of the Value Buyer
      2. Scenario 5: The Player
        1. Considerations for How Price Plays in the Deal and the Negotiation
        2. Planning the Player Negotiation
      3. Scenario 6: The Crafty Outsider
        1. Planning the Crafty Outsider Negotiation
    5. 9. Negotiating with Poker Players
      1. Feedback Is a Gift
      2. Poker Players
      3. Scenario 7: The Advantaged Player
        1. Assessing Buyer Position and Tactics for the Advantaged Player
        2. Considerations for How Price Plays in the Deal and the Negotiation for the Advantaged Player
        3. Planning the Advantaged Player Negotiation
      4. Scenario 8: The Rabbit
        1. Beware Red Flags
        2. Considerations for How Price Plays in the Deal and the Negotiation for the Rabbit
        3. Advanced Gamesmanship for the Rabbit
  12. Part III: It’s a Negotiation, Not a Surrender
    1. 10. Advanced Gamesmanship
      1. Get a Devil’s Advocate
      2. Limiting Exposure of Senior Executives
      3. Firing the Customer
      4. Brinkmanship
      5. Redefine Risk
      6. Dealing with Reverse Auctions
    2. 11. The Realities of the Game
      1. Sometimes You Have to Discount
      2. Remember a Simple Checklist
      3. Don’t Be a Victim
      4. Develop Coaches
      5. Get Some Backbone
  13. Afterword: The Now and Future Sales Opportunity
  14. Index

Product information

  • Title: Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value, Second Edition
  • Author(s): Reed K. Holden
  • Release date: October 2015
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 9780134270029