Carrie Welles

SAM-level negotiations are often some of the most complex deals, and therefore some of the most frustrating. How do you demonstrate solutions against price? Whether it is reacting to irrational competitive offers, or addressing demands to lower price, the pressure is on the SAM and his or her team to come back with the best deal for the company and the client.

At SAMA University Atlanta February 1-3, Carrie Welles, Vice President of Think! Inc. will be leading a session at SAMA University (Session #4, Strategic Negotiation: Claiming Value in a Negotiation & Turning in a More Profitable Deal) that allows individuals to bring in an account negotiation they are working on to create the best possible deal.

Q - In your session, you talk about determining and acquiring power during a negotiation. How important is this to negotiating the deal?

A - Hugely important. Determining who has the power in a negotiation will help illuminate how probable the deal is. In addition, it can be the difference in winning not just a good deal, but winning a great deal. We’ll review in our session how you determine that power, and subsequently build your courage.

Q - You ask participants to bring in real-world negotiations to audit during the session. Is there a particular type of deal that SAMs should bring into the class?

A - Our session reflects our real world, so any deal that has not closed yet is appropriate. To be most effective, I would suggest bringing a deal that is not set to close right after you finish the session, but rather one where you have room to ‘try on’ the concepts you learn and better your opportunity.

Q - Is there a common structure to strategic negotiation?

A - Absolutely. Research that we’ve done in the past two years suggests 97% of the time you can anticipate reactions of your buyer and use a structured ‘negotiation blueprint’ to help you prepare for a negotiation that previously you may have thought was ‘unpreparable’. 97%! That is a compelling number. AND, the negotiation blueprint encompasses only (3) concepts.

Q - Price is always an issue, no matter how close of a relationship a SAM has with a client. How do you avoid getting stuck on price during the negotiation process?

A - Often, and in this economy especially, price certainly has a way of headlining a negotiation and our buyers & procurement executives are seasoned at keeping it that way. Price is part of the negotiation, no doubt, however a negotiation is never just about price. It really can’t be given all the other intrinsic pieces that make up our solutions, and subsequently, our offer(s). Our job as SAMs is to do a better job of putting value on all those intrinsic pieces and then making them known in our offers(s) so we begin to get credit for all of them. We’ll also learn how to do this in our session.

Q - Irrational competitive offers can often derail negotiation. Is there a way to prepare and protect against this?

A - Without question, however it does take the will to do the work and prepare appropriately, earlier on and in conjunction with your consultative sales process, so you can devise your negotiation strategy & stick to it. We offer a tool called “Multiple Equal Offers” that will allow a SAM to take pressure off price, competitive offers and all the while giving customer’s a few solutions, not just one. These solutions, or offers, encompass business relationships that you can have with your customer that will get titled - generally a departure of what we do - and are reflective of the business issues you will solve for them. This concept allows for a ton of flexibility and responsiveness to our customer!