Study highlights sales negotiation tactics

RAIN Group, a global sales training company, has released key findings from its newest global study Top Performance in Sales Negotiation.

Spearheaded by the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, the group of analysts studied responses from 264 sellers and 449 buyers (247 business buyers and 202 procurement and purchasing professionals) representing $2.59 billion in annual purchases in over 26 industries across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.

“Negotiation is different than it was even just a decade ago. We wanted to better understand the factors influencing negotiation outcomes, the tactics used by both sellers and buyers, and to learn what works and what doesn’t in negotiations today,” said Mike Schultz, president of RAIN Group and director of the Center for Sales Research.

The study looked at what top performers in sales negotiation do differently from the rest, negotiation tactics used by both buyers and sellers, what buyers want, the role of price, and the impact of negotiation training.

Schultz added we studied major factors that affect negotiations such as how prepared a seller is, to what degree the buyer is price sensitive, seller understanding of power and leverage as well as negotiation tactics. What we found is fascinating.

Below are a few discoveries from the study:

 Top performance in sales negotiation

• Top Performers are 3.1x more likely than The Rest to achieve their pricing target.
• Top Performers are 12.5x more likely than The Rest to be very satisfied with the outcome of the negotiation.
• Top Performers are 3.5x more likely than The Rest to be extremely confident participating in negotiations.

Negotiation success factors and tactics

• Buyers find a wide variety of the negotiation tactics they use with sellers effective from 63% to 85%.
• The #1 factor most separating Top Performers from The Rest is understanding the power and leverage held by each side in the negotiation.

What buyers want

• Only 1 in 5 buyers believe sellers deeply understand their ROI case.
• Only 19% of buyers strongly agree sellers provide ideas in the selling process.

Role of price

• Top Performers are 1.7x more likely to find coming in high on price and negotiating down a very effective approach vs. coming in at core price and holding firm.
• 88% of buyers receive a discount in the final agreement.
• 62% of buyers agree they have the flexibility to pay more if the supplier demonstrates why doing so is worth it.

Impact of training

• Buyers are 1.5x more likely than sellers to have received extremely effective negotiation training.
• Top Performers are 9.3x more likely to receive extremely effective negotiation training than The Rest.

“One in five sellers are Top Performers in Negotiation. There’s a lot of room for improvement. To achieve the greatest sales success, your team needs to know which tactics to expect and which strategies are actually going to work. If you’re getting beat up in negotiations, this report will give you the insights to turn it around,” shared Schultz.

To gain access to more data, register for the complimentary on-demand webinar The State of Sales Negotiation here: https://hubs.ly/H0mYZyS0

Purchase the full 81-page report, including graphs and analyst commentary, here: https://hubs.ly/H0mYZ1j0.