The Negotiation Book: Your Definitive Guide To Successful Negotiating

7.8. DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY

7.8.1. Being empowered by your customer

Gaining access to talk, to sell and negotiate across larger organisations can be a challenge. Many of us have to negotiate for the privilege of preferred status with customers who are effectively saying if you agree to our terms, we will authorise or empower you to discuss terms in an exclusive manner across the rest of our business. Until then the people you need to talk to are disempowered even to talk to you. The local regional or country operators will have effectively been told not to entertain discussions (they are disempowered) until a preferred supplier agreement is in place.

Empowerment essentially means the authority to negotiate. This ranges from the shop assistant who has no scope to negotiate over the price ticket and will simply escalate any discussions on the subject to their manager, to the other extreme, where the business owner who is selling their business can agree to any terms which they feel inclined to. Although having worked all their life to create their business, they may feel obliged to justify their decisions to their spouse or family. And then there are the varying degrees to the amount to which one can be empowered.

CASE STUDY Imagine your boss empowers you to complete a deal selling water dispensers, but that you are not to go below £300 a unit, unless you speak to them first. In this instance, they would then know that unless they hear from you, the deal will be done for no ...