EBOOK

6 Essential Rules of
Sales Negotiation
by Mike Schultz, John Doerr, and Bob Croston
 Contents

03 Executive Summary
04 Introduction
05 Rule 1: Always Be Willing to Walk
08 Rule 2: Build Value
12 Rule 3: Lead the Negotiation
16 Rule 4: Effect Emotions
20 Rule 5: Trade. Don’t Cave.
23 Rule 6: Plan to Win
24 Planning to Win Sales Negotiations Checklist
25 Create a Team of Masterful Negotiators
26 About RAIN Group

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 2

Executive Summary
Authors
6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation Mike Schultz, John Doerr,
& Bob Croston

Having now spent two decades studying sales negotiation, observing negotiations, and coaching and training sellers to negotiate,
we at RAIN Group have determined that the best sales negotiators consistently excel in 6 key areas. Those who learn to excel will
be in the best position to negotiate the best solutions, win sales at favorable pricing and terms, and enhance the strength of their
relationships.

6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation

1. Always Be Willing to Walk. Your mindset is critically important when it comes to negotiating. If a buyer knows you need a
sale, they have leverage. If you’re willing to walk, and a buyer knows it, you level the playing field. It’s always okay to want,
but never okay to need the sale.

2. Build Value. Faced with a challenge or pressed on price, too many sellers cave. However, objections—whether they are
focused on price, trust, urgency, competitive challenges, or anything—can be met with problem solving and value building.
If you focus on objectives, and help buyers and yourself meet them, you can almost always come up with ideas buyers will
appreciate without lowering the price.

3. Lead the Negotiation. Too many sellers allow the buyer to drive the sales negotiation. This leaves sellers playing catch up,
reacting instead of leading the negotiation. Sellers should lead. They should set the agenda for meetings, and go first with
offers and ideas, objectives and concerns, and pricing parameters. Too many sellers ask for budget when they should be
sharing pricing proactively.

4. Effect Emotions. Sales negotiations are emotional affairs. There’s anxiety, wariness, anger, frustration. But there’s also
satisfaction, fulfillment, and relief. The best sales negotiators bring about, or effect, emotions of buyers deliberately. These
sellers make buyers feel connected, engaged, respected, and valued. Sellers also manage their own emotions so they can do
what they must without fear of loss or conflict.

5. Trade. Don’t Cave. Buyers often test sellers’ cave tolerance. They ask for a lower price and other concessions, and they
often get them. The best sales negotiators are willing to explore new possibilities, change scope, or make a trade that could
change the price. Sellers who plan for trades, and have them ready when it’s time, develop and win better agreements.

6. Plan to Win. Preparation is often cited as the greatest determinant of negotiation success. If you know what you want,
work to understand what the buyers want, plan your strategy, and plan for any tactics you might face, you’ll create great
agreements consistently, and win maximum sales at favorable terms and pricing. See our one-page planning checklist on
page 24.

The first letter in each rule creates the acronym ABLE To Prevail. Remembering ABLE To Prevail will help you commit the 6 Essential
Rules of Sales Negotiation to memory.

Build Value

Always Be Willing to Walk Lead the Negotiation

1 3

SIX
ESSENTIAL RULES
OF SALES NEGOTIATION

6 4

Plan to Win Effect Emotions

Trade. Don’t Cave.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 3

Introduction

I (Mike) have been studying and teaching martial arts for 20 years. Even today I’m still practicing
the kata, or forms, I learned in my first year. A fellow karate student once told me that when you
learn a kata, you see a few obvious techniques that are helpful in self-defense, but you don’t see
anything else.

As you keep practicing the same kata, you get the effect of spending time in a dark room; as your
eyes adjust, it seems to get brighter. You can see more. Eventually you see so much more in the
kata than when you first learned it. In the same form, with the same moves, you see hundreds and
thousands more applications.

The same effect happens with the 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation. The model allows us to
introduce beginner sales negotiators to core concepts they can apply immediately to increase
their negotiation confidence and success while, at the same time, providing experienced sellers
and negotiators a framework for honing their skills on the path to mastery.

Negotiation is a huge topic. But, like most things, the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of your success
comes from just 20% of your input—as long as it’s the right input. Learn the 6 Essential Rules of
Sales Negotiation and practice their application, and you’ll be on your way to mastering sales
negotiation in no time.

Build Value
Brainstorm new possibilities for
coming to agreement.

2
Always Be Willing to Walk Lead the Negotiation
You can want, but you can’t Set the agenda. Go first.
need. Know when to walk. Don’t let the other party
Walk when you should. 1 3 take control.

SIX
ESSENTIAL RULES
OF SALES NEGOTIATION

6 4
Plan to Win Effect Emotions
Know what you want. Inspire theirs.
Plan for tactics you Control yours.
might face. 5

Trade. Don’t Cave.

Always trade for value. Don’t
drop price in a vacuum.
Don’t get bullied.

ABLE To Prevail

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 4

Rule 1: Always Be Willing to Walk
You can want, but you can’t need. Know when to walk. Walk when you should.

Alison Brooks and Maurice Schweitzer, two researchers at the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania, conducted an experiment to induce varying levels of anxiety among negotiators.

One group was subjected to the not-so-melodious screeching strings from Psycho. The other
group was treated to Water Music by Handel. After listening for a while, the groups were sent off
to conduct simulated negotiations.

The post-Psycho negotiators were anxious, and they negotiated quite differently. They had
lower expectations, made lower first offers, responded more quickly to first offers, and exited
the negotiation sooner than the post-Handel group. The authors of the study surmised that if
“incidental” anxiety triggered by unrelated stressors can negatively affect negotiation behavior
and results, then anxiety stemming from the negotiation itself should have an even greater effect.1

Anxiety is the most common emotion associated with negotiations.2 Our field work confirms that
anxious negotiators don’t perform well. They show weakness that others exploit, make and take
lower offers, give up too soon, and typically have trouble thinking straight.

When negotiators are feeling calm and clear-headed, the difference is stark.

The idea, then, is to decrease anxiety to increase success. Decreasing anxiety seems like a tall
order, but changing how you think about each negotiation can go a long way.

All you have to do is be indifferent to the result of the negotiation. Indeed, you should always be
willing to walk away.

This doesn’t mean you don’t want the sale. You can want the sale, but you can never need it. (Or
be perceived to need it.) Being willing to walk is an incredibly freeing feeling. It means that if the
sale doesn’t happen—or it can’t happen at terms that are favorable to you—then it’s not worth
worrying about.

Decrease fear of loss

Decrease anxiety Gain control of the negotiation

Walk when you should, focus

Build confidence
on other priorities

Always Be
Increase buyer desire to Willing Solve problems through “no”
reach agreement to Walk

Prevent accepting
Shift dynamic and gain leverage
a bad agreement

1 A.W. Brooks and M.E. Schweitzer, “Can Nervous Nelly Negotiate? How Anxiety Causes Negotiators to Make
Low First Offers, Exit Early, and Earn Less Profit,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 115,
no. 1 (May 2011): 43-54.
2 Ibid.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 5

 In fact, the faster you can find this out the better, because then you can walk and free your time to
focus on more fruitful activities.

Being willing to walk, and knowing when you should walk (typically referred to as BATNA, or best
alternative to a negotiated agreement) because you know the pricing and terms that will not work
for you, gives you something very powerful in a negotiation: control.

According to a study conducted by Harvard Business School’s Michael Wheeler, “lack of control”
is one of the three top sources of negotiation anxiety.3 Gaining a sense of control is critical for your
ability to negotiate a favorable outcome.

Sellers often feel like the buyer is in control of a negotiation. They perceive buyers to hold the
decision power and purse strings. Buyers exert pressure on sellers to lower prices, give more
favorable terms, or otherwise squeeze sellers in a variety of ways. When sellers feel like they have
no control, and then become anxious or cave, they signal they have a weak position and open
themselves to being exploited.

None of this is good.

Sellers, however, do have control. You, as a seller, can say no. You can walk.

Knowing this for yourself—truly believing it—will change your negotiation outcomes for the good.
You must, however, truly believe it. When you do, you’ll be in the proper emotional state (Rule #4)
to build value (Rule #2), lead the negotiation (Rule #3), and create a great outcome for both you
and the buyer.

How do you create this belief within yourself?

After reviewing dozens of animal, clinical, and neuroimaging studies, Columbia University
researchers determined that exercising choice increases perception of control and “induce[s]
greater feelings of confidence and success.”4

You can choose to remain in the negotiation, or you can choose to walk away. You can also say
“no” at any point to anything if it’s not in your interest to say “yes.” You are in control because you
can make choices.

The benefits of choice hold true even if you never actually exert control (e.g., you don’t walk
away). It’s enough to consider that you could. As the researchers noted, “The benefits of perceived
control can exist even in the absence of true control over aversive events, or if the individual has
the opportunity to exert control but never actually exercises that option.”

Know your BATNA. Write it out and keep it handy. Review it before negotiations to reinforce the
fact that you are actively choosing to continue the process.

Always being willing to walk will help you curb your anxiety, and get you in the right frame of
mind to succeed in negotiations. Signaling to the buyer that you may want, but you certainly don’t
need, an agreement will also have a tremendously positive effect on your sales negotiation results
in other ways.

Gaining Leverage through Indifference

The principle of least interest is an esoteric, yet powerful, concept coined in 1938 that states that
the power in relationships of all types—business and otherwise—lies with whoever cares the least.

3 Kimberlyn Leary, Julianna Pillemer, and Michael Wheeler, “Negotiating with Emotion,” Harvard Business
Review 91, nos. 1/2 (January-February 2013): 96-103.
4 Lauren A. Leotti, Sheena S. Iyengar, and Kevin N. Ochsner, “Born to choose: The origins and value of the
need for control,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 14, no. 10 (October 2010): 457-463.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 6

 Or, perhaps more to the point, whoever appears to care the least. If you know your walk away
point, and are willing to signal at any time that you are willing, even interested, in walking away,
you increase your leverage.

Let’s say you’ve been working on a sale for some time with a buyer. The buyer has invested quite
a bit of time in seeing it through just as you have. Buyers, however, typically expect sellers to
continue to invest time, and to make concessions, in order to win a sale.

Buyers don’t expect sellers to walk. A buyer might lose budget, change priorities, or simply decide
not to move forward, but sellers walking away? Never!

Sellers who don’t easily make concessions and instead say “no” or signal they are willing to walk
are in a much better position to succeed for two reasons:

1. Sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy states that the more people invest in something,
the more they value it and the harder it is to abandon. By investing time and energy
into buying something, buyers assume psychological ownership over the process. When
they feel like they own the process, they place higher value on seeing it through. They
become reluctant to “lose” their investment without some sort of payoff.

2. Fear of loss. Never underestimate fear of loss. People can become practically paralyzed
by the feared pain associated with loss. Most people will take great measures to
avoid that pain. In fact, much research suggests that fear of loss is twice as powerful
psychologically as desire for gain (e.g., it’s much more painful psychologically to lose
$100 than it is satisfying to find $100).

You might be thinking, “Those reasons aren’t logical, though.”

If so, you’d be right. Decisions often are not logical. They’re more emotional than some like to
admit (even though decisions will likely later be justified rationally). People who don’t know when
they should walk make emotional decisions, often accepting agreements not in their interests.

Know your BATNA, say no when you need to, and make sure the buyer knows you want this sale,
but don’t need it. Do so and you’ll be well on your way to successful sales negotiations.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 7

Rule 2: Build Value
Brainstorm new possibilities for coming to agreement.

For the research report, The Value-Driving Difference, our team at the RAIN Group Center for
Sales Research studied almost 500 organizations’ practices regarding how focused they are on
driving value for buyers. Companies that rose to the top as Value-Driving Sales Organizations had
higher sales win rates, were more likely to grow revenue, had lower undesired sales staff turnover,
and much more highly motivated sellers. They were also two times more likely to agree that they
capture maximum prices in line with their value.

There’s no question: if you want to succeed in sales, you should focus on driving value.

However, almost all sales organizations that focus on value do so during core selling activities:
discovering needs, bringing ideas to the table, and crafting compelling solutions.

Little attention is paid to driving value during sales negotiations. This is a huge, untapped
opportunity for sellers who want to win sales at favorable pricing and terms, and do so while
satisfying buyers and increasing relationship strength.

Driving value during negotiation is also a major factor for not losing sales that you should have
won. The more the buyer values moving forward and doing so with you, the more likely they are to
do so.

There are two keys to unlocking value in a negotiation: 1) using structure and constraints and
2) collaboration.

1. Using Structure and Constraints

Coming to agreement in a negotiation requires addressing the negotiated issue in a systematic
way. The negotiated issue can be broken down into the following four components:

§ Objectives: The goals you and your buyer are working to achieve

§ Possibilities: The components of the solution you craft to achieve both parties’ objectives

§ Requirements: Guidelines or rules you and the buyer must follow in order to move
forward with an agreement

§ Alternatives: What you and the buyer can do if you choose not to move forward with
an agreement

The Negotiated Issue

What we’re trying to achieve How we can achieve

Alternatives to
Objectives Requirements Possibilities
Agreement

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 8

 A thorough and mutual understanding of objectives and requirements allow you to create the
most valuable possibilities.

In negotiations, you have tactical considerations like price, volume, contract length, terms and
conditions, and roles and responsibilities, as well as strategic considerations like the overall
solution and implementation plan.

“Think Objectives Over Objections”

Too many sellers enter a negotiation without considering objectives and requirements carefully
enough before they propose possibilities for coming to agreement. This happens with individual
points a buyer may raise (tactical) and for the sale overall (strategic). For example, a buyer may raise
a price objection, or suggest cutting a part of the proposed solution in order to keep costs down.

Seller responses to price objections are too often, “Where do we need to be?” or some other
response that focuses on cutting the price. Seller responses to buyer requests for scope reduction
are too often, “Okay, here is a new solution and a new, lower cost.”

Instead, sellers should think about—and overtly shift the discussion to—objectives. In the first
case, instead of cutting price, the seller should focus on understanding why the buyer is pushing
back. Is it a budget or availability-of-funds issue? Is it that the buyer doesn’t see the value?
Perhaps the buyer is simply testing whether the seller will cave under pressure. Money objections
come in six flavors. Unless you know what the buyer’s objective is, you can’t come up with a
solution that will satisfy it.

In the second case (scope reduction), the seller would be better served thinking about and
addressing objectives. For example, the seller might say, “Well, we can certainly reduce the scope
as a possibility, but before we do that, let’s review what you are trying to accomplish. If we cut A,
that will make it less likely we will achieve B. Is it worth it to reduce the scope by $X to do that? Or
can we achieve B another way? Let’s think it through.”

Do this and you may find another way to achieve B. However, what often happens is the buyer
sees it’s not a good idea to cut scope and pursues the original purchase.

Without a full understanding of objectives and requirements, the capacity to build value is
limited. Not only are objectives the underpinnings of the positions that the buyer might take at
any time (e.g., the price objection), objectives are the scaffolding for your construction of the
final agreement.

Knowledge of objectives and requirements allows you to create possibilities that buyers will value,
and, at the same time, make you distinct and more valuable than the alternatives.

Constraints Unleash Creativity

When it comes to creativity, we often picture unrestrained imagination: freedom in all directions.
Surely you want to be “breaking the mold” and thinking “outside of the box” to come up with
new possibilities?

The truth is: creativity depends on constraints. You need to know the box you’re playing in to
break out of it. Artists know this well. In her book Creativity from Constraints, the Psychology of
Breakthrough, Dr. Patricia Stokes looks for the common thread that unites great leaps forward
in the arts. Her conclusion: “From Picasso to Stravinsky, Kundera and Chanel to Frank Lloyd
Wright, it is not boundary-less creative freedom that inspires new ideas, but self-imposed, well-
considered constraints.”

Approaching the negotiated issue with structure—defining all your constraints and meeting
obstacles head on—is the key to generating breakthroughs that move the process forward and
increase likelihood of winning the sale at favorable pricing.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 9

 Consider the study conducted by social psychologists Janina Marguc, Jens Forster, and Gerben A.
Van Kleef.

Participants were asked to play a maze game. Some participants sped right through to the end of
the maze with no obstacles. Others encountered a frustrating obstacle which limited the number
of routes to escape the maze.

When the two groups of maze participants were then given a word test (example: find a word
that connects “dust,” “cereal,” and “fish”*), the obstacle group was 40% better at coming up
with solutions. Constraints, barriers, and limitations encourage us to step back and look at the
big picture. This allows us to make connections between things that are not obviously connected
when we’re zoomed in on details.5

Use structure and constraints when addressing the negotiated issue. Know the objectives and
requirements of both sides in order to maximize creative output, find the best possibilities, and
build value.

2. Collaborate
At the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, we studied more than 700 business-to-business
purchases made across industries by buyers who represent a total of $3.1 billion in annual
purchasing power. Our goal was to find out what the winners of these major sales did differently
from the sellers who came in second place.

We found that sellers who win the sale don’t just sell differently—they sell radically differently than
second-place finishers.6

A major finding of this research is that sellers who win collaborate with buyers significantly more
often than those who lose. Not only does collaboration help sellers win sales, it also helps them
negotiate the best agreements at favorable pricing.

Collaboration is powerful and persuasive, yet often underutilized as an influence on decision

making and buying. When collaboration happens, sellers:

§ Effect emotions in the buyer that support negotiation success, inspiring buyers to feel
connected, engaged, respected, and valued

§ Deepen relationships and trust, leading to better negotiated solutions7

§ Deepen understanding of objectives and requirements which, as noted previously, sparks

insight and innovation, strengthening the quality and applicability of solutions

§ Differentiate themselves in the minds of buyers (because most sellers don’t collaborate
with buyers), creating negotiation leverage as alternatives become less attractive

§ Create a sense of psychological ownership in buyers

To the last point: when a seller proposes a possibility without collaborating, picture a gladiator
in front of a Roman Emperor waiting to get the thumbs up or down verdict on their life. Similarly,
when a seller simply pitches ideas, it’s like a dog and pony show; the buyer is the judge but
doesn’t feel any particular attachment to the seller’s proposals for coming to agreement.

* Answer: Bowl
5 Janina Marguc, Jens Forster, and Gerben A. Van Kleef, “Stepping Back to See the Big Picture: When
Obstacles Elicit Global Processing,” Attitudes and Social Cognition 101, no. 5 (2011): 883-901.
6 Mike Schultz and John Doerr, Insight Selling: Surprising Research on What Sales Winners Do Differently (New
Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014).
7 Roy J. Lewicki and Beth Polin, “The role of trust in negotiation processes,” in Handbook of Advances in Trust
Research, ed. Reinhard Bachmann & Akbar Zaheer (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013), 29-51.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 10

 It shouldn’t be like that. It doesn’t need to be like that.

When sellers collaborate, they build buyers’ psychological ownership of the issue so buyers
become invested in coming to agreement. (Note: Most people think collaborating and negotiating
are better addressed live and in person, but doing so online often works well.)

At the same time, strong collaboration helps buyers see things in ways they hadn’t considered
previously. When sellers can redefine buyer thinking and improve buyer decision making, the seller
becomes much more valuable to the buyer.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 11

Rule 3: Lead the Negotiation
Set the agenda. Go first. Don’t let the other party take control.

All too often sellers:

§ Don’t plan for successful negotiated outcomes

§ Let the buyer define the negotiation process and venue

“Leadership is the
capacity to translate § Allow the buyer to set the agenda for negotiation-focused meetings
vision into reality.”
§ Allow the buyer to open meetings, set the tone, and facilitate
Warren Bennis, Author
§ Let the buyer go first with defining price ranges for goods and services
On Becoming a Leader
§ Leave it to the buyer to close negotiations and set next steps

In other words, sellers are too often reactive to buyers during negotiations when they should be
the opposite. They should be proactive.

Sellers should lead the negotiation.

Don’t take this to mean that sellers should be overbearing or do all the talking. That’s not what
leaders do. They do, however, translate a vision—which, in most cases for sellers, is winning an
opportunity at favorable terms—into reality.

Leadership requires planning. Proper planning allows you to answer critical questions that will
guide the negotiation.

We cover planning in more detail on page 23. But think of it like this: if the buyer plans and you
don’t, who is likely to have a better outcome? If the buyer plans and the seller doesn’t, can the
seller even lead?

Planning is essential to changing your negotiation disposition from reactive to proactive, taking
charge of the negotiation process from start to finish, designing what the dance should look like
when it’s done, and architecting how it will open, evolve, and close.

The Negotiation Process

There are four stages to any negotiation:

1. Prepare
2. Engage
3. Facilitate
4. Commit

1. Prepare

Planning, as we’ve already noted, is essential in the cascade. If you don’t prepare, you may open
the negotiation, but you won’t know what you want! Or what they want. Or what challenges and
obstacles you might face. You won’t know what tone you want to set or how to set it. You’ll be
winging it, not able to set a purposeful agenda for negotiation success.

You have made your plan and you know what you want for outcomes. You know who is at the
meeting and their objectives, desires, challenges, skepticisms, requirements, and so forth. You also
know the buyer’s buying process.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 12

 Before the meeting, set the agenda via email. For example, you might say something like:

Message Options

From: <Your Name>

To: Jim, Amy
Subject: Call on the 14th

Jim and Amy,

Looking forward to our discussion on the 14th. It seems to us that the current status is that we’ve agreed on
the overall solution set that will best help you enter the Asia Pacific market. Still on the table for discussion is:

§ The timing of pilots and roll out

§ The success milestones we need to achieve to move from pilot to roll out
§ The team on your side and our side for implementation, including specific roles and responsibilities
§ Whether or not we should lead the engagement with our staff, or if we should, in part or in whole,
license and train your team to execute
§ Agreement term

Assuming this is the case, we’d like to suggest the following meeting agenda:

§ Meeting kickoff, including review of agenda and confirmation of expectations (5 minutes)

§ Discussion and review of your objectives (5 minutes)
§ Facilitated discussion of options and possibilities, including implications of each (30 mins)
§ Discussion of best path forward (10 mins)
§ Open discussion and wrap-up (10 mins)

Please let us know if this make sense or if you’d like to suggest any additions, deletions, or changes to the
discussion.

Best regards,

<Your Name>

Set the agenda and you can focus on getting the best outcome. Don’t set the agenda and there
may not be one. If you leave setting the agenda to the buyer, they may want to talk immediately
about price and concessions they’d like you to make. If they do, you’ll need to back up and
reframe the discussion. This isn’t a good way to start.

2. Engage

Engaging the buyer means taking the lead and setting the tone. It means collaborating with
confidence and maintaining a peer-to-peer dynamic. It also means opening the discussion yourself
whenever possible. For example, let’s say it is time to talk about pricing. Common advice for
sellers is to ask buyers for a budget, or to let the buyers go first with setting a price range for what
they plan to spend.

This isn’t typically good advice.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 13

 Often, sellers feel dread when a buyer first mentions a budget. It’s rarely enough, leaving the seller
to backtrack and explain why, if the buyer wants to achieve their desired objectives, the budget
needs to be higher.

The fact of the matter is this: 85% of negotiated outcomes align with the person who goes first.8

The power of first offers is in the anchor effect.

Anchoring is an irrational part of human decision making, what’s called a cognitive bias (as are
loss aversion and the sunk cost fallacy on page 7.) When making a decision, people strongly favor
the first piece of information they see. Every evaluation afterwards is based on this information. It
anchors how far their final decision can go.

Again, this isn’t rational at all: to demonstrate the completely arbitrary nature of anchors,
behavioral economist Dan Ariely asked people to write down the last two digits of their social
security number.9 Then, he asked them to consider whether they would pay this amount for
items—wine, chocolate, or computer equipment—of unknown value. Afterwards, participants bid
for the items. Those with higher social security numbers submitted bids that were 60-120% higher
than those with lower numbers.

Like social security digits in the study, first offers in negotiations act as anchors. Whoever makes
the first offer, whether seller or buyer, tends to obtain a better outcome.

When to Ask for a Budget

You shouldn’t always go first. There are situations where you might ask for a budget before making an offer, such as when you
know they buy similar products/services, when you’re trying to unseat a competitor, or when you have a deep relationship of
trust with a buyer or a champion.

3. Facilitate

When it comes to facilitating, this is where you open the door as much as possible to
collaborating. Collaboration, as we know from Essential Rule of Sales Negotiation #2: Build Value,
deepens relationships and trust while creating a sense of psychological ownership in the buyer.

If you leave it to the buyer or anyone else to facilitate, they may engage in unhelpful tit-for-tat
zero-sum bargaining or arguing about positions on pricing and terms. Facilitate the discussion to
avoid getting derailed.

Like leading in general, facilitating doesn’t mean doing all the talking. It’s about guiding the
discussion down the right paths. In fact, it’s often better to talk less. Ask the right questions and
you can guide the discussion properly while, at the same time, allowing buyers to feel connected
and engaged. When they come up with ideas that are fruitful, you can allow them to own those
ideas, showing them you think the ideas are productive and helpful. Then they will also feel
respected and valued.

Discussions without a leader managing the flow often run out of time. By taking control of the
agenda and the meeting, you can make sure this does not happen. For example, you might say
something like: “Looking at the clock, we have 20 minutes left. It seems we are feeling good
about points A, B, and C, but we still really need to address D. I’d suggest we do that, assuming
you all agree this is where we are. Does anybody see anything else we need to address in order to
be able to have the right data to make a decision to go forward or not?”

8 Adam Galinsky and T. Mussweiler, “First offers as anchors: The role of perspective-taking and negotiator
focus,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2001): 657-669.
9 Dan Ariely, George Loewenstein, and Drazen Prelec, “‘Coherent Arbitrariness’: Stable Demand Curves
Without Stable Preferences,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 1 (February 2003): 73-106.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 14

 When you don’t do this and don’t take the reins, the meeting (and sometimes your opportunity)
will not end with the right outcomes.

4. Commit

Finally, when it comes to commitment, it’s up to you to close the discussion when it’s time. We’ve
seen too many sales where a verbal “yes” turns into a “no” over time because the agreement
wasn’t buttoned up, or it wasn’t buttoned up fast enough.

To the first point, there’s quite a bit of research on how to make sure the commitment you gain
is durable. For example, influence researcher Robert Cialdini found that commitments that are
verbal, written, and public are much more likely to be kept than those that are verbal or verbal and
written only.10

At the end of negotiations, you should get verbal agreement. Listen and confirm that buyers are
ready to move forward.

Then, you should summarize what was agreed to, immediately write it up as an email to the buyer,
and ask them to confirm with a “yes” reply to ensure nothing was missed. Next, if possible, get the
buyer to announce internally they are moving forward—even if a contract has not yet been signed.

Selling is a vision. You know what you’re trying to achieve, and you work hard to achieve it. Sellers
who lead the negotiation put themselves in the best position to turn their vision into reality.

10 Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, rev. ed. (New York: HarperBusiness, 2006).

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 15

Rule 4: Effect Emotions
Inspire theirs. Control yours.

Negotiators are often told to minimize emotions in a negotiation. For example, the reading line
of the article “Emotion: The ‘Enemy’ of Negotiation” is “To succeed in negotiation, says one
Wharton expert, one must take emotion out of the equation.”

We disagree. Emotions are primary drivers of decision making in buying, and primary drivers in
negotiation outcomes. Emotions shouldn’t be minimized. Instead, they should be guided and
managed for both buyer and seller so that the best outcome can be achieved by all.

Not only should sellers not take emotion out of the equation, they should add it. Indeed, sellers
should effect emotions.

Why Effect?

ef·fect (e fekt’, i-) vt. to bring about; accomplish

Effecting emotions means causing emotions to come about 1) in yourself and 2) in the buyer.

1. In Yourself
Anxiety and other strong emotions—anger, disappointment, regret, excitement—are an
inescapable part of any negotiation. You are human, not a robot.

However, with the right mindset, you can use emotions to your advantage.

Manage Your Emotions

Emotional intelligence—correctly identifying emotions you and others are feeling, understanding
how emotions affect thinking, and reacting with emotional maturity—is an asset.

Planning (Rule #6) is not only about solving the negotiated issue. You can plan for what a buyer
might do during a negotiation and what emotions that may bring about in you. By anticipating
what emotions may come up, you can decide in advance how you might react.

Knowing how you are going to react will prevent you from being derailed by your emotions.

With this knowledge and forethought, it’s up to you to decide which emotions you want to
express, and which you want to keep to yourself so the negotiation stays on track.

Anticipate your emotions and you will be able to control your reactions.

Feeling anxious…? Meditate. Relax. Plan. Remember, you want this sale but you don’t need it. If it
doesn’t happen, you’ll be fine.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 16

 The more you plan, the more confidence you will build, and the less anxiety you will feel.
Whatever the emotion, focus on it. Ask yourself if it’ll be fruitful in the negotiation. Decide what to
do about it in advance.

Embrace “No”

Approximately 68% of sellers have what is called “a need for approval.”11 Salespeople who have
a need for approval avoid asking tough questions when they perceive those questions might
negatively affect their relationship with the buyer. A need for approval also leads to:

§ Not wanting to say no

§ Not pushing back
§ Not bringing difficult issues to light
§ Being too concerned about the other person’s impression of them

People with high emotional intelligence can sympathize too much with the other party. If you
recognize this instinct in yourself, make sure you plan ahead. Know where your boundaries are.
Know when you should push back in advance. Otherwise you’ll miss the opportunity.

Emotional Intelligence: Double-Edged Sword

Researchers found that individuals who scored high on an emotional intelligence evaluation achieved greater rapport—
resulting in greater trust and a willingness to work together again—but they did not achieve better joint-negotiation
outcomes because their empathy led them to make greater concessions.12 They caved without trading.

Positive Outlook

If your outlook or attitude is not in a good place, it’s difficult to come up with creative ideas. Your
negative energy can get in the way, and:

§ It can cause the other person to feel uncomfortable

§ It can hinder rapport
§ It can hinder connection

Positive emotions help trigger cooperation. They help negotiators adopt a future focus, and
increase the chances the negotiators will deal with each other again in the future.13 Positive
emotions have also been shown to fuel creativity (see page 9), important for coming up with
solutions that satisfy both parties’ objectives and requirements.

However, there’s one time where you may want to limit your positivity: at the end of a successful
negotiation, especially if it might look like the deal is very favorable to you, or when you receive a
concession in your favor. Negotiators who suppress their happiness when they receive something
help buyers save face, an important factor for effecting the emotions you want in the buyer. You
don’t want anyone to feel like they were taken advantage of.

11 Dave Kurlan, “October Data You Can Write About,” Objective Management Group, October 17, 2016,
https://omg.bloomfire.com/posts/1267736-october-data-you-can-write-about.
12 Kihwan Kim, Nicole L. A. Cundiff, and Suk Bong Choi, “The Influence of Emotional Intelligence on
Negotiation Outcomes and the Mediating Effect of Rapport: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach,”
Negotiation Journal 30, no. 1 (January 2014): 49-68.
13 Mara Olekalns and Daniel Druckman, “With Feeling: How Emotions Shape Negotiation,” Negotiation
Journal 30, no. 4 (October 2014): 455-478.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 17

 2. In the Buyer
Effecting emotions is as much about the buyer as it is you. There are four emotions you want to
create with the other parties in a negotiation:

§ Connected. You want them to feel connected and to be willing to say, “We’re allies,”
because if they feel like adversaries, you won’t work together well and you’ll kill the ability
to come up with creative solutions. To build these feelings of connection, focus on rapport.

There are many ways to build rapport. Some of them are simple, but you’d be surprised
how often sellers neglect the basics.

Be curious about the buyer. Ask questions about their interests. People like to talk about
themselves. They’ll like you if you demonstrate that you are listening.

This isn’t just feel-good mumbo jumbo. There’s an astounding body of research that
demonstrates liking, trust, familiarity, and rapport are all associated with superior
negotiation outcomes—for both parties. Behaviors that build rapport and increase
interpersonal trust, such as mirroring the other party (for example, using the buyer’s
words and repeating back their objectives verbatim), help negotiators create more value
overall and claim most of that value for themselves, although not at the expense of the
other party.14

Furthermore, negotiators who are antagonistic or overly aggressive do worse in

negotiations.15 So while you might have heard that Machiavellian traits—manipulating
and exploiting others—are an asset, there’s mounting evidence that nice guys do not, in
fact, finish last.

§ Engaged. You want the buyer to be willing to say, “We collaborate.” When you’re
collaborating and when you’re engaging, you’re investing your time, physical energy, and
psychic energy in getting something done. The more investment there is on both sides,
the more desire there is to get it done.

Not only does collaboration encourage a sense of psychological ownership, it transforms

the negotiation process into an opportunity to create value and improves your chances of
coming to an agreement.

In our research for Insight Selling, we found “collaborated with me” was one of the top
factors distinguishing top-performing sellers from second-place finishers.16 Buyers want to
be involved. They appreciate it. So, invite buyer input whenever possible.

§ Respected. You want buyers to feel like they are important. There are two types of
respect: authority and status. With authority, if a buyer feels you have not respected their
role in the decision-making process, they may seek to assert their authority negatively.
With status, if someone has seniority, an advanced degree, or is recognized as an expert,
make sure they feel you’ve genuinely recognized it or they may feel affronted.

Be especially careful if the buyer voices an objection. The one surefire way to show you
don’t respect your buyer is to fail to acknowledge their concerns or dismiss them.

Even if the objection seems trivial to you or is based on incorrect information, take it
seriously. Your first reaction when you hear an objection may be to jump right in and
respond immediately. Resist this temptation. Take the time to listen to the objection fully.

14 William W. Maddux, Elizabeth Mullen, and Adam Galinsky, “Chameleons Bake Bigger Pies and Take Bigger
Pieces: Strategic Behavioral Mimicry Facilitates Negotiation Outcomes,” Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology 44, no. 2 (2008): 461-468.
15 Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, “The Personality Traits of Good Negotiators,” Harvard Business Review, August
7, 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/08/the-personality-traits-of-good-negotiators.
16 Schultz and Doerr, Insight Selling, 9.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 18

 Make sure you understand the objection. Not only will this communicate your respect for
the buyer, it will help you get to the heart of the matter. Many objections hide underlying
issues that the buyer can’t or isn’t ready to articulate.

Only once you’ve verbally recognized that their objection is valid can you begin to
respond. Try, “I understand why this is a concern for you…” or, “I’m not surprised to hear
you say that. Some people with experience in this space have the same question…” And
don’t forget to confirm that you’ve satisfied their objections before moving on.

§ Valued. You want buyers to feel that their contributions have meaning. If they feel they’re
a part of the solution, they’ll want to see it through. If they don’t feel they’re a part of the
solution, either from the idea and possibility perspective or from the process perspective,
they will disengage.

Sometimes this takes a bit of humility. It’s easy to respond to an idea with, “Yes, I’ve
thought of that too.” It’s much harder to keep your ego in check and say, “That’s a great
line of thinking. Can you tell me more?” If you’ve facilitated the buyer coming to the
idea, wipe your fingerprints from the process. Let them own it.

Don’t dismiss the buyer’s suggestions too quickly, even if they end up being dead
ends. Similarly, if the buyer has made a mistake or you’ve gained leverage, allow the
buyer to save face. Humiliation is in no one’s best interest. Never leave a relationship
worse than neutral.

Emotions have long been villainized in negotiations. The standard wisdom has been to minimize
them, eliminate them, and keep them out of the process entirely.

There’s no way to erase emotions. It’s unrealistic to do so, and inadvisable in any case.

Instead, effect emotions in yourself and the buyer. Have a plan for managing your own emotions,
embrace “no,” and keep a positive outlook. Inspire the buyer to feel connected, engaged,
respected, and valued.

Effect Emotions in the Buyer

§ Focus on rapport
§ Find common ground
§ Show vulnerability

Connected

§ Don’t dismiss a possibility § Ensure involvement

too quickly § Invite collaboration
Valued Engaged
§ Recognize great suggestions / § Let others take “ownership”
contributions of idea

Respected

§ Don’t dismiss their authority

§ Recognize their role in decision making
§ Allow “face” to be saved

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 19

Rule 5: Trade. Don’t Cave.
Always trade for value. Don’t drop price in a vacuum. Don’t get bullied.

My (Mike’s) grandfather, Sidney, was raised during the great depression. Often hungry growing up,
he learned the value of a dollar the hard way. It stuck with him the rest of his life. When I was in
college, he never let me call him because he would say it was long-distance.

I told him that the distance was long, but the call didn’t cost anything. Still, he could barely
stay on the phone for five minutes. I could visualize the nickels clinking in his mind, making him
uncomfortable with the cost of the call.

When I was around 10 years old, we went to Lechmere, a department store in our area. He
wanted to buy a specific $30 Dustbuster. I figured he’d pick it up, bring it to the register, and pay
for it. But no.

He found an associate on the floor and told him he wanted to buy it, but for $20. The associate
looked shocked, but my grandfather kept working on him, asking for the manager.

The manager came and my grandfather didn’t let up, trying one strategy after another. “I buy
so much here. You don’t want to lose my business.” “This one also looks like it’s been opened,
maybe returned already.” “It costs less at Sears I saw, but we’re closer here so I came here first. I’ll
go to Sears next.”

Eventually, we left with a new Dustbuster for $25. My grandfather turned to me and said, “Mike,
everything is negotiable.”

It was a part of his mindset to get the best price. His first strategy was making an offer below the
stated price for what he wanted. Then he pushed the importance of his repeat business (I shop
here all the time). Then he made a value challenge (this one has been opened already so it’s worth
less). Then a competitor challenge (Sears).

His goal: get the seller to cave.

Some might think, “This is a business-to-consumer retail example. This wouldn’t happen in a
business-to-business major sale.”

Wrong.

It happens all the time. Buyers frequently test what we call “cave tolerance.” The buyer says, “I
want it, but I want it for less.” All too often the seller response is, “Where do we need to be?” This
opens the door to caving.

When some buyers know a seller is willing to cave, they push and push until the seller holds their
ground. If the buyer and seller work together again, the buyer will know there is wiggle room in
whatever price the seller puts forward.

Like Essential Rule of Sales Negotiation #1: Always Be Willing to Walk, trading (and not caving) is
about mindset as much as skill.

When pressed for concessions, some sellers want the sale so much they simply cave. Others
value harmony so much that they are willing to make concessions to preserve the peace, giving in
quickly and without asking for something of value in return. Others simply don’t know what to do,
so they open the door to caving.

The good news is that sellers with these habits can retrain their brains. When you know that giving
unilateral concessions almost never leads to a good place, you’ll catch yourself before you do it.
Consider practicing the mantra “If you...then I. If I…then you.” Say out loud a few times. “If you...
then I. If I…then you.” It’ll remind you that you should never give something up for nothing.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 20

 What does trading look like? It means asking for something in return when something is asked of
you. It also means offering something proactively when asking for something from the buyer.

At its core, trading is about reciprocity. It’s about mutual give and take. It means putting the
mantra “If you...then I. If I…then you.” into practice.

Think of it this way: if you don’t trade, you make concessions too quickly, or you make concessions
that are too large, anything they ask for that you are willing to concede must not have value. If
it doesn’t have value to you, don’t expect the buyer to value it. By proposing trades, you are
establishing two things:

1. What each issue is worth and, as well, the overall value of the agreement. If you let the
buyer chip away at parts of the solution framework, price, and agreement terms without
adding anything of value to you, you’re allowing the entire deal to dwindle.

2. Your own gravitas. If they can bully you into caving, the dynamic between you and the
buyer becomes awkward and unproductive.

Instead of allowing the pie to shrink, the act of trading can increase value for both sides. The
classic trade is where both sides concede something of lesser value to them in return for
something of greater value. This mutual gain is at the heart of collaborative negotiations. For
example: “I can offer the customer more regular deliveries to off-set their warehouse space
problem as their facility is in the same industrial park as another customer. In return, they lengthen
the contract to coincide with their planned factory refit.”

Tips of the Trade

Changing your mindset is the foundation. Once you’ve steeled your mind to respond to buyer
requests with requests of your own, there are several ways to maximize your trading success.

First and foremost, prepare your trading possibilities list. Have a trade list with value assigned. Be
creative and exhaustive. Consider both strategic and tactical agreement components.

Also, when trading:

§ Avoid single-issue bargaining. This is “horse trading,” not negotiating. Every time
you make a trade offer, you don’t change just one thing, you change the whole picture.
Bundle issues creatively.

§ Focus on objectives before trades. Make sure to engage the buyer, asking them for
their ideas and zooming out to see the big picture. Think buying first, selling second.
Have the buyer consider how the trade will impact their own objectives and how it
meshes with their requirements.

§ Pace yourself. Don’t make two concessions/trades in a row. Invite response from the
buyer. Don’t agree too quickly. Think. Deliberate. Make sure the buyer knows you value
what you give up.

§ Make increasingly smaller concessions. If you have to make concessions, make them
increasingly smaller. This signals to the buyer that your tolerance for giving up more is
wearing thin.

Remember the mantra “If you...then I. If I...then you.” By trading instead of caving, you
establish what each issue is worth and your own gravitas.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 21

 Again, it all comes back to mindset. Caving is not an option. A senior seller at a company
we worked with recently shared with us how ingrained trading had become to even casual
conversations with long-term clients.

“We’d been working with this client—a cybersecurity firm—for several years. In the third
year, the CEO came to me with a price pushback on our customization fees:

‘Aren’t you using similar materials as last year? Don’t you know us well enough by now?’

I said to him, ‘Yes, we know you well, but if we don’t engage with each team we work
with, they won’t feel engaged going into the process. Plus, your business has changed a
lot in three years, hasn’t it? Our process is similar to what it was then.’

I could tell, however, he was hoping to get a lower fee. I asked myself what it was worth.
Since our work has been so successful for them, I thought a case study would be well
worth a fee reduction.

I asked my client, ‘If we lower the fee, will you participate in a case study for us?’

He agreed.

In this case, it was easy. We had a good relationship with the client. But it would have
been just as easy—but a mistake—for me to agree without asking for anything in return.

Sometimes it’s less straightforward. However, if you know what’s of value to the client, and
the value to you of various trades, you’ll be in the ballpark.”

We agree.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 22

Rule 6: Plan to Win
Know what you want. Plan for tactics you might face.

Preparation is often the greatest determinant of negotiation success. Across negotiation studies
and surveys, we see sellers who get the best outcomes: know what they sell, research buyer wants
and needs through sources other than the buyer, have a keen understanding of the buyer’s day-to-
day life and concerns, and prepare for each negotiation with trades, counteroffers, and knowledge
of their walk-away points.

Sellers who don’t plan often get taken advantage of.

Planning and preparation are like retirement savings. Everyone knows they should do it, and 51%
of people are worried their retirement nest eggs won’t cut it, yet 84% of people have less than
$100,000 in retirement savings.17 18

Don’t be like them.

Knowledge is a source of power. Lack of knowledge introduces doubt on both sides of the
negotiation, which can lead to fizzed negotiations and lost sales. You can anticipate so many
aspects of negotiation if you do your research beforehand. Eliminate doubt and drive toward
creating strong agreements by preparing properly.

A major reason people don’t plan is they don’t know the elements of good planning.

Luckily, we’ve compiled these elements into a simple checklist (see the next page).

If you have an important negotiation, prepare a complete negotiation plan. Use the checklist to
make sure your plan covers all the bases.

Sometimes, however, you have a smaller negotiation, or you may have only an hour to consider
major issues. If you have limited time to prepare, these are the crucial steps to take:

§ Identify your objectives and their objectives

§ Brainstorm possibilities and trades (use a checklist)
“Unfortunately, there § Know your BATNA and Reservation Price
seems to be far more § Decide how to open
opportunity out there § Analyze leverage. How much do they want or need you?

than ability... We In any case, never go into a negotiation unprepared. Negotiation is not an arena for improvisation.
should remember You can end up caving to buyer demands or accepting an offer that is not in your interest. You
that good fortune can end up giving the buyer pause when they question your preparedness, skill, and overall
competence, casting doubt on their desire to buy from you.
often happens when
opportunity meets Most importantly, however, with the right plan, you can expand the pie, build confidence, handle
with preparation.” challenges and issues that come up along the way, and lead the way to successful agreements for
both you and the buyer.

Thomas A. Edison If you are not familiar with how to address some of the topics on the checklist on the next page,
you can find more information on a number of them using the links below:

§ Decision-making authority § Buyer personas

§ Relationship strength § Handling objections
§ Positional vs. partner negotiations § Buyer tactics

17 Todd Campbell, “Americans’ 5 Big Fears About Retirement,” FOX News, December 17, 2016, http://www.
foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/17/americans-5-big-fears-about-retirement.html.
18 Elyssa Kirkham, “1 in 3 Americans Has Saved $0 for Retirement,” Money, March 14, 2016, http://time.com/
money/4258451/retirement-savings-survey.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 23

 PLANNING TO WIN
SALES NEGOTIATIONS
Use this checklist for each negotiation you face. In each section, ask yourself, “Have I...”

OBJECTIVES, REQUIREMENTS,
TEAM
AND POSSIBILITIES
¨ Mapped the other party’s team? ¨ Fully defined objectives and requirements for both
¨ Determined their dominant personas (i.e., who may sides?
be skeptical or a good collaborator)? ¨ Brainstormed ideas and possibilities for coming to
¨ Learned who has decision-making authority? agreement?
¨ Quantified my relationship strength with each team ¨ Prepared to facilitate a creative process to find
member? mutually agreeable possibilities and maximize value
on both sides?
¨ Determined whether their negotiation approach is
primarily positional, partner, or mixed? ¨ Compiled a list of possible trades and asks with
defined value for each?
¨ Prepared to respond to requests with trades (“If
you...then I. If I…then you.”)?

ACTION PLAN

¨ Identified the desired outcome for the next meeting?

AGREEMENT AND
¨ Set the agenda beforehand?
ALTERNATIVES
¨ Chosen the meeting venue?
¨ Outlined the key points of the agreement as it stands?
¨ Defined an opening strategy?
¨ Listed current and possible buyer counteroffers and
¨ Assigned next steps and research to complete? asks?
¨ Worked out my BATNA and its value to me?
¨ Reminded myself that walking is always an option by
focusing on my BATNA?
POWER AND LEVERAGE ¨ Determined my reservation price?
¨ Determined my ideal agreement?

¨ Established sources of power and leverage for both ¨ Analyzed the buyer’s BATNA and its value to them?
sides? ¨ Surmised their ideal agreement?
¨ Planned steps I can take to increase my leverage?
¨ Considered steps the buyer might take to increase
their leverage?
EMOTIONS

BUYER TACTICS ¨ Anticipated buyer actions that may trigger strong

AND OBJECTIONS emotions and planned how to manage my reactions?
¨ Developed ways to make the buyer feel connected,
¨ Identified potential buyer tactics and objections? engaged, respected, and valued?

¨ Chosen my response strategies?

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved.

Create a Team of Masterful Negotiators

Develop Sales Negotiation Skills that Increase Margins, Profitability, and Customer Satisfaction
Negotiations are all around us. From negotiating an important sales opportunity
to negotiating with your kids at bedtime, we’re constantly working to reach
agreement with others.

In the RAIN Sales Negotiation program—featuring the 6 Essential Rules of Sales

Negotiation—participants learn how to negotiate the best solutions, win sales,
and enhance the strength of their relationships along the way. 55%
We’ve helped thousands of sellers negotiate the best deals, shorten sales cycles,
and improve close rates.

Our sales negotiation training is fueled by decades of experience teaching sales

negotiation and our own primary research, including What Sales Winners Do of companies do not believe their
Differently, Top Performance in Strategic Account Management, and The Top- sellers have the negotiation skills
Performing Sales Organization.
needed to consistently win business.
In RAIN Sales Negotiation, participants learn how to:
Delivery Options
§ Master the 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation
§ Tailored on-site, instructor-led
§ Understand negotiation strategy
programs
§ Sell the value of your solutions and reduce price pushback § Train-the-Trainer, Licensing
§ Blended learning: Online and on-site,
§ Deal with customers who are just trying to get concessions instructor-led curriculum
§ Identify and respond to buyer negotiating tactics

§ Avoid critical mistakes in the negotiation process that kill credibility and
the sale

Your team will be introduced to the RAIN Sales Negotiation Planner, the Buyer Persona Reference Sheet, and Negotiation SPEEDSM
Cards, three proprietary tools that will help your sellers internalize their new knowledge and transform into skilled negotiators.

Contact Us to Transform Your Team

If your team needs to learn to:

§§ Focus the discussion on value over price
§§ Avoid common and predictable negotiation mistakes
§§ Lead negotiations that get the best outcomes and enhance the strength of relationships
§§ Handle the variety of price and other objections

Contact RAIN Group today at 508-405-0438 or info@raingroup.com.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 25

About RAIN Group

Unleash the Sales Potential of Your Team with RAIN Group

RAIN Group is a sales training, assessment, and performance improvement company that helps leading organizations improve sales
results. We’ve helped hundreds of thousands of salespeople, managers, and professionals in more than 62 countries increase their
sales significantly with RAIN Group’s consulting and sales methodology.

We can help you:

Implement Sales Training that Delivers Real Results Identify Who Can and Will Sell with Great Success
RAIN Group’s sales training system inspires real change and Our assessments measure sales attributes and skills, identifying
delivers real results that last. Our rigorous approach includes the factors that really make a difference in sales performance.
sales team evaluation, customized training programs, robust Whether you’re looking to hire someone who can and will sell, or
reinforcement, and coaching to help you and your team develop looking to improve sales performance, we’ll help you build the
sales and negotiation skills, and maximize your results. most successful sales team.

Grow Your Key Accounts Implement World-Class Sales Coaching

At most companies, there’s a huge, untapped opportunity to add We coach sellers, professionals, and leaders individually and
more value—and thus sell more—to existing accounts. We help in groups to achieve the greatest and fastest increase in sales
our clients capitalize on these revenue growth opportunities. results. And we train and certify leaders and managers in our
Whether it’s simply increasing cross-selling and up-selling or RAIN Sales Coaching system. Often, it’s RAIN Sales Coaching that
implementing a major strategic account management program, truly unlocks the team’s potential, and keeps them motivated to
we can help. produce the best results consistently.

Find out more about how RAIN Group can help you
unleash the sales potential of your team by visiting
raingroup.com or calling (508) 405-0438.

RAIN Group’s Clients

Global Locations About the Authors

Boston - Bogotá - Geneva - Johannesburg Mike Schultz and John Doerr are Co-Presidents of
London - Mumbai - Sydney - Toronto RAIN Group and bestselling co-authors of Rainmaking
Conversations and Insight Selling. Bob Croston is Vice
President and Principal Consultant at RAIN Group.
Connect with Us
The authors would like to thank Ola Jachtorowicz,
Instructional Designer & Content Developer at RAIN
Group, for her extensive contributions to this ebook.

© RAIN Group. All rights reserved. 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation 26