Negotiation skills – the considered response technique

I’m just back from running a Negotiations workshop in New York, and once again I am brim full of ideas of what works well and not so well when in a Negotiation. The fact that I captured everything on video this time and have been reviewing these today prompted me to Blog on the benefits of slowing things down when negotiating.  My experience of working with recruiters is that they tend to go at most things full tilt, and this can lead to missed opportunities and more of an arm wrestle than it need be.

One of the people on my course last week was a very direct, to the point, “in a hurry” sort of sales guy, and he was negotiating with me over advertising rates. We had a fairly strenuous arm wrestle for about 10 minutes and he walked away having left all sorts of longer term options on the table and missed the opportunity for a long term relationship.

Then one of his colleagues demonstrated a very different approach:

Structuring Sales – Part 2

Last week we looked at the first 3 points within the 7 points sales plan. This structure can be utilised for both client meetings and individual sales calls. It’s for a conversation where you wish to present solutions to your customers’ needs – in other words ‘sell’ to them.

Points 4 – 7 of the 7 point sales plan:

Structuring Sales – Part 1

Last week we looked at communication within sales. This week I want to write about why it’s so important to plan your sales and have a structure to what you do.

One of the key competencies that a recruitment consultant should have is planning. Having worked with a few thousand consultants in my career, I can confidently say that the difference between a good consultant and a great one is planning. Top consultants plan their day, week, month, quarters and year. They plan their sales strategies, their candidate care plans, their targets, goals and objectives,  their client meetings, their sales calls and above all ‘themselves’… I could go on!

The following structure can be utilised for both client meetings and individual sales calls. It’s for a conversation where you wish to present solutions to your customers’ needs – in other words ‘sell’ to them. The reason that it resonated with me and I still use it today is that it doesn’t feel salesy. I can’t stand pushy sales people who don’t listen to what you say and just assume they have what you need.  With this sales structure, you won’t be accused of doing that. In part 1 we will go through the first 3 points.

Task 8 – Paris – “I drew a teapot with a light in it!”

Well if that’s going to be your contribution to a task over 2 days, then not surprisingly you’re going to be back in the boardroom!

I can’t believe that we’re already 8 tasks in. There’s only 8 contestants left and Tom is, unsurprisingly, the Team Leader / Project Manager (TL) for this task. Let’s hope Logic can gain another win for him. His team are Natasha, Leon and Melody. Venture will have to decide their manager and in the team are Helen, Suzy, Jim and Zoe.

This week they have to travel abroad to Paris and sell British products to the French. Suzy immediately puts herself forward as TL, but then admits she doesn’t know anything about the French! She does prove this later on. I’m still in a bit of a French mood this week after having a birthday dinner at Le Gavroche (Michel Roux Jnr.’s restaurant) last weekend. I would have loved to do this task – what an opportunity.

As usual, Lord Sugar has set them up with an appointment with a leading retailer, but they have to source and sell to as many more as they can find. Half the team set off immediately to do research and the other half stay behind to decide on what their two products will be.

The research seemed totally flawed to me. Asking people in a train station about whether a car booster seat is something they’d use would logically skew the figures. These people use public transport, that’s why they’re there!

Tip 1 – Honest research. When you are looking to either start a new business or if you are looking to increase your current market share – do your research. Find out who is likely to require your product and why they would be interested, but make sure that when you are asking questions, you don’t just ask 4 people as Melody admitted to later in the programme!

It’s at this point that Suzy shows her age and naivety

Task 7 – “How do you blow your load!”

Freemium Magazine Launch

It’s week 6 and task 7 with 9 contenders left. This week they had to design and pitch a new ‘Free Premium’ (Freemium) Magazine to media buyers.

Lord Sugar stands way above the teams at the old site of Rupert Murdoch’s empire in Fleet Street, making them look up to him… like a god?! They have to pitch their created magazine to 3 of the biggest media buyers in the country. Whichever team sells the most advertising space, wins.

They get shuffled around again with Jim heading to Venture and Leonto Logic. Lord Sugar chooses the team leaders of Jim for Venture and Natasha for Logic. This means that ‘Lucky Charm’ Helen is still on the Logic team and will she be able to make it two in a row for them and her 7^th win?

The initial task is to decide at which target audience they are going to focus their ‘Freemium’ (it seems wrong adding that into my dictionary so it doesn’t keep getting highlighted!). Helen is straight in there with the first relevant comment “What is going to appeal to the advertisers target market?”

Tip 1 – Know your audience.

“So I’m not an idiot!” Task 6 – Rubbish removal

Who knew there was so much money in waste? I remember working in Kent in the early 90s and supplying staff to a company called ‘Aylesford Newsprint’. They’d been going for less than ten years and when I went on site to find out more about them, my thoughts were “Well, it’s business for now, but they’re not going to last long!”. Ha, little did I know and that same company now produces 1% of the world’s paper for newsprint. Yes, you read that right… the world!

I was coaching in Hatton Garden yesterday, the heart of the jewellery district and as I’m walking down Hatton Wall, I walk pass the company below.

It seems as though even the gold market diversifies. Who knew there was a specialist in ‘dental’ wastes (I don’t want to guess what’s recyclable!).

So this week’s task was to become waste removal experts in 2 days. Collect junk, dispose of it and make money. I think that we can all agree, by the end of the programme, we had a bit more respect for the people in this industry – hard grafting as well as savvy business strategies and fantastic negotiating skills. Just like recruitment.

Task 5 – “Is it brains or bollocks?!”

I was away last week and I’ve finally caught up with The Apprentice. I had to give Lord Sugar the quote of the week when he brazenly asked Jim whether he was “brains or bollocks?” Classic.

So it was the week that the teams had to create the adverts. Love this task. Was it going to be 5 failures in a row for Logic? Vincent headed them up as TL (so it’s likely then!) and Glenn got to be TL for Venture.

The task was to make and brand their own unique pet food, create an advertising campaign and pitch it to the experts. If you have had a training course with me, then you’ll know of my love for dogs – here are my two boys and they would have been perfect for the Logic campaign!

To catch up on this task I’m just going to pull out the key learning points in relation to the recruitment industry.

Point 1 – Brainstorming

A brainstorming session should be about creativity. There is no wrong answer

“We can do two things for you today. We can get you naked…!”

Task 4 – Beauty Products

We’re into week 3 now and task 4 for the remaining 13 contestants. The task this week was to sell beauty products.

The cars arrive early morning to take the teams to theBritishMuseum. They stand in front of the statue of Aphrodite (Goddess of Love and Beauty). The aim? To set up their own beauty treatment service. Lord Sugar has lined up several beauty companies for them to choose 2 of their products to sell and 2 treatments to perform on customers. Can’t see this going wrong, can you?!

Now although he said “You’re going to be professionally trained…”, he followed this with “…and tomorrow you’re going to start selling to the public”.  Katie Piper on twitter wrote “As a former beauty therapist this is all wrong wrong wrong “. Couldn’t agree more Katie.

Birmingham was the place where all of this was going to happen as ‘London is already a saturated market’. First key point of the programme just 2 minutes in.

When you are looking to set up a new business or even to increase your current business, a lot of people look to where the market is the busiest and think “Well if they’ve got profits there, then I can make profits there”. There are occasions where this will work – I’m thinking of coffee shops in major thoroughfares and places of work, but even then there will be a saturation point based on the population.

Look at where your service is required and then

“He wouldn’t even take a penny off… not a penny!”

Task 3 – Discount buying for the Savoy

Well it seems as if the blog went down really well with people last week, so thank you for your comments and positive feedback. Having worked with Lee McQueen in a training capacity in the past, he’s agreed to write a by-line for each of our blogs in the future – so welcome Lee to the team.

Week 2 and we’re down to 14 contestants for Lord Sugar’s investment of £250,000 into a business. So far the boys have lost twice.

This week Lord Sugar started the programme in the Savoy Hotel after it has had a major refurbishment of over £200 million. The hotel was to have a grand opening in 3 days and still needed some items. He mixed up the teams (at least an all boy team can’t lose this time!) and explained what was required of them.

This is one of my favourite tasks – the negotiation week. Ten items need to be sourced for the hotel in 9 hours with a £2,000 budget. The team that pays the lowest prices for all ten items wins. Any missing items and a £50 penalty on top of the recommended retail price (RRP) is added to what they’ve spent. They also had to organise their time well as they had to be back for 5pm. Late and they would gain more penalties.

As the new teams decide on their leaders, Suzy puts herself forward for Team Venture. The narrator describes her as a ‘market trader’. Should be good at negotiating then. I worked on two market stalls in my teens (my local one and Wembley Market on a Sunday) and they are some of the best negotiators I know.

For Team Logic, Gavin puts himself forward as team leader for the second time. This time he’s much more assertive and when Vincent also says he would like to lead, Gavin reiterates his experience of managing a team and the fact that he already runs his own business. Shame he didn’t follow this assertiveness through when he was setting out the ground rules for the task. As Nick Hewer (Lord Sugar’s assistant) highlights later in the programme, that no-one took any notice of him and he let them walk all over him!

Leaders need to take their team with them when they lead,

Great presentations are a start, but ignore your client’s views at your peril

So the boys team were already 1 down after the first task and tonight they were challenged with creating an ‘App’ within 2 days, that could be downloaded onto people’s smart-phones.

The team with the most downloads would win the task. Simple.

Key competencies revealed in tonight’s episode were leadership, teamwork, sales abilities, presentations and listening skills. There were some good examples and some bad, but all were a good lesson for those in the recruitment industry.

So let’s take leadership first as the two teams always need to decide who is going to be the Project Manager for the task. For Team Venture, Edna was not backward in coming forward. She was also the only candidate, so by default she was chosen. When asked to describe her leadership style, Edna replied “For me it’s all about being tough. I don’t suffer fools gladly”.

She showed this trait immediately when asking for ideas from her team as to what the ‘app’ should be. Susan (the youngest in the group – not again!) really struggled to describe her idea. After a painful minute of her brain not engaging with her mouth, Edna told her to stop.  When she asked if she could finish what she was saying, “Suzy, NO” was the reply – very harsh. So much for asking your team for ideas. If you’re going to do this, then at least give them the courtesy of listening to their replies and being supportive, even if you don’t eventually pick their idea.

The boys’ Team Logic was led by Leon, who was first to put his hat into the ring with succinct reasons as to why he would good for this particular task. A very different approach from Edna’s as he described himself, “I’m a natural leader and I don’t need to shout to be heard”. Something that his whole team concurred with when asked about his leadership skills in the boardroom later.

This is a key lesson to learn for those currently leading teams or wanting to become a leader in the future.