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How do you catch someone’s attention?

There are a lot of ways but they are all about either doing something unexpected or really hitting the sweet spot of the customer. I want to start with looking at different aspects of how to start a meeting and getting the customer to listen to you and in the end of this article go through the “Hail Mary Pass” where we try to get the customer to listen to us with only one argument.

The start of the meeting really sets the tone for the whole discussion

If you can catch the attention of the customer, they will listen and respond. If you don’t all you will be doing is fighting to get the attention until you at last have to give up or are lucky enough to find a sweet spot and get a chance.

To get the customers attention, do something that your competitors aren’t

Most salesmen will come to the meeting nicely dressed in a suit and have a briefcase. They will take out some brochures and than sit down and start talking about their product. If they are tele-salesmen they will start by introducing themselves “Hello, my name is X and I’m calling from company Y” and then just start talking about their product with no regard to the customer.

What happens when you call a customer and say “Hello, my name is X” is that the customer will start thinking “hmm, who is this? Do I know this person?” and completely miss the company name, making them very confused when you continue on the sales pitch.

If you come into someone’s office and just start talking about yourself all they want to do is throw you out!

One way to start a sales call is by instead starting “Hello, I’m calling from Y, my name is X”. It is a easy way of at least sounding a bit different.

Another fun trick is by coming into a meeting with all your questions typed up on a piece of paper and giving it to the customer saying “This is what I want to ask you today. We will go through these questions and than I’ll see if my product will be able to help you.”

I promise you that this technique will catch their attention!

Thinking outside of the box is extremely important in these situations

Look at what your doing today and than think of the most fun and outrageous presentations. See if you can come up with 5 different techniques. Then try them out! Try each one 10 times and the one that works the best, do it!

Finally it is you that knows your business best and I won’t try to make you do something that might or might now work in your business category. Try out different things and go with what works.

The Hail Mary Pass

Often in sales you’ll meet a customer that just won’t listen. You had a great presentation. You ask them some questions, tell them about your product and prove that it will really help them. But all you say just goes in through one ear and out the other.

There is one technique I love to use in these situations, it actually has a 32% success rate once you have learned it.

When trying to get a impossible customer to buy your product and finally give up. Right before you leave, Stop.

Tell them you have one final offer and just do something completely out of the ordinary. Give them 50% off or give them a 10 year guarantee. Basically give them the very best deal you are ever aloud to give them. Motivate it with that you are doing this because you want them to try your product because you are so confident that if they do, they will never stop buying your products.

If done well you will very often hit a sweet spot and if nothing else you will get their attention and get a new chance to prove your point.

If nothing else, you have nothing to loose. You were leaving anyway and now you know that you have done everything possible to get that sale.

Good luck to you!

Entrepreneurs know that understanding common negotiation tactics is good business. Having a good understanding of the strategies that can be used by you or on you is necessary to becoming a skilled negotiator.

Negotiation is usually a part of any deal or transaction and it must be a strong part of your game. In this article we present some ideas that will give you an opportunity to look at negotiation in an entirely new way and will give you a better basis for playing the negotiation game. It will help you work on your business psychology and to become a more skilled entrepreneur and negotiator.

Everything’s negotiable

The first tactic for successful negotiation is, always, “everything’s negotiable”. There are many negotiating strategies and tactics, but if you don’t get rule number one, those strategies won’t apply because you will not be doing much, if any, negotiating. You must believe that everything is negotiable. For example, I recently asked my phone company to throw in a couple of free months phone service because I had been a customer for a number of years. They said yes. Had I not asked, I would not have received the bonus months.

In most deals multiple items can and should be negotiated. In a purchase of a mid-size apartment building I negotiated several items before we would close the deal. The seller carried a large, unsecured note on the property, gave us a seller credit for repairs, which bought us a new roof, asphalt and sidewalks, and they accepted a significantly lower purchase price. Whether a deal is small or large, most people and companies are willing to negotiate.

Be willing to walk from the deal

The second tactic for successful negotiation is you must be willing to walk from the deal, and the other party must believe it. That means you need to believe it. If you’re buying a new house, for example, and you’ve completely fallen in love with it, you absolutely must have it, negotiations will not be as successful. If you must have the house or property, use a “partner” as the one who could do without. In this instance you could say, “I doubt my partner will agree to that. He doesn’t really want this particular house that bad. I’ll ask him.” In either case, the other party must know, without a doubt, that you are willing to walk from the deal with zero regrets.

Once you have these two rules down, it is pretty much smooth sailing from here. But, you’ve got to believe rule #1 and rule #2. This is non-negotiable (in spite of rule #1).

Be able to set aside a single issue as you work towards an agreement

Use your people skills, no need to be pushy. Negotiations can and should be about people. Take your time. Find out what motivates the other party through conversation, questions and listening. Ask yourself, “What does each party need to accomplish?” This will give you an opportunity to navigate towards a solution where each party realizes their desired goal (ideally). You might say, “Let’s sit down and talk and see if we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

This is an important strategy to fully understand. Let’s say from our example above, that the seller of the house you looked at had already told you he would accept nothing less than a full price offer. Rather than let this kill the deal, your goal will be to say, “Let’s put that aside and see if we can agree on everything else.” There are still many scenarios where the seller could get his full price but not in the way he might be seeing right now. For example, you could end up negotiating a seller credit for repairs, or the seller could carry back a small second. In both cases, he could still get the full asking price, or close to it, but the actual dollar amounts would be categorized at closing as something other than the purchase price.

You’ll have to do better than that

This is a simple and effective strategy. When the offer is made, you simply reply, “You’ll have to do better than that.” This is particularly effective when the other party clearly realizes that you are not desperate to get the deal done and are, in fact, willing to walk. The key here is to make your statement and then stop talking! Give the other party an opportunity to negotiate against themselves and make a better offer.

The High Low Game

There are many negotiation strategies. Some, such as the High Low game, are old and frankly, unnecessarily confrontational. You start low, the other party starts high, and hopefully, you meet somewhere in the middle. This is generally not an effective strategy. It’s a game where the focus is solely on the money and all other elements of negotiation are set aside. It’s a game of chicken which is time consuming and can even damage the relations between the parties. There may be issues of more significant value to both parties when the simple dollar amounts are removed from the negotiations.

When to quit

If the other party refuses to negotiate further, and you have not reached an acceptable deal, always remember you can walk away and come back later. You could offer to resubmit an offer in a week, or a month. This accomplishes a number of things. It reinforces rule #2 (you are willing to walk from the deal), it provides a break from negotiations and gives both parties an opportunity to think about what they’ve brought to the table so far, and it allows for some distance, helping you to reevaluate your desire to see the deal through to completion.