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We all know that power is an important part of any sales negotiation – who ever has the most power is in the best position to get more of what they want out of the negotiations. However, do you know how to check your power before you enter into a negotiation? I know the questions that you need to ask yourself before you start and I’m going to tell you what they are…

Can We Talk About Rules?
Nobody enters into a negotiation without having some rules (or regulations) that restrict what they can or cannot do. This impacts both sides of the table and it means that you have two pieces of homework that you need to be before starting a negotiation.

The first thing that you have to find out is what rules you will be operating under. You might think that you know what your restrictions are, but it’s always a good idea to check with the folks that you’ll be negotiating for and make sure that you know all of rules.

Secondly, you’ll want to spend some time and try to find out just exactly what the rules that the other side of the table will have to live with. There are always some restrictions on what they can and cannot do. If you can uncover what these are simply by doing some homework, then you’ll start the negotiations with more power than the other side has.

What Is Your Level Of Commitment?
There is a fable about a pig and a chicken and their various levels of involvement in creating a breakfast meal: the chicken is partially committed (egg); however, the pig is fully committed (bacon). The same question needs to be asked about the two sides of a negotiation: just how committed are you?

Ultimately the answer to this question often comes down to how much of an impact the outcome of the negotiation is going to have on you. If you are going to lose your job if you don’t get a good deal, then you will be fully committed to making the negotiations successful. However, if this deal is just a “nice to have” deal for your company, then you’re not going to be all that motivated to reach a deal.

Risky Business
Making commitments and compromises as a part of a sales negotiation involves taking on some level of risk. This can be a big deal for both sides of the table.

Before you start a negotiation, you need to determine just exactly what your level of risk tolerance is going to be. Put another way, how much are you willing to lose?

The same question needs to be asked about the other side of the table. What is their current situation? Just how far are they going to be willing to go in order to make a deal happen?

What All Of This Means For You
The source of a good outcome in a sales negotiation is making sure that you have enough power on your side when you enter into the negotiation. In order to do that, you’ve got some questions that need to be answered.

Finding out what rules are governing both side of the table will be key to understanding how the negotiation is going to turn out. Doing some homework and finding out levels of commitment and risk tolerance will also provide you with more power.

Take the time to check on your sources of power before you start your next sales negotiation and you’ll ensure that you don’t run out of power half-way through the negotiation…!

Have you ever been hypnotised? You may not know it yet, but even if you think you’ve never been hypnotised it possibly happened whilst you were at work.

You may find this story of a coincidence enlightening.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a group hypnosis session. It turns out I’m not particularly susceptible to hypnosis but after 20 minutes we were given a suggestion that we couldn’t move our arms. I wanted to prove I wasn’t hypnotised; I knew I could move if I really wanted to, but, somehow just didn’t drum up the energy to move – it was far too comfortable lying there without moving and I was effectively paralysed. This is apparently quite a normal experience of hypnosis.

Last week I found myself behaving in the same way but this time I hadn’t willingly or knowingly been hypnotised – and it wasn’t the intention of the ‘hypnotist’ either. At an economic forum update the room was comfortably warm, the seats were deep, the lights were dimmed for the slides and the speaker was familiar with his material.

After about 30 minutes he asked for questions. Nobody volunteered, so the facilitator asked some questions of the ‘expert panel’. One of them made a very interesting point with which I agreed wholeheartedly and wanted to voice my agreement, but I couldn’t rouse myself to say or do anything; I felt paralysed. And then I realised it was exactly the same physical and mental state as when I’d been hypnotised.

The conditions for this, and many presentations, are similar to those deliberately chosen for the hypnosis session; muted lighting, comfortable warm surroundings, lots of other people being still, and a voice talking to us.

And, on reflection, how often do speakers experience difficulty in getting the audience to actively participate or ask questions at the end of a presentation – are we regularly in a state of light hypnosis?

In a hypnotic state we absorb information quite effectively so this is one way way to present information to people. But a key feature of hypnosis is that the critical faculties are turned off – they stop evaluating what they see, hear or feel.

So if you need people to actively absorb information you present, and particularly if you want them to consider it, challenge it or engage with it, presenting it through the power of hypnosis is not the most effective way of doing it.

But that’s exactly what many, many presentations do.

Do you ever find that people said they were interested in your ideas before your presentation but then it’s really hard to get them to respond once you’ve got started; or you’ve told a group that you’d really like this to be interactive and they are to ask questions and then feel frustrated when nobody asks any. Even more frustrating is the experience when you’ve asked for a decision and then find people seem to be going against it when they are back in the office?

Then perhaps you may want to consider what state they are in when you present the information to them. Perhaps they are literally in no fit state to critically evaluate the information they’ve been given and respond. They can only do that when they’ve been reawakened by walking back to the office – by which time it may be too late.

So have you ever been hypnotised? Have you ever been a hypnotist yourself?