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When I was doing home parties, I kept my catalogs out of sight until the shopping portion at the end of the evening. It increased my sales and made it easier to hold the attention of my guests during my parties. When I train this concept now, often times I’ll get the protest that guests need the catalogs because they need to be able to see the items that the representative doesn’t have with them as a part of their display. That’s when I counter with this question:

“Have you ever read to a group of 1st graders?”

You know how, after you read the words, you turn the book around and slowly move it from right to left so everyone of their sweet little faces can see the pictures? If so, you know how to use your catalog during your presentation. Not by handing them out and having your guest’s noses in them all night, but by talking about the items on the page and then showing them the pictures and having them write down the page number on their wish list for closer inspection later on when you do give them a catalog.

Why should it matter if they have a catalog during your presentation (besides the aforementioned lack of attention on you)? Well, consider this: if your guests have a catalog in their lap throughout your presentation, they feel confident that they’ll remember what they like when it’s time to order. Chances are, there are dozens of pages and hundreds of items in your catalog, so remembering what they specifically like at the end of your party isn’t as easy as it might seem.

Consider giving your guests a wish list instead of a catalog at the beginning of your parties. This idea might seem strange, but let me explain. A wish list is simply a place for them to write down anything they like. They’re not committed to buy anything they write down, they’re just keeping track. If all they have is a wish list, which is simply a list with spaces to write down the names, catalog page numbers and prices of what they like, they’ll be keeping track, as you go through your party, of the items they like most (because without a catalog, they’re afraid they’ll forget what they like, so they are more likely to write it down).

More importantly, this tool is like having a window into their brains, because as you sit down to support them with placing their order, you can look and see exactly what they liked. Can you see how this might support you in getting not only bigger orders, but bookings as well? (“Wow, Brenda, you have ten items on your wish list. I don’t want you to have to pay for all these items! Let’s do a party so you can earn some of this for free!”)

There’s no way you can have this conversation if all they’re using is a catalog. Get it? So wait until the end of your party (when you know they’re ready to shop) and then hand out the catalogs. And use your catalogs just like a copy of “Green Eggs and Ham” in front of a room of 1st graders.

If you were the coach of a football team, you wouldn’t go into your next game without a strategy for winning would you? Then why would you ever consider starting a sales negotiation without having a strategy for getting the deal that you want to get?

Issues = Strategy
Before you can even start to create a strategy for your next sales negotiation, you’re going to have do some homework first – sorry about that. Where you want to get to is defined by the issues that you need to deal with.

Not all issues are created the same and not all issues need to contribute to your strategy. This is a point that can confuse some negotiators. You’ll never get your way on everything so you need to prioritize the issues and determine which ones are key to where you want to go in the future. Issues bigger than just this negotiation should help you to make these types of decisions.

Rank ‘Em & Yank ‘Em
Knowing the issues is the starting point, but prioritizing them is the next step. As with all such things in life, it’s not a matter of “important” and “unimportant” issues.

Instead, negotiating issues can generally be classified into three groups: musts, gives, and don’t-cares. The musts are the ones that will form the basis of your sales negotiating strategy. The gives and the don’t-cares will be the tools that your strategy will use to get you to the deal that you are looking for.

Where To Start?
Knowing what the issues are and just how important each of them is to you is where you need to start. The next step that you need to take is to make a decision on what starting position you want to take on each issue.

It’s not so much how you feel about the issue that will guide you here, but rather how you feel that the other side of the table thinks about it. Your starting position should be either closer or farther from their position depending on just how much time you want to spend on the issue and how important it is to you.

Got A Fallback Plan?
One of the reasons that people are attracted to the world of sales negotiating is because by its very nature, it’s dynamic – things are always changing. This includes your strategy: it’s going to have to change during the negotiation.

Realizing this, you’re going to have to come up with one or more fallback plans. The fallback plan will come into play as you move from your starting position on the issues to where you want to end up. The path that you take may not always be the one that you expected and so a fallback plan is needed.

Seeing The Future
Any good sales negotiating strategy has to have an end game. You’ve got to shut your eyes and picture how you think that the future will turn out.

Of the issues that will be negotiated, which ones do you think that the other side will be willing to settle first? Which one will come next? How about after that?

As issues get resolved, the negotiations can become more difficult – you’ll have fewer cards left to play. Your negotiating strategy needs to have a plan for in which order you want the issues to be resolved so that you can walk away with the best deal possible for you.

What All Of This Means For You
To get to where you want to go, you need to have a strategy that tells you what you’ll do at each step along the way. The quality of the outcome of your next sales negotiation may very well rest on the quality of your negotiation strategy.

A good sales negotiation strategy starts with having a good understanding of the issues that will be negotiated. It then builds on this by prioritizing the issues, creating a starting position for each one along with a fallback plan, and finally determining in which order you want to resolve the issues.

Taking the time before your next sales negotiation starts to study the issues and create a solid strategy will pay huge dividends. Having a good strategy is what sets the great sales negotiators apart from everyone else.