Here is what sales people don't want you to know. I will be sharing with you the easy bulletproof 4 steps you can take in a negotiation process in order to be able to stand your own in any negotiation, where you want to get the best out of the deal that you can get!
Through my years of practice, I have been involved in hundreds of negotiations, with a crushing majority of a favorable outcome for myself, both as a sales person, and as a customer. There are also very skillful tactics that you can use to get the best out of a negotiation, but we will leave the more "advanced tactics" for a later discussion. Here are the simple 4 easy to do steps in getting the most out of any negotiation you are in, whether you are a customer or the seller.
Step 1: TALK LESS - Yes, you heard it right. Talk less ! By talking less, you are giving the illusion that you are not all sold for the transaction. This means that the person who reads that off you, will put in more effort in trying to get you to engage more in the discussion, and that usually happens when concessions start to take place (i.e. giving you something to start off with) Also, by talking more, you allow the other person to reveal their cards to you, much earlier than if you were having a chatty happy conversation about nothing and everything.
Step 2: DO YOUR HOMEWORK - Just like when we were little. Don't show up to negotiate for a product or service without knowing the in and outs, the market, and the important technicalities of the deal. In today's world, customers who are well informed, usually out beat the sales people in terms of knowledge, and that puts them in the driver's seat while negotiating. You do this by asking them certain specific questions, and then throw little bursts of information that would shake them off balance.
Step 3: SUMMARIZE THE OTHER PERSON'S POINT OF VIEW - When the other person presents their pitch, argument, or opinion to you, best thing to do is to repeat it back to them. This is to create a sense of understanding between the two of you, that you actually listened, and understood what was being said. Then lay out your terms and politely ask them if they can see it from your perspective, as you did with them earlier. This is playing on emotional empathy, and if you can achieve that, the sales person could well try to go the extra mile in assisting to close the deal, closer to your terms.
Step 4: BE READY TO WALK AWAY - The most important step, is being ready to walk away. This has to do with your mental state, and willingness or not, to accept any deal presented to you. If you see that you cannot get the deal the way you pictured it, or at least close to that, be ready to walkaway. Here is a little secret.... This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the sales person, who wants to make a sale, and also having to explain to their boss why they let a customer walk away !
Negotiating for anything, is like a tug of war game. The deal is in the middle of the rope, and you are pulling one end, and the other person pulling the other end of the rope. Your goal in a negotiation however, is not to pull it all the way to your side, Pulling it just enough though, so that it's as close to you as possible, that would be considered a successful negotiation.