5 Things You Should Never Say While Negotiating With Client

As an entrepreneur, you want your business to grow. In this process, you have to try to close as many deals with the clients and maintain a healthy relationship with them.
 

In sales, negotiating becomes one of the most important elements of closing deals. Negotiating is a delicate act of balancing. You have to keep a track of various things when you negotiate with your client.
 

On one hand, you have to help your client and come up with a solution for them, on the other hand, you have to keep your organization’s interests in mind.
 

By the time your reach the negotiating phase of sales, you and your customer both have a common goal in the mind, getting your company’s product or service onto their hands. You have to make sure while negotiating that you do not end up in a fight with your customer and spoil your situation.
 

Negotiating isn’t a battle with the customer, but you can still win and be able to give your voice an upper hand.
 

As negotiation involves multiple parties into say, you need to cautious with your words. Avoiding problematic words and phrases is a must if you want your chances of a successful outcome.
 

Here are 5 things that you should never say while negotiating with your client:
 

You might consider saying that you are the one who has the final say in the negotiating process and think that it shows your strength. But it is the opposite. Telling the customer that you are the ultimate approver, even if you are is not a sign of strength and might leave a negative impression on them.
 

According to Mike Hoffman,

you do not want customers to know that you are the final decision maker in a negotiating process especially when you get cornered as the conversation develops.
 

Image Source: Slideshare
 

Sometimes you need time to review the complete negotiating process especially when you have already made many concessions.
 

In such cases when you want to think whether or not these terms truly acceptable to your company, you might need to run the negotiating request by another stakeholder. This will give you the time to deliberately think about the entire negotiation from both the customer’s as well as the company’s perspectives.
 

Always try to establish in the middle of a negotiation that there is some higher authority with whom you want to speak to before saying yes.
 

Market researchers believe that you should never be the first person to quote a price in a negotiation process. It is advisable to let the other side start the bidding process so that they get to show their hands and you know what they actually have up their sleeves. This puts you in a position of advantage.
 

But market research also indicates that the result of any negotiation is quite often closer to the proposition of the first mover that to the number the other party might have in their minds. The first number uttered in the negotiation does the task of anchoring a conversation.
 

Asking the customer or the client to throw a final number is like giving them the entire control and not taking time whether this would suit your company’s policies or not.
 

Image Source: BusinessDictionary.com
 

Using ‘between’ in the conversation for negotiation with your customer might seem tempting but it has adverse impact on your business.
 

When you provide a range of prices to the customer, consider for example, “I can do this for you between $1000-$1500”, you are simply drawing the customer towards the lower end of the range. Any negotiator that you deal with this way is bound to zero on the cheaper price.
 

The lower price anchors your prospect’s perception of your product’s worth. There is a chance that they must have thought of $1500 price but as soon as you quote $1000, the higher number may seem too much for them.
 

So, if you are using between in your negotiations, without extracting anything in return you are simply grounding a price for your product.
 

Once in awhile, every business finds itself in a pressure to close a certain number of deals in a limited time. But if you tell this to your customer and admit that you need to close this deal today instead of tomorrow or next week, your customer is bound to have an upper hand in the negotiating process.
 

If you are revealing the urgency to seal a deal to your prospect, you are telling them directly that they need not concede as much as they could have, otherwise. This way the client knows that you are in a desperate position to finalize the contract, so they might also try to sneak in some extra services for free or ask for further concessions.
 

The key is to turn up the heat without letting the client know that you need to get the contract inked urgently.
 

Negotiation requires patience and if you’re expecting things to happen rapidly, then it is time you must reconsider things. Assuring your prospect that the conversation is going to be easy and quick will rather put them in an uneasy and uncomfortable situation.
 

If you give them a sense that they are running out of time, they will make conservative choices instead of thinking from a wider perspective. However, things are bound to work out in a great manner if you tell them that there is plenty of time to discuss things.
 

Image Source: Emaze
 

Negotiating and coming to an intermediate solution might not happen all at once. You need to be patient and understand the customer’s perspective.
 

At the same time, you need to keep your company’s interests in mind. The key is to try and resolve the difference between you and the customer in a caring manner.
 

Try to be creative and focus on helping the customer so that they feel that you made a difference to them instead of simply hardcore selling your product.