homes Picture this scene: it was about 20 years ago (ouch!) and I was still dating my wife when she suddenly had to replace her car. She knew exactly what she wanted: a Honda Civic with a manual transmission. There was a local Honda dealer near where she lived so one evening we went there to have a talk about buying a car.
The salesman that we talked with was the “older guy who reminds you of your uncle” variety. I had an opportunity to sit back and watch my soon-to-be-my-wife bargain with him over the price. She started low, he started high, and after a bit of back-and-forth, they were still fairly far apart. Now my bride-to-be had done her homework and had called a bank to find out how much this car was really worth (20 years ago = no real Internet). So she knew what the correct outcome of this sales negotiation needed to be.
juegos carreras The Negotiating Pizza
When I started talking with my friends about the house that they wanted to buy, I kicked off the conversation by asking them what they wanted to get out of the negotiations that they knew would be required. They said that price meant everything to them – they could only afford to spend so much money.
Dear reader, clearly we were starting off on the wrong foot. The problem is that my friends were looking at the negotiations for the house that they wanted as a pizza. Assuming that that pizza had been cut into 10 slices, they wanted to make sure that they came out of the negotiations with at least 6 pieces and not 4 pieces. This is not win-win negotiating.
In their quest to get the house that they wanted at the lowest possible price, my friends were approaching the negotiations as a contest – a contest that would have a clear winner and a clear loser . No wonder they were nervous!
real estate investing I didn’t know the name of this sales negotiation tactic at the time, but I do now. It’s called the “Escalating Authority” tactic. This tactic uses the need to have a deal approved by a reluctant higher authority in order to gain more concessions from the other side of the table.
This tactic is used by salespeople all the time. The reason that they use it is because it often works. Here’s what a salesperson can expect to get out of using the “Escalating Authority” tactic:
- Helps to lower the other side’s expectations.
- Causes the other side’s arguments to come out early instead of later.
- May cause conflict within the other side’s negotiating team.
- Causes the other side to state their negotiating demands earlier.
- Just physically wears the other side down.
- May end up lowering the self-confidence of the other side.
- Uses up the other side’s valuable time.
The party that this tactic is being used on is not without defenses. There are several counter measures that can be put in place in order to diminish or eliminate the effectiveness of this sales negotiation tactic:
- Match the other side: bring your higher level people to the table when they say that they need to go to their higher level people.
- Walk out.
- Bypass the other side of the table and go directly to their senior management.
- Manage the expectations of a quick resolution on your side of the table.
- Communicate to your side of the table what tactic is being used against you and let them know that one of its goals is to lower their expectations for the outcome of this sales negotiation.
- Don’t repeat yourself. Force the other side of the table to relay all that you have said to each higher level of their management.
In the end, the Escalating Authority tactic is a fairly crude negotiating tool that is used most often by amateur negotiators. It can be countered easily and effectively. Keep your eyes open and make sure that you spot it when someone starts to use it on you – the best Escalating Authority tacic defense is a good offense You can be published without charge. You can to republish this article in your website or blog. Please provide links Active.