A sale is an art accentuated by science, and not many sales people understand this confluence. They either make it too mushy, full of emotions and relationship or just stick with data. Both choices are equally bad. This is not an either-or game; the best players know how to swing with the tune.
Gathering intel and data is the precursor to staying in the game. Most of the sales people get clouded by the buyers and fail to interpret these signals. Here are the five things that you must be aware of. And I must warn you that most of the experienced buyers use these tactics a lot.
People are eyeing your pie
Life is seldom fair; you always have someone else ready to grab your pie. The story from the college days continues in the adulthood, there is always a second person that is trying to eye your girlfriend or boyfriend, and your friend too knows that and he/she plays it strategically to keep you tethered. The buyers are taught to never have a single source; they believe that they will never get the best deal if they have only one supplier.
The buyers want to keep as many competitors in the game as long as possible so that they end up competing with each other and drop the price. The more competitors they have at the end, the better it is for them. Now if you believed that you are the only one, my friend you are mistaken. Make sure you find out who your competitors are and where do they stand In terms of their offerings.
You are naked
Smart buyers are skilled in the art of taking out information from you and presenting it to the buyer’s panel. While you may be thinking that they are on your side, the reality is that they are just fishing out information from you to feed the decision-making model. The buyers determine ahead of time what they want to accomplish at the end of the game. They just lead you to their end goal. Mind you most of the buyers are skilled in negotiations and your simplicity and truthfulness is no match for their astute and planned moves. Make sure that you don’t divulge a lot of information, plant what you want them to believe. Play the game well mate!
They never let you know if they like you
Now, this is no different from your college days when you did everything your close friend and he/she never flinched, till you had someone else in your heart. And then they said, “Darling, I have always loved you so much, why didn’t you feel it?”
The buyers play the same game; they would never let you know if you are going to win the bid, they fear that if you know the end game you will harden your stand. By keeping you hanging, you will be pressurised into sweetening the deal, simply said, when you are losing, you try harder. You need to know where you stand so that you don’t get tricked into giving up more without getting anything in return.
The donkey sets the price
Remember when the worst dressed or the most incapable dude had the best girl in the college, and the dude would shower all his fortune on her. She was just setting the standard; the new guy would have to do more than the last one. Sad, but the donkey was setting the price for the horses.
This is the same play that the buyers use for negotiating contracts; the least preferred suppliers are first called in to negotiate the offerings. By putting the donkey in league with the horses, the buyers set the baseline price for negotiations. Buyers from here onwards work up to their preferred suppliers, armed with concessions and freebies they feel equipped to bring your final price down.
To counter this ploy, make sure that you are clear about the value you add and for additional offerings have a menu card of pricing, so that you don’t slide down on the pricing with the same scope.
You are no longer in contention
Your most trusted advisor or the link to your buyer will play this on you, one night he/ she will call you and tell you that the buying committee is not very favourable about your offerings. They will tell you that offerings are not very juicy and others have much better chance to win. They will tell you that it’s imminent that the order will go to someone else, it is such a pity that you won’t be working for them anymore.
This tactic is painful and hard to endure, if you are a novice you will get into panic mode and make unnecessary concessions to stay in the game. To counter this you must know your competitors well and know when your buyers are bluffing you
Keep these tactic in mind next time you’re talking to your buyers. Observe and try to recognize them in your conversations. In Platformax all your conversations are automatically tracked which allows you to prepare well for your next talk with the buyer. In time you will be able to recognize which of these tactics your buyer is using on you. So go ahead and open your free Platformax account and start selling smarter from today.
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