Episode 122: Simple Frameworks to Improve Your Negotiation Skills with Saad A Saad

Hi, everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management. And to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits along the journey. We also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive year is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, stronger sales teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop superpowered sales teams. Speaking of superpowers, today we have Saad Saad on the line. He is a negotiation consultant and for me, great negotiators. They have superpowers. It is a skill that across the hundreds of salespeople that I've worked with over the last 12 months and the thousands and thousands that I've worked with over my career. Right. This is a skill that I find many salespeople have some difficulty in mastering. Not only because there's some real nous that goes in behind it, right. Some real learned skills, but there's also the fear of upsetting customers and perhaps losing deals because we may negotiate too hard or perhaps not hard enough. So Saad is a negotiation consultant. He's all about empowering sales professionals to close deals. Makes sense, but close them faster, win more business and protect margins. I think that's something that is really significantly underutilized, the importance of protecting our margins as sales teams. And he'll do all of this using science backed strategies. So I'm looking forward to speaking to Saad about that today. They are really punchy subjects and levers to pull of sales teams. So he's also an author. His book's called in the Lead A Practical Guide to Mastering Sales Negotiation. So we might hear a little bit about that today. But he's for me, I love the proof in the pudding. I love social proof. Saad's trained teams across lots of industries. He's taught negotiation at Columbia University, CUNY and Pace University. So there's a fair bit of skill and now so learn knowledge, as we call it, for Saad that he brings today. So Saad, welcome very much to the Stronger Sales Teams podcast. Before we get started, please Tell us a little bit how you got into the wonderful world of negotiation.

Ben, thank you for having me on. Thank you for the kind introduction. So I got into the world of negotiation just through life experience. I currently live in the United States, but I was born in Lebanon. And if you're familiar with Lebanon, Lebanon has a long history of conflicts. When I was 11 years old, my father decided to pick us up from Lebanon and immigrate to the United States. And in college I really just tried to make sense of, of that life experience. You know, why did that happen, what was going on? And why is this thing called conflict happening in other parts of the world? Graduated undergrad and said, you know what, I want to be able to do something about this. I want a practical skill. And that's what brought me to conflict resolution and negotiation. I studied that in graduate school and then after graduating ended up teaching at a university and now I do corporate training and do sales training and have written a book at negotiation. But that's the 32nd, very brief version of what brought me to the World cup negotiations.

Yeah. Wow. Look, to be frank, you had me in your early years. Having lived real life conflict, I think for me there's not really any substitute to that. If you grow up learning some skills, you often become a master in that skill when you hit your later years. So I'm sorry, there are some challenges there early, but I'm glad that you're here and now you're, you know, an expert in negotiation. So, so my episode last Week, it was 121. These episodes are moving fast. I spoke about AI and I worked through 10 topics and essentially said, you know what, AI is adopting or AI is changing these topics right now or AI is not quite getting there just yet. And negotiation for me was one where I said, in my opinion, it's helping us prepare for negotiations, but that's where it's stopping at the moment. And the best negotiations are being done human to human, where you can read people, where you can roll in empathy, where your EQ can really shine. And so today that's what we're going to talk about. What we're going to cover is that role in negotiation. I tend to do it about every 20 or 25 episodes or so because I think it is a vastly under covered topic. So let's start nice and broad. What does negotiation look like to you, Mr. Saad?

So oftentimes when I'm facilitating a session, I'll ask the question to the crew that I'm facilitating to at what Point. Does negotiating begin in your sales process? Oftentimes I'm training enterprise sales folks or people whose sales cycles is six months, 12 months longer. And typically the answer is negotiation starts later on, starts 70 or 80% of the way. And I ask people, why are you saying that? And they typically say, well, that's when procurement gets involved, or that's when they start to ask for concessions, or that's when I need to start conceding, so on and so forth. And people are thinking about negotiation in that way. They're myth defining it. Ben, there's a tendency for people to define negotiation as bargaining or haggling around deal terms and that's a misdefinition. The way I think about it is any outcome based conversation you are having with your buyer, any outcome based conversation you are having with your counterparty, that's a negotiation. It doesn't have to be around deal terms. Any conversation that you have with them, be it you're trying to get them to introduce you to a colleague of theirs, you're trying to get them to sit through a demo, you're trying to get them to give you some data or some information. Those are negotiations and you should structure those as negotiations so you start to condition your counterparty about sort of the rules of engagement, what kind of conversation and what kind of relationship you're going to have with them. So that's how I think about negotiation, broadly speaking.

Matt. Right, okay. So it's a process that starts from the very beginning. I think that's a message I've taken very early on. And it's not just about commercial terms, but it's about putting together some great outcomes. Well, let's talk about that. I've heard you talk about win, win versus best outcome. Now you could pause there for a moment and say, hang on, that sounds like the same thing, but I've heard some interesting perspectives from you that it's not. So please can you tell me your perspectives around that?

No, I think it's critically important. I think a lot of people miss the mark on this. Salespeople who work in organizations where they're playing client centered have this tendency to go into negotiations with the mentality that I'm going to try and find a win, win outcome for me and the other person. And when people go into negotiations with that mentality, what they tend to do is they tend to be less ambitious, they tend to compromise quicker, they tend to land on less creative outcomes, they tend to do too much accommodating and too much compromising. I Don't think this should be your North Star in negotiation. Wow. This does not suggest that you should go into negotiations and be hostile and be a bully and be adversarial and have sort of a win lose mentality. Fundamentally, I think your job in the negotiation to go in and pursue your most optimal outcome, which is a different goal than finding win win outcomes. And when you require of yourself to define your most optimal outcome, your ideal outcome that you're pursuing, it requires you to define what that is actually, how are you going to communicate it, how are you going to convey it? And it also requires you to put that relationship that you have with the other person in context. I think once you go into it with that mentality, you're much more likely to engage in the kind of behaviors that put the boundaries of the conversation with a little bit more or much more likely to give the incentive system for the other person to start thinking about, start thinking outside of the box and therefore, as a result, land on more creative outcomes or land on outcomes that aren't readily apparent when you start to jump into the conversation.

Okay, okay. So if we take that focus around best outcomes, what is an effective negotiation strategy that people listening can roll in as a framework almost for them look like?

Yeah, absolutely. And this may sound super simple and super straightforward, but oftentimes when you're caught in the heat of the deal and you're caught in the heel of all these back and forth conversations, internally and externally, one of the critical skills before getting into a negotiation with your counterparty is start to think to yourself in this next conversation, what should I achieve? What is my goal in that next conversation? That should be your most ambitious goal. And then you need to start thinking to yourself, how am I going to communicate and convey that to the other person? So these two things are identifying the most ambitious goal that you can secure, knowing how to communicate it and convey it, knowing how to support it, knowing how to justify it in a way that's going to be compelling. And then at some point, not to sort of simplify the model, but at some point you also need to engage obviously in empathy and active listening and trust building activities to get the other person involved meaningfully. I were to sort of put a brief metaphor or sort of a describe it. You need to engage in the kind of behavior where you lobby on behalf of your interest and what it is that you're trying to achieve. But simultaneously you still need to kind of engage the other person meaningfully in the conversation.

So I think there's three things You've referenced here. Number one is being prepared. So actually understand what your best outcome looks like. I talk about there's the seven Ps prior proper preparation prevents pretty poor performance. I think pretty often gets interchanged with a swear word. But we'll keep this pg. So there's the preparation piece, then there's being prepared to back up that preparation with some evidence. Right. This is the outcome we're looking for. And this is why I talk a lot to teams about having stories and statistics ready. Right. Stories help expand on what you're trying to say, but statistics will give some weight to the those numbers and essentially that's proof. And then the third piece is being prepared to listen. And I heard you say earlier that when you're prepared to listen it opens up more perhaps unthought of opportunities to negotiate and find great solutions. So I think yes, it's simple but I'm a huge fan of simple. I don't think negotiations need complexity. So for me I've worked a lot around the walk in fallback, walk away framework to negotiation. What do you think of that one and have you used it yourself before?

Yeah, it's a part of the conversation specifically relevant obviously to the deal terms conversation is to figure out what it is your multi ambitious goal is, what your target is, what your walkway is and all of these activities that you're doing before you get into the conversation. Ben, the way I think about them is they're really confidence building activities. They'll help you sort of stay on track, define what the playing field should look like and then engage in the conversation where you're much more likely able to drive it in the direction that you want it to go in and not be so reactive. Because when people get into negotiations and start becoming reactive or start getting pushback and negotiations are stress and anxiety inducing, they tend to fall off their game plan a little bit or they tend to shake their game plan and throw it out the window altogether, which isn't a good place to be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. So it gives you something to think about when you're in the meeting that you've pre prepared rather than having to be super agile and think on the spot because it can be certainly difficult to negotiate on the spot. Okay, great. Like it. Well, we mentioned AI earlier. Role of AI. Where do you think it's having an impact and where would you be encouraging people not to stray?

Yeah, it's funny that I was asked this question like a month ago and I, I candidly I didn't really have a good answer because I hadn't really taken the time to like really think about it. And I've been thinking about like buyers roles and negotiations versus sellers role in negotiations. And if I were to distill it, then the essence of what a buyer, a good buyer, a shrewd procurement person could do in that conversation is to test your result and then to identify a negotiation room and to kind of exploit that negotiation room. If I can use that kind of language for a seller, it's fundamentally to influence your perception of how much negotiation room there is. Those two things AI can't do, those two things, you know, testing somebody's resolve, influencing their perception of how much negotiation room there is. I think fundamentally those are things that a human being needs to do. Things like preparation. I agree with you 100% here. Help you figure out some of the questions that you need to ask or help you figure out a more complete picture of how you should be approaching these conversations. But I think at the end of the day, fundamentally a negotiation is a human to human endeavor because I think humans are superior at doing some of these things than AI, at least at this point. Who knows what will happen in the future?

Yeah, okay. Okay. So if you, by the way, I fundamentally agree with you, but if you were to use AI, where would you suggest people might get some benefit from it?

What I would typically suggest to people is perhaps thinking, okay, you have an idea of what it is that you're trying to achieve in that conversation. Perhaps you get into ChatGPT or whatever AI tool you're using. How could I convey that in that conversation in a way that's going to be concise, compelling, specific in a way that doesn't undermine what it is that I'm asking? What is the most compelling reason in which I can justify what it is that I'm asking for at this point? What might be the reason this person on the other side might oppose this thing? What are some concerns that they might have? What are some creative win win outcomes that I can come up with in this situation? Those are just some things that are immediately coming to mind in terms of preparation that can help you kind of get information on your side so you have a little bit more power, a little bit more confidence when you approach those kinds of conversations?

Okay, okay. So it's ascending your thought patterns and perhaps the, it's filling the tank with a little bit more fuel so that when you're in those conversations you've got some more perspective. Great, I like that. All right. Something that comes up a lot in negotiation for me is what do you do when things start to get either heated and look? I'd have to say that I think as time is rolling, there is certainly for me, I hear less reports around people standing up and tossing over desks or putting people in a chair and making them look into the sun, turning their head up into the room, all that type of stuff. But certainly there are plenty of times when negotiations reach a stalemate. They can be very unemotional, but you hit a stalemate and that's where conflict resolution, I think, becomes really important. What's your experience with teams or people who are really effective at managing through this?

There's a couple of things to break apart there. There's the conflict resolution piece, there's things get heated there. Reach a stalemate. Reaching a stalemate isn't necessarily a bad thing in certain situations, Ben. Salespeople have this tendency to want to secure a deal, even if that means securing a bad deal, because they have this perception that a bad deal is better than no deal altogether. And obviously that, you know, that doesn't make sense all the time. There are some deals that should reach a stalemate because at the end of the day, the terms that they're proposing may not work for you altogether. If you're saying yes to every deal that you come across, then you're probably doing too much accommodating, too much compromising in certain situations on the thing around when things get heated. I don't necessarily look at that as a bad thing. I think there should be some heat in the conversation. There's a quote in the beginning of my book, Ben. It's all. All polishing is done through friction. And fundamentally what I believe is that in with negotiations there should be some level of friction, There should be some level of tension. There could be some level of back and forth that makes people, salespeople uncomfortable. Because in the sales conversation what you try to do is to kind of remove friction altogether and try to make it as easy as possible. But in negotiation you actually want to introduce some friction because you want to make it difficult to bargain. And the gears that you use in a sales conversation I think are different in a negotiation there should be some level of tension. If there is, I think it's healthy. You don't want it to obviously get the sort of hostile, adversarial people throwing their desks and God knows what else people do out there. You don't want it to get to that stage. But a healthy amount I think is reasonable. Any reactions to that before I continue on there?

Oh, no. I was just thinking, in the negotiations, I've had two really serious negotiations. I've been thrown over a table once and I've had six men surround me in a room and one of them pull out a knife. So, yeah, they were the negotiations that I'm not super happy with. I lost both of those negotiations, by the way, but managed to walk away from the second one.

Those are not negotiations anymore, Ben. Those are. You do what I tell you or else.

Exactly. Right. Look, it's an interesting point around. I talk a lot about being easy to work with for sales teams. You want to be easy to work with, but at the same time, you need to be able to strike some deals that are going to work for your company. There's no point striking unprofitable deals. Otherwise you won't deliver because. Cause you won't have a business and customers are unhappy. So. And I'd love to hear a little bit more when you finished around as a salesperson or a sales leader, how you can equip yourself to better deal with the friction. But I think you had a little bit more to say on this topic before we talk about that.

Yeah. I think you should have the reputation as a negotiator, as somebody who has conviction and confidence in what it is that you're asking for. Somebody who believes in it, somebody who's prepped for it, somebody who believes in the value that you're delivering to your client. And you're willing to hold the line at that. If you leave the sort of impression on the other side that, you know, anything I put out there, I'm willing to concede from it. I'm really flexible. I'm willing to meet you at wherever you want to meet. I think you lose some credibility. I think you lose a little bit of respect, and I think you undermine the perceived value of your offering altogether. That's the kind of healthy friction and tension that I think is necessary that I'm kind of aiming for. Obviously not this sort of competitive. I don't know what the right word for it is, but I hope you see where I'm going with it.

I think I'm hearing the competitive win at all costs or the competitive get the deal at all costs is probably more relevant. Exactly. Okay, so if you're. If you're having to deal with this friction as a salesperson, any advice on how you can prep yourself to best deal with that friction when it comes up?

Absolutely. So one easy way to kind of reduce the friction from the other side, if you want them to kind of come back down to earth and kind of hear you out, is to really begin to practice empathy and fundamentally what that looks like in the context of these conversations. The practical skills that we typically encourage are asking questions and paraphrasing and really actively listening to the other side. Really what you're trying to get the other side to do is to be left with the impression that you're hearing them out, that you understand the core root of their concern. Things of that nature tend to reduce the tension or bring down the heat just a little bit. So the other side is left with the impression that, hey, this person isn't just in it for themselves, but they're also curious about what I got going on, curious about what it is that I'm trying to achieve. Mind you, if that's the other person in the conversation is negotiating in good faith and they're just frustrated for whatever reason, and you just kind of want to bring them down to earth so you can have a good logical back and forth. I will say in certain scenarios, some people blow up it for whatever reason as sort of a tool, and there's actually some research on this, that expressions of anger are effective at getting your counterparty to concede. So I would just be careful of that. Again, depending on the kind of situation that you're in and what kind of relationship that you have with the other person.

Yeah, yeah. And I think you're talking about here about ensuring people feel heard. It's that baseball model of handling conflict. You repeat back what they've said to you so that they acknowledge you've got it. Yeah, cool. Okay, great. So let's look at it the other way. Right. If you're looking to introduce some tension yourself, that is, you're not getting a deal over the line that's going to be good enough for your business to say yes to. How would you handle that as a salesperson?

Absolutely. So one of the things I always encourage people to do is to make sure that what it is that they're trying to achieve, that they're communicating it in such a way doesn't undermine their ask. People have this tendency in negotiation to want to come off nice, come off reasonable. So what they tend to do is they tend to like, ouch the thing that they're asking, or they tend to be super passive about it, tend to use all this passive language, tend not to use strong language, tend to over justify themselves, and as a result, the other side is left with the impression there's room for negotiation. So first thing I encourage is figure out what it is that you're trying to achieve. Be ready to communicate it and convey it in strong, specific, concise language. That's the first part. And then just kind of hang tight. You don't know if they're going to object. You don't know how they're going to object. See how they respond. And before you start to convey flexibility, before you start to kind of give them the floor, before you start to really engage in their concerns, you need to be able to hold the line at what it is that you're asking, meaning you need to be ready to support it and to justify it and to convey with compelling language and compelling reasons for why they should meet you there. If you're too flexible too quickly, if you accommodate too quickly, then it's not likely you've utilized enough pension in the conversation. It's not likely that they're going to take that thing that you are lobbying on behalf of seriously. And as a result, it's likely that you're going to end up doing more accommodating than you ideally want to in the conversation.

I think something in there is as impactful as any point that you've made or I've spoken through today. And that is. And I'm going to just go to the left a little bit here. As salespeople, my experience is that we tend to back ourselves in conversations, that we can work through turbulence or uncertainty or perhaps when things aren't going our way. Right. And we do that because essentially we are trained at building relationships and we are trained at influencing. When it comes to negotiation, my strongest advice to salespeople is do the preparation so that when you have a point to make, you can roll out the support of that point in a compelling manner, which is what you talk about in a way that can resonate and land on the other side of the table so that it has some weight. Because if you're always just relying on your natural ability, then you're going to be that athlete who has all the talent but never quite makes it. So I think that's a really good point to end on. Do your preparation work, salespeople when it comes into a negotiation? So, Saad, before we leave, those who are listening and want to know a little bit more about you, where can they find you?

Thank you so much for the conversation, Ben. Appreciate the back and forth and appreciate your question. Listeners find this insightful. If you're interested in learning a little bit more about my work, my Book in the lead Mastering your sales negotiation is on Amazon. So if you go on Amazon search in the lead, my last name or first name Saad book will come up immediately. I'm also on LinkedIn if you go to LinkedIn.com SodaSad that's my LinkedIn profile. Happy to connect on there as well.

Awesome. Perfect. Yeah. I think for me learning more about negotiation is a skill that's never wasted, so I'd really encourage it. Okay, before we go today I have a special call out. I had some feedback from some listeners of the podcast and they said, gee, I like listening to Ben and his calming voice and that made my day when I heard that feedback. So I'm giving a shout out to Rosie and Scarlett who are going to be listening. I know they'll be listening to that. Thank you for the compliment. They're rare from the two of you but I will take them whenever they come. So Rosie and Scarlett, I hope you enjoyed it and enjoy the rest of your day and for everyone else, same too. Enjoy the rest of your days and keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now. Want to be kept up to date with any of our free materials to help you build the best sales teams possible? Well, the easiest way you can do so is to follow us on your favourite social media channel. We're ongerngasalesteams on most of them and if you DM us stronger, we'll send you right back some great resources to help you build your super powered sales team. If you'd like a little more help, please get in touch directly and book a free discovery call with me. I run a limited number of videos these sessions and they're free for my podcast listeners. I'd love to help you out. Until then, see you next week for another podcast of stronger sales team.