It was a dark night. No stars. Black. Cold. Snow was falling. The only connection we had to the gunman inside the small mobile home was a cell phone. He was holding three hostages and threatening to kill them all.

Earlier in the day he’d lost his temper, and in a fit of rage, shot his wife. As the police arrived, responding to the 911 call, he’d taken her parents and his stepdaughter hostage.

It was another sad case of domestic violence. Every attempt to negotiate a peaceful solution had been stonewalled.

By the time I arrived, things were getting desperate. The gunman had become extremely agitated and fired several rounds at the SWAT team crouched in the snowy woods. He was surrounded with nowhere to go. A violent man with nothing to lose.

Somehow, I had to convince him to back down and let the hostages go. It was a negotiation situation I’d found myself in many times before…

Reality Check

OK, stop! This story is total BS. I’m a sales professional, not a hostage negotiator. No one in their right mind would allow me to get near a situation like this. Don’t get me wrong. I negotiate almost every day for a living. But not like this. In the sales profession, it’s never life or death (though at times it can feel that way).

Yet this is exactly how so many books on negotiation begin. Their tense narratives include epic boardroom negotiations, dealing with terrorists, negotiating hostage situations, pulling off game-changing mergers, settling massive lawsuits, or mediating international diplomatic crises. Typically, the book’s author, portrayed as the hero, pulls off the impossible in the negotiation.

These stories, with all of their drama and tension, make for compelling reading. It’s the art of the deal. We love to envision ourselves in those same situations, coolly exerting influence, persuasion, and clever language to turn the tables in our favor and save the day.

But no matter how romantic and compelling the stories, they have absolutely nothing to do with reality in the sales profession. The stories, examples, and techniques discussed in such books are generally focused on:

• Complex, high-stakes negotiations in which each party has many alternatives to a negotiated deal and power plays are the name of the game
• Life or death situations, where neither party can afford to walk away
• Law enforcement and military operations with dire consequences if the negotiation fails
• Governmental, diplomatic, and international relations with the fate of entire countries on the line
• Business mergers and real estate deals
• Legal settlements, including trademarks, intellectual property, and class-action lawsuits
• Resolving conflicts and disagreements, including domestic disputes, personal and business relationship issues, or contract disputes
• Career advancement and salary negotiation
• How to negotiate when you are the buyer

There is a massive amount of printed work available on personal, business, diplomatic, legal, and law enforcement negotiation. Some of these books are classics. Many are best sellers. The lessons in these books (and accompanying training programs) are useful.

Except for one problem. These books and training programs fail to address the unique and rapid-fire negotiations that 99% of sales professionals find themselves in each sales day.

Sales Trainers Don’t Teach Sales Negotiation

There are few true sales-specific resources on negotiation. A large part of the reason is the false (and perhaps arrogant) belief that sales negotiation is equivalent to all other types of negotiation. That is, the skills, tactics, techniques, patterns, and situations are the same. Sales negotiation, therefore, is lumped in with diplomatic negotiation and attorneys hashing out a class-action lawsuit settlement. But they’re not the same.

In addition, there are few true experts and authors who choose to write sales-specific negotiation books. Patrick Tinney’s classic Unlocking Yes: Sales Negotiation Tactics & Strategy is among the very few exceptions.

Frankly, many sales experts and sales trainers shy away from the subject because they are emotionally uncomfortable with negotiation and find the subject unpalatable. Since many of these same trainers are also poor sales negotiators, salespeople are more likely to encounter contrived BS than training that truly addresses the challenges that they actually face at the sales negotiation table.

Sales Negotiation Is Boring

Adding to all of this is the truth that sales negotiation is boring. There is way more drama when the legal teams from Apple and Qualcomm sit down to work out patent and royalty disputes, or when Chinese and American diplomats negotiate a trade deal. Those negotiations make the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

But when…

• Maria, an account executive with a SaaS company in San Francisco, is negotiating the per-seat cost of her software with a mid-market company from Waco, Texas;
• Joey is working out a deal on a new combine with a farmer in central Pennsylvania;
• Jessica is negotiating a lease for 22 commercial trucks with a CEO of a small logistics company located in Des Moines;
• Praveen is negotiating an office furniture contract with a large enterprise in New Delhi;
• Kendra is negotiating a long-term facility services agreement with a hospital in Singapore;
• Colton is negotiating a three-year agreement to put 32 people in rental uniforms at a manufacturing plant in Grand Rapids; or
• Robin on my sales team is working out an agreement to train new hires for a payroll processing firm in Dallas

… nobody cares.

Except, of course, for the sales professionals whose compensation depends on the outcome of the negotiations and the companies that depend on those same salespeople to protect their profits.

Millions of sales negotiations take place daily across the globe. Few, if any, ever make the front pages.

Yes, there are exceptions. Certainly, some global account managers are negotiating contract renewals that have far-reaching impact on the enterprise. There are start-ups working on big opportunities that, if won, can generate a flood of venture capital investments. In the overall scheme of things, though, these situations are rare compared to the routine sales negotiations that dominate our profession.

Yet, in these routine and mundane sales negotiations, billions of dollars, rupees, euros, pounds, pesos, yuan, or yen (among other currencies) change hands. The cumulative effect of these mundane sales negotiations directly impacts the profitability, market valuation, customer retention, and long-term viability of the enterprises on whose behalf sales professionals are negotiating.

Author’s Note

I use a variety of terms in this book to describe people, companies, and situations.

• Negotiation Table: This is the figurative platform for a sales negotiation that may include a physical meeting, telephone or video conversation, email, or text messaging.
• Stakeholder: This is an individual person at a prospective or current customer with whom you interact. The stakeholder may play any variety of buying, influence, or negotiation roles.
• Stakeholder Group: The array of stakeholders in a deal who are responsible for selecting the vendor of choice.
• Buyer: The stakeholder at the table who leads the sales negotiation.
• Prospect, Account, or Customer: These terms refer to the enterprise, company, or organization to which the stakeholders belong.

I regularly change terms up to avoid repeating myself and boring my readers. Also note that though many of my examples describe negotiating with new prospects, the techniques described in this book are just as applicable for negotiating with existing accounts.

Before we proceed further, I want to submit into evidence a recent “negotiation” with an account executive who represents one of my vendors. This was all done via email.

Let’s begin with some background:

• I’ve signed several contracts for various services with this vendor, and we have a good working relationship.
• There was no competitor involved, and I had already decided to give the work to the vendor because I trusted them to get it done right.
• I did not have a viable alternative.
• I’d met with the account executive and her team the week before this exchange to outline the project. I gave them a rough budget of $22,000 and asked her to send over an agreement.

On Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m.—one week later: I received an email from the account executive requesting a phone conversation. I responded that I was with a client delivering training and would not be available for a call until the following week. I asked her to send the agreement. She responded with a request for time to meet the next day. Again, I explained that I was with a client and unable to schedule a call until the following week.

This is how the email conversation proceeded:

• Account executive opening the negotiation via email (2:54 p.m. Thursday): She responded with an email stating that she and her team had “looked at the requirements of the project and would not be able to do it for less than $35,000.” In her words, “Even at this rate, we are barely breaking even.”
• My response: “I understand, but that’s way outside our budget. Please send over the itemized statement of work, and I’ll get with my team and see what parts of the project plan we can live without so we can get this inside our budget parameters.”
• Account executive (5:21 p.m.): “Can we schedule time to talk in the morning at 9:00 a.m. to go over this?”
• My response: “No. As I’ve already explained twice, I’m on premise with one of my clients, delivering a training program, and cannot schedule a call until next week. Please just send over the itemized SOW so we can make some adjustments. I’m sure, with a little effort, we can stay inside our budget for this project and still accomplish our objectives.”
• Account executive (6:10 p.m.): “I crunched the numbers. Can you possibly go to $32,000? It’s our absolute rock bottom.”
• Me: I did not respond. Instead I went to the gym, grabbed dinner, read a book, and went to bed early.
• Account executive (9:00 a.m. on Friday morning): “Jeb, I gave this another look, and I think we can get it down to $29,000. But that’s the best we can do and only because you are such a good customer.” Note: she still hadn’t sent over the itemized SOW I’d requested.
• Me: I didn’t respond because I was in the classroom delivering training to a group of my client’s salespeople and had my phone turned off.
• Account executive (12:11 p.m.): “Hey Jeb, just checking in to see if you received my last note that we can do the whole project for only $29K. Should I send over the agreement?”
• Me (12:51 p.m.): I glanced at my phone on the way back from lunch and noticed her email. I needed to wrap up training and get to the airport. I marked the account executive’s email unread and saved it for later.
• Account executive (4:00 p.m. Friday): “Jeb, Good news! The whole team got together and decided that you are such an important customer that we can do the project for $23,000. We love working with you and your team. I know that’s a little more than your budget. Will this work?”
• Me (4:59 p.m. while in line to board my plane): “That works. Please send over the SOW and contract so we can sign it.”

And just like that, the AE had given up $12,000 (a 34% discount from her initial asking price) with no effort on my part. Along the way, she destroyed her credibility.

You may be thinking to yourself, “This is way out there, Jeb— an exception to the rule. This doesn’t happen that often.”

If you are thinking this, you are wrong. This behavior is common. It happens every day, everywhere. And, sadly, sales negotiation mistakes increase in frequency and are exacerbated at the end of the month, quarter, and year.

I witness my clients’ salespeople routinely offering their maximum allowable discount without the stakeholder even asking. Likewise, they are quick to bend on terms and conditions and give away ancillary items without receiving value in exchange. They exhibit no emotional control and no discipline. They perceive that their position is weak, so they often use discounts and price concessions as differentiators.

Every author of every book on negotiating is quick to point out that in business and life, everything is being negotiated and that as humans, we are negotiating naturally at almost every point in our daily lives. But despite this blinding flash of the obvious, despite the fact that salespeople are required to negotiate as part of the job, the brutal and undeniable truth is that most salespeople suck at negotiating.

There are several reasons why salespeople get ripped up like cheap t-shirts by buyers in sales negotiations.

Poor Emotional Discipline

Effective negotiating begins and ends with emotional discipline. When salespeople get beat at the negotiation table—just as in the example above—90% of the time it’s due to their inability to rise above disruptive emotions in the moment. Fear, insecurity, anger, attachment, eagerness, desperation, and more all conspire to undermine the salesperson’s ability to think clearly and maintain their cool.

Lack of Training

Executives and leaders put tremendous pressure on their sales organizations to hit sales numbers, then complain bitterly after the fact that their salespeople are not negotiating hard enough. The one constant refrain from executives is that their salespeople “leave too much money on the table.”

Yet, they invest very little money in training for sales negotiation skills. Nor do they train their sales leaders to model, coach, or reinforce negotiation skills. It’s as if salespeople are somehow supposed to be born with the ability to negotiate effectively.

When companies do provide training on negotiation skills, the training content and curriculum is, more often than not, disconnected from the sales process. Sales negotiation is treated as a separate discipline rather than part of an integrated and complete system.

Worse, it’s usually delivered by training companies that specialize in teaching negotiation tactics—but not sales-specific negotiation skills. Because the trainers that work for these outfits have very little experience selling anything, they are unable to connect the dots between the sales process and the sales negotiation.

In my entire corporate sales and sales leadership career that spanned more than twenty years, I attended only one training session on negotiation. On that occasion, my sales manager used his personal budget to bring in a negotiation training company. In that training, I mostly learned how to negotiate as a buyer which was helpful that year when I was purchasing my first home. Once the training was complete, we called it good and moved on. We never reviewed the material again.

These one-and-done training events feel good but have little long-term impact. Leaders and sales enablement professionals fail to understand that sales negotiation skills are perishable and diminish over time. For this reason, if companies want their salespeople to negotiate at a higher level, there must be a commitment to both initial and ongoing training.

My message to executives: If you want your salespeople to stop leaving money on the table, you must teach them the core competencies, skills, techniques, and emotional intelligence needed to be effective at the sales negotiating table. Otherwise, you are leaving money on the table.

Failure to Self-Invest

Negotiation is a fundamental part of being a sales professional. No matter who you are and what you sell, you are going to be required to negotiate with buyers.

The companies I worked for didn’t provide much in the way of negotiation training, but with my income on the line, I realized that if I didn’t become a better negotiator, I was going to pay a price. So, I resolved to invest in myself and get better. I read everything I could get my hands on about negotiation, paid my own way to attend negotiation seminars, and sought out mentors who could help me master negotiation skills, strategies, tactics, and techniques.

In sales, when you out-learn, you out-earn. To become an elite sales athlete, to keep your skills updated and sharp, and to become a master sales negotiator, you must invest your own money, time, and effort in books, audio books, workshops, and online learning programs. You must subscribe to newsletters, podcasts, trade magazines, industry publications, blogs, and sales publications to stay current on your own industry and the sales profession.

Use your drive time wisely. The average inside salesperson has a commute of one to two hours a day. The average outside sales rep spends between four and five hours a day in a car. Turn your car into automobile university or your commute into train, Uber, bus, or plane university.

Invest that time in learning rather than listening to music or talk radio. Listening to educational and personal development audio programs during your commute or in your car can give you the equivalent of a university education many times over.

Just consider the previous story. How much is this AE losing in commission over the course of a year because she sucks at negotiation? Don’t be that account executive.

Buyers Are Better

Buyers, as a rule, generally have more power at the sales negotiating table and are better at negotiating sales outcomes than salespeople. There are several reasons:

• Training. Buyers—especially professional buyers who work in procurement—are usually professionally trained in how to negotiate with salespeople and win. Thus, salespeople often find themselves in an amateur versus expert competition. It’s like a local club team taking on a professional sports team. The scale is tipped decidedly in the professional’s favor.
• Information and Knowledge. Buyers typically have more information than the seller. Buyers have entertained presentations and proposals from multiple vendors. They have information on specs, product and service comparisons, and pricing. In general, buyers are doing far more research on competing companies and market conditions than the salespeople they’re negotiating with. This information gives them leverage and power when negotiating with less informed sellers.
• Alternatives. Buyers tend to have more alternatives than salespeople. This strengthens their power position and lets them exert greater emotional control at the sales negotiation table.

Empty Pipeline

The number one reason salespeople are in a weak position and lack emotional discipline at the sales negotiation table is an empty pipeline. When you have an empty pipeline you get desperate. When you get desperate, you get up close and personal with the Universal Law of Need.

1. The more you need to close the deal, the more you will give away to close it.
2. The more you need to close the deal, the less likely you are to close it.

Effective prospecting and a full pipeline instantly make salespeople better negotiators. An abundant pipeline gives you emotional control, relaxed, assertive confidence, and the ability to negotiate as if you don’t need the deal.