Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value

by Reed K. Holden

Sales professionals now confront the most serious threat to their success. Regardless of their size, industry, country, customer type, nature of the relationship or amount of value they provide, sales professionals are finding that purchasing decisions are increasingly being limited by procurement. The modern procurement function is purchasing on steroids. Where traditional purchasing managers negotiated, procurement officials attempt to dictate. Procurement deploys a variety of tactics designed to do one thing: gain unprecedented discounts and concessions out of even the most sophisticated sales professionals. This book is a strategy guide for salespeople to help them level the procurement playing field by showing readers how to assess the game procurement plays, describing proven ways to resist discounting and protect margins, demonstrating ways to keep value at the forefront of negotiations, offering targeted tactics to protect hard-earned profits from mindless discounting, and detailing eight strategies effective in any type of pricing negotiation. This book will be an invaluable resource for B2B sales professionals, customer-facing professionals, and executives responsible for leading successful sales organizations.

Genres: Business, Self Help

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2012

Reviews

[Alain Burrese · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Negotiating With Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies To Defend Your Price And Value” by Reed K. Holden is a very good book for those in procurement. The negotiating strategies presented in this text focus on the selling model that the author teaches. It is a very good model for those working in this field.

The first part of the book contains four chapters that focus on the tricks procurement people or economic buyers use to get lower prices and how to mitigate the damage of those negotiations. These chapters address tough selling and how that is the new normal, the tells of the game, stacking the deck in your favor, and getting tactics right the first time.

Part two describes step-by-step negotiating scenarios using winning responses for each of the four buyer types. These include: negotiating with price buyers, relationship buyers, value buyers, and poker players.

All of these chapters contain plenty of examples and suggestions for before the negotiations, during the negotiations, and after the negotiations.

Part three, It's a Negotiation, Not a Surrender, focuses on attempts to rationalize a position because you want to close a deal. The chapters include Beware the Signs of a Losing Game and the Realities of the Game. They provide a good finishing touch on this book aimed at procurement professionals and anyone else in the sales game. I'd highly recommend the book for anyone in sales or sales management. Also recommended for anyone who wants to study all aspects of negotiation.

[Gaby Cruz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es un gran libro, el autor te guía desde la perspectiva del vendedor pero también te abre la puerta a explorar los tipos de compradores qué hay, y a entender cómo estás parado vs la competencia y bajo el criterio de tus clientes.

Te anima a experimentar tácticas según cada comprador y realmente inspira a querer vender mejor tus productos y conocer el valor de tu marca.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on negotiation from the salesman perspective. Having a credible relationship with the decision maker is the key to winning the business. If you can't figure out the game, you are probably the pansy.

[Clint WalkingStick ᎤᏓᎸᏄᏍᏘ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meaty.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is geared toward the b2b salesman and has a wealth of tactics and qualifications to add to your toolbox in today's negotiations. Reed does a good job of injecting personal experience into the lessons helping to ground the tactics into your memory. My strongest criticism is that at times he seems to drag on or repeat himself a little too much. I do think that if you are a b2b salesman that wants to improve your sales conversion and your impact on the profit margin, this book is worth the time.

[Sam Motes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not since reading Spin Selling by Rackham have I felt so engaged to the selling tactics used by software and hardware vendors. Obviously Hold's book isn't about the IT industry but so much of the content rang true in vendor engagements I have worked with. A great read but I felt like I had snuck into the huddle of the other team since he was extolling tactics used against me as I have set on the other side of the table and saw the poker playing and rabbit engagement. Great book for Manager's engaged In vendor management and contract negotiations.

[Gerhard Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best sales and negotiations book I have ever read. Most sales books on the market a full of common sense and a lot of non sense. Not this book! On a not so positive note I found it puzzling how someone like Holden so well versed in value insights can think in terms of zero-sum games. The analogy of sales being a game and using poker as an example was distracting in the book. Sales and negotiating is a profession, not like Las Vegas casinos. Still 5 starts

[Robert Collier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great practical advice in being an effective salesperson in the ever changing world.