Trade What is Inexpensive to You

Ideally we aim to trade what is inexpensive to us and what is valuable to the other side. We must know the cost to us of any concession we make. We should know which things we can offer or trade that cost very little to us but which could be of high value to our opposite number.

Think this through carefully. Ask yourself, 'If I give this, what obstacle does it overcome, how much would that save?' Ask, 'What opportunity does this create for them or their company, what financial benefit could that bring them?' 'What preference does this satisfy?' 'What problem does this solve?' We ask ourselves what is this worth to them in savings, in productivity, in financial terms. The more specific we can be about the gain to the other party, the more valuable what we have to trade will appear to them.

One tradeable we can build in, which can cost us very little, is some form of guarantee. Guarantees often have high perceived value to the other person and yet may well cost us nothing. Let me illustrate. The public seminars I run for the Marketing Guild have an unconditional money-back guarantee. If you are not totally satisfied with the value gained, we will refund your fees in full. In 15 years of training, fewer than 20 delegates have asked for their money back, so the guarantee has cost virtually nothing, but has high validity to a prospective delegate or host client company.

A variation of this technique was used by one of my associate companies, offering colour sales brochures. They would guarantee a minimum level of sales enquiries from these brochures, provided that they were used in a specific way with supporting documentation. They sold hundreds of brochures and telesales commissions. Not one company ever came back having failed to achieve the guaranteed result. But that was not the point; the point was that the guarantee had high perceived confidence and security value to the buyer. Was it low cost or low risk? Yes. In the unlikely event of any customer not achieving the promised levels of business, one of the company's many telesales staff would get on the phone for a few hours and generate the promised level of enquiries. As a side effect it was a marvellous way to back-sell the telesales operation.

Ask yourself what guarantees you could offer as part of your negotiation process - guarantees that are low cost and low risk to us, but high value to the other party. The technique applies equally when we are in buying mode. What can we guarantee as a buyer? For example; 'We are prepared to consider three years' repeat purchase subject to your company remaining competitive and your quality staying consistently at our Ship To Stock Standard. If we could agree to that, we would expect the following from you.' Remember, never give, always trade.

One of my associates was selling PC notebook computers to hotel chains on a 'roll-out' programme. At six to seven venues, these notebooks had to be delivered on the previous night, to the host hotel, configured in batches of eight to ten. The customer was negotiating hard on price. My associate used the guarantee as part of her concession trading: 'We can't adjust the price but what we can do is to have a technician at the hotel the previous night, taking responsibility for the security of the PCs. He will ensure that they are not only configured but in full running order so that from the first minute your salespeople can be trained. There will be a guarantee in this way of absolutely no error on the day - on condition that we get a signed agreement now.' The deal was agreed.