Change the Negotiator

There are sometimes when you may need to use the change the negotiator tactic. One would be if you find yourself in one of those rare circumstances where, for whatever reason, you have become part of the problem.

Because relationship building is one of your core skills, this isn’t going to happen very often, but once in a while it might, we are all human. That’s a good time to get yourself out of there and get somebody in who can soothe the hurt feelings or reestablish the relationship. It might be another sales person, it might be a manager. It should happen only rarely, if at all, but if it does, get somebody else in there to fix the problem.

Buyers will sometimes use change the negotiator as a planned strategy. They’re not likely to hand you over to another buyer. The more common strategy is to have you almost reach an agreement with the end user, and then the end user suddenly discovers that they really can’t make this kind of a deal themselves, and they have to turn it over to the Purchasing Department.

When you sit down with the purchasing person, they don’t know about any of the concessions that the end user buyer made to you, or they disavow them and claim that they weren’t authorized to make them. But at the same time, they’re adamant about retaining any concessions that you have already made.  (Continued on page 32)