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Five sales negotiation tactics to use with procurement. You know, we often hear from our clients about the challenges they have these days negotiating with procurement and this is no surprise. Over the past few years, procurement departments have become more powerful, more sophisticated, and at times, they seem dead set on commoditizing every aspect of our solution. For sales professionals, negotiating with procurement is an ongoing struggle of dealing with third-party negotiators, blind RFPs, reverse auctions, commodity pricing, and hardball sales negotiation tactics. So, what can sales professionals do to avoid having their solutions commoditized? Let's dig a little deeper into the role of procurement and understand what they're trying to accomplish. They have a job to do. They're trying to do the best they can to protect the organization, to maximize the ROI, and to get the best deal possible. By understanding their objectives, we'll be in a better position to work with procurement to achieve a successful sales outcome. Here are five common negotiating tactics used by procurement and their business goals together with a corresponding counter tactic that you can use in response. The first procurement tactic is to deflect or discredit your value proposition. Procurement's goal is to attempt to discredit or decouple all the value you've worked so hard to build with the business unit buyer. Procurement's goal is to demystify your value proposition so that they can compare price among vendors. Procurement would like to focus on discrete units instead of the overall deal so that they can compare least common denominator pricing and get the best deal possible. So a counter tactic here is to build a stronger relationship with the business unit buyer in the first place, develop strong customer coaches, and present a compelling business case for your solution. Start early, sell wide, sell deep and within the business unit. The second procurement tactic is that they want to commoditize or control your response. Procurement would like to control every aspect of the sale so that they can avoid surprises and do an apples-to-apples comparison with your competition. The problem is, your apples are different. And you need to convince the business unit buyer of this in the first place or you will never get past the comparison spreadsheet. So a counter tactic is to employ a value-based selling approach that quantifies the overall value of your solution and presents a total solution that can't be dismantled into component prices or commoditized. Educate the business stakeholders and procurement on why your solution is different and restate your value proposition often. Third procurement tactic you may run into is to limit access to the business. As we discussed, procurement would like to control all aspects in the deal, including who you can speak to. They don't want to get surprised by a business unit leader making a business decision that undermines or supersedes the procurement process. Procurement hates surprises. So a counter tactic is to build a strong network within the business organization. Leverage inside and outside resources to help get the lay of the land before procurement puts a gag order on the vendors. If you're told you can't contact anyone outside of the RFP process, you have a business decision to make in terms of the risks and rewards of following those rules. Most business decision makers aren't aware of these rules and may not agree with them. If you find that you're responding to an RFP and you don't have any other business relationships within the organization, you should seriously consider your chances of success in this deal. Blind RFP responses seldom produce desirable results for the responding party. So another procurement tactic is to use past performance and history against you. Procurement would like to have as much ammunition as possible in their arsenal to use against vendors in an effort to drive down prices and negotiate a commodity deal. They're trained to research background information on each vendor to determine if there's any information that can and will be used against the vendor. So the counter tactic is to be proactive. Anticipate issues and concerns that may come up and have your responses prepared. Consider a pre-emptive strike to disclose negative information so that you are in control of the discussion. Return the focus of the sales negotiation to the deal at hand and the overall value proposition your solution is bringing to the business. Another tactic you may run into is the good cop - bad cop or the mystery decision makers. Procurement would like to keep the power and the leverage on their side and they can do this by presenting additional decision makers or hoops to jump through late in the process. This keeps the vendor guessing and vendors are then often forced to renegotiate the deal late in the game when the clock is ticking to get it done. So counter tactic is working hard during the discovery phase to determine who all the decision makers are and how the decision will be made. Map out a timeline for the decision process and ask the customer to respond to the schedule. This helps to highlight any additional steps that may need to be addressed and helps prepare you for what's ahead. If a bad cop is introduced late in the game, attempt to determine their position and interest and refer back to the agreement and decisions that have already been made with the good cop. Procurement wants to keep all of the vendors in the game as long as possible in order to provide leverage against the competition. So, remember that they want us there. We typically have more power in the situation than we may give ourselves credit for. These are a few examples of negotiation tactics commonly used by procurement. As a sales professional, you must be prepared to counter these tactics, primarily, by planning, leveraging your relationships, and reinforcing the shared interest and value proposition you've worked so hard to develop with your customer. Remember, you're selling a solution that will help your customer accomplish their business objectives. Don't let this get diminished or commoditized by an overzealous procurement department. Thank you.