Deal negotiation

Most deals are lost or discounted before the negotiation starts, in the preparation that did not happen. By the time you are trading, your position is largely fixed.

Prepare three numbers and one alternative

• Your target — what a good outcome looks like, set before the conversation and not adjusted because it is late in the quarter.
• Your walk-away — the point below which no deal is better than this deal. Write it down in advance, because it will not survive being decided in the room.
• Your best alternative if this does not close. The strength of your position comes almost entirely from this, and a full pipeline is what makes a walk-away credible rather than a bluff.
• Their alternative, honestly assessed. A buyer with no other viable option and a deadline is in a weaker position than their behavior suggests, and a buyer who genuinely prefers a competitor is in a stronger one than yours.

Understand what they are actually optimizing for