You've heard about negotiation before, perhaps you agree that it's needed. But how will a negotiation process that's specific to sales enhance your strategy and help you win deals?

If there's one thing everybody knows about sales, it's that serious negotiation starts when you and your customer or prospect sit down together to close a deal. Right? When people hear the word 'negotiation,' they think, "Oh, that happens at the end of the sales process". The best salespeople start thinking about negotiation much earlier -- sometimes even before they've made the first contact.

Negotiation is not a destination that you reach at the end of a sale, nor is negotiation about one party winning and the other losing. Negotiation is part of each step of the sales process, not a one-time event. It begins prior to the first sales call and ends with customer recognition of the value your product or service brought to his business.

Interests, options and deal-breakers Too often, salespeople don't dig enough to find the customer's real interests. They need to find out whether the client's focus is around price, or around the terms and conditions or around something else.

In general the goal is to satisfy clients and provide them with service they consider valuable. When you negotiate from the very beginning of the sales process, you uncover the buying organization's interests and can therefore generate more creative options. You learn the criteria on which their interests are based, and you discover deal-breakers. You explore how both parties can win. Perhaps even more importantly, you discover if both parties can win; after all, it's far better to lose quickly and exit the situation, thereby wasting fewer resources, than to lose slowly.

Achieving the end goal Additionally, since the end goal is repeating customers, there's no advantage in creating a situation where you win and your client loses. If your negotiation leaves a bad taste in your customer's mouth, it's less likely that they'll come back to you for more products or services. Conversely, by negotiating in a way that allows both parties to win, you set up an environment that is conducive to a long-term relationship.

Incorporating negotiation into the early stages of a working sales process leads to deals--and client relationships--that are more mutually beneficial.