"Remember the Nissan negotiation we talked about - it finally paid off with 2 new program/business awards and 1 follow-on award - nomination letters received. Total annual sales revenue is $5MM."

Account Manager Tier I

"Ed provided us with an action packed, fully interactive training program on customer negotiating. He was able to effectively engage our customer engineers and program managers and provide them with many takeaways that can be used immediately in our daily negotiations. Ed focused our Associates to: understand the Guiding Principles, apply techniques to manage the negotiation process, and to "think on our feet" to disarm argumentative situations. I have already seen our staff putting the training to use in their daily negotiations. It was time well spent for our team."

V.P. Engineering - major Tier II supplier

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Customer Negotiation Skills Training

Post Sourcing: Maintain Margin and Relationships with the Customer Negotiation Techniques
Delivery methods:
  • Instructor led on-line training
  • One-on-one coaching
  • National / annual associate meeting topics with break out sessions
  • Classroom instruction emphasizing technique practice with role-plays and case studies

At the conclusion of this customer negotiation techniques and skills training workshop personnel will be able to:

  1. Respond to a customer's request as if it is the first "move" in a negotiation
  2. Use effective negotiating tactics and gambits to achieve a Win-Win resolution
  3. Demonstrate emotionally intelligent behavior to reinforce mutual respect and mutual purpose with the customer
  4. Respond to "whipsawing" efforts by the sourcing personnel
  5. Use refocusing and reframing techniques to "think on your feet"
  6. Balance the needs of the customer with needs of the company
  7. Use questions and listening skills skills to acquire information on the positions, interests and options
  8. Respond where it is a "blame" game or irrational conflict
  9. Understand and identify power positions and how to increase power
  10. Know how and when to use negotiating tools of: tradeoffs, concessions, walkways
  11. Craft a strategy to enhance the relationship after the agreement
  12. Make them feel like they won
  13. Describe how they practiced using these negotiation techniques during a customized role-play exercise

You have been awarded the supplier sourcing contract and now your company's customer engineers, program manager,s and customer service representatives must keep the customer happy without "giving away the farm." This is not easy. The post-agreement associates are not as commercially focused as account or sales managers yet more and more costs and charges are being addressed in every part of the sourcing implementation. And negotiation with various customer types: product line managers, supply chain managers, program managers, commodity managers, technical managers, production engineers, release engineers etc. is difficult. They are savvy, educated and know the tactics and gambits of business negotiation. Their concept of vendor implementation is to have you make all the concessions at no additional cost. Effective customer negotiating skills requires preparation, customer insight, creativity, ability to "think on your feet", courage, persistence, and emotional control. Our customer negotiation skills process is designed for the business to business negotiation environment where long term relationships are important. The customer negotiation skills toolkit includes tools to prepare for the daily requests and a key performance indicator (KPI) measurement system to gauge just how well you are sharing the implementation and maintaining the relationship.