Closing the Deal: High-Stakes Negotiation

[00:00:18] Hello everybody, I'm Andy coming to you from the United Kingdom, alone this time. I miss you Andy, it was nice to be together in the same room. I am the other host, Scott, coming to you from Toronto. Maybe we'll have to do another episode at some point together in another location.

[00:00:44] This is the Tea and Timbits podcast, and it is all about global perspectives on business development to help you prosper. I'm holding back a little bit because I've heard that I'm a little bit close to the mic and I can't reach the bit to change the volume. I think it looks fine. Nothing's peaking. You're good. That's good. Okay. Well, this week we are going to be talking about high value negotiations in complex deals. But before we get into that, we will be having a story from Scott.

[00:01:13] This whole month we're going to be focusing on closing the deal. So I don't know if Scott has a story that relates to that or if it's a completely different story, but we're about to find out. Scott, tell us your story. Thanks Andy. And I'll suddenly, yeah, I'll connect the, I'll create a connection here quickly on the fly to closing the deal. My story that I was going to talk about was how to do a virtual interview.

[00:01:38] So I think that is closing, you know, a, the deal, trying to get yourself sort of across the line. Um, but I was doing some interviewing, uh, uh, in the last few weeks. Um, and I think it is worth discussing and talking about. And I sort of feel like we're not supposed to have this influence or affect us, but it does.

[00:02:08] Um, you would always think about sort of your physical presentation when you go physically to an interview. Do I, you know, you know, am I dressed appropriately? I'm not saying you have to have a certain, I know we have opinions about this. We've done past episodes about it, but there's a presentation that you want to make sure you are reflecting that is professional, that is appropriate, that is going to increase the likelihood that the other person, uh, respects.

[00:02:38] You takes you, takes you seriously. And in the virtual world, I am appalled at the level of, uh, the lack of level of attention to that kind of detail. Yeah. Yeah. It matters so much. It matters as much as it does in a physical interview. Yeah.

[00:03:02] It actually matters more because you would have to think more about your presentation than you do in a physical interview. Mm-hmm . In a physical interview, you have no control over the environment that you are walking into. You can't control the tidiness of the office. You're evaluating that for yourself. Do I want to work here? Is this a pleasant place? Is it clean? Is it bright? Is it welcoming?

[00:03:27] You need to make sure that the image that you are presenting to your virtual, um, uh, interviewer, uh, represents your presence, uh, accurately and, and appropriately. Uh, that means not having a messy background. Use a virtual one if you're in a messy place. Um, and I hate to say it, but it's true.

[00:03:53] You need to think about the quality of your audio and your video. Yeah. If you are getting on an interview with somebody and the candidate before you is, is just as capable, but you showed up with grainy video, um, and poor audio. That is going to reflect completely differently on the interviewer. Um, and the other candidate is going to have an advantage.

[00:04:24] So think about your, your location that you're sitting in, make sure it is well lit. Make sure you don't go out and buy fancy equipment. Yeah, I'm not saying that if, if you have access to a good, like find somebody, find a friend who's got the gear. Uh, it's, it's going to make such a big difference. Um, and come on and be prepared and have your windows and your tabs organized and do a sound check and have it all ready to go. Have a good internet connection.

[00:04:53] Um, because it matters even more than a physical interview. So that was a bit of a rant. Oh no, but that, that, that's a whole episode there. That is a whole episode there. I mean, we, we, we can definitely do that. And this is actually, I'll fill in that tenuous link for you because as you're going into higher value, uh, negotiations for more complex deals, that is exactly the same case.

[00:05:20] You know, if you're trying to have a professional conversation to get someone to part with millions of dollars for their company. Yeah. You're sat there in tracksuit bottoms and, you know, cozy clothes in, you know, with all of your dirty washing in the background and your unmade bed in the, you know, uh, the side of you, uh, with a speaking through your mobile phone, it's going to look shit. And people are going to go, well, why would I want to trust this person to look after my money or to do things with that?

[00:05:44] I mean, my background now here where I am, if you're not watching, um, is covered in CDs and records and, um, you know, pictures of partying and, uh, and gigs and awards and stuff like that. Because those things are relevant to what I'm doing on a day basis right now. So I deliberately set this up here. You know, I've got punk CDs. I've got heavy metal CDs. I've got black metal CDs. I've got death metal CDs. I've got grunge CDs.

[00:06:13] I've got indie CDs because at least one of these CDs is going to appeal to someone who's joining a call. They're going to go, Oh, Oh, I've got that as well. Oh, I've seen that before. Oh, look at that. Oh, he's got that person on the wall. Oh, he's got an award for this thing. Oh, that's interesting. And people will respond to that subliminally or consciously while they're talking to you. And it's the same.

[00:06:33] If you have an untidy background, if you have a messy background, and as I say, if you're in a complex deal or a business environment, if you're in an interview environment, in any situation, if you're turning up and your background is messy, your audio is crap, or you just have terrible lighting in a really crappy video, then all of that is going to put things down and make things harder for you. And your content has to be 10 times better in order to get above that level. Like infinitely better.

[00:07:01] 10 times is like, yeah. Now listen, I also think that this applies to virtual meetings, period. This is not always. Yeah, yeah. It happened to me in an interview where I was like, you are doing yourself a disservice right now. But it applies to anybody that's in a virtual meeting scenario. Some of us can get away with not turning our cameras on most of the time. That's sort of up to your situation and corporate culture.

[00:07:32] I advise you turn it on and you'd be ready and you present yourself in any of those situations, but and be ready to do it and be set up properly. So I'll be honest, I have rearranged meetings where people have got Oh, my camera's not working. Oh, I can't get a camera. Okay, fine. No problem. Either go to a room where they've got a camera or we'll rearrange it for a time when your camera is working. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:53] There are certain if you're having if you've arranged a face to face meeting with someone and it's a digital one, then the courtesy is that you actually turn up. You know, you don't you don't arrange to have an interview or a meeting with someone and then you go, I'll just call you on the phone. And you can sit there in your office and I'll call you on the phone. You put me on the speaker. Yeah, that would be weird. So it's equally weird to turn up for a zoom call and go on. No, I'm not going to turn my camera on. Right. It's just the same sort of thing. And it's bizarre. And I don't I don't accept it.

[00:08:24] And I'm having a rant now because to me, that's very important. But I remember during the time. Yeah, this is a great episode. I'm loving this one. And during covid, I was working, you know, in more corporate industries. I was working a lot with the maritime and offshore energy industries. And therefore, I would turn up to every meeting on online and I would be wearing a suit and a shirt and a tie. Yep. And it didn't matter. And people used to go, why are you wearing a suit and a tie? You're at home.

[00:08:53] Just chill out. But let's put a jumper on. You know, put a T shirt on. Just relax. No, I'm having a professional business meeting. I am. I am doing this, you know, and more and more people, you know, at the top level, they were doing it anyway. They would, you know, because that was naturally what they would wear the same as me. And that was fine. But the amount of people who you met who went, why are you wearing a suit for? Yeah. Because I'm at work. I am working. I am not on holiday.

[00:09:20] I am sat in my office and I'm working just as I would be anyway. Anyway, enough of the rant. High value negotiations are complex deals, Scott. Yes, Andy. Yes, Andy. This topic has come about as the first topic in our closing the deal series, because this is something that I know a lot of our listeners do actually have in their business world is that they're dealing with quite high value customers, high value negotiations.

[00:09:51] And therefore, the complexity of those needs to be considered. And it can't just be treated as a straightforward transaction. It's not the sort of situation. Well, most of our listeners are not in the situation where they pick up the phone and try and close the deal there and then. But usually within a long sales cycle, usually quite a high value item service or product that's that's involved and and those things can take a long time.

[00:10:19] So for me, I thought it was a really good idea that we spoke about those. I don't know, sort of top 10 pointers, I suppose that that you need to think about when you're when you're going into a high value negotiation. Great. What's your top? What's your top winner? You just put us on the spot to come up with 10 of them. I know.

[00:10:44] No, the number one thing, though, the number one thing, no matter what else follows from this, the number one thing is to define that total picture of the value and making sure that you can translate that as well, because you're having this conversation, but it's not going to be about specifically that one particular service. It's going to be about everything else around that, everything else that's impacted by that decision, everything else that leads up to it. All of the other departments that are going to be impacted by it.

[00:11:13] So you need to think about the value chain in a way. So you may be providing value to the operations department with your product or service, but that's going to impact on the sales department. It's going to impact on the finance department. It's going to impact on the HR department. It's going to impact on the production department. It's going to impact on the delivery team. All of those people are going to be affected by it. So being clear on the value to each of those departments and each of those individuals that

[00:11:42] are going to be affected by it, and not only the value, but the impact that your solution is going to have, because sometimes it's going to require a change in the way that they do business. It's going to require a change in the way that they act towards their customers. It's going to require a change in the way that they operate as a business. Often for the better, but still change is a problem and change is a challenge for people. So being very clear on defining the total picture is the number one thing that should

[00:12:12] be thought about in these high value complex deals. Yeah. So, okay, I'll go with sort of my thought here is, anyway, well, one tactic that we adopt is actually to remove specificity in the negotiation.

[00:12:38] So we're not trying to avoid being held accountable or nailing down specifics of what's going to be delivered. But we do want to make sure that what we're selling is the solution, not the discrete elements that are going to go into that solution. Does that make sense?

[00:13:05] Like, like I can, as I'm saying this, I'm like, well, I mean, I can think of a whole bunch of scenarios very quickly where you got to get precise and specific about certain elements. Yeah, no, but that's it. The logistics, service level, exclusivity, risk sharing, things like that. Those, those things are all elements of what make up that total picture. So you're not selling the service level. You're not selling the logistics. Well, unless you're a logistics company, which you're, but my point is you're not selling those individual elements. You are selling that package.

[00:13:34] You are selling that total picture and being very clear on that. The impact of that, the benefit of that and the total value is, yeah, I agree. The, you know, the number one thing. So the, the, the, the topic here was high value negotiation. Yes. I think like lots of other concepts that we've talked about come into play here. I'm thinking about detachment, right? Mm-hmm .

[00:14:00] So in a quote unquote negotiation, like if you're in a scenario where you're negotiating, I think you've already gotten yourself into the wrong deal or into the wrong place. Ah, okay. I will challenge you there because I think, I think the term negotiation is traditionally focused on that. Uh, how much mindset, right? Yeah. And it's, it's that sort of, you know, how much is it going to cost? Oh, it's going to cost this. And then, yeah. Can we have this? No. Yeah. What can we take away in order to get to that deal? You know? Yeah.

[00:14:29] But no, the correct mindset when it comes to negotiation is very much not about how much it's about how much more can this relationship unlock? Yeah. It's the, it's the generation of value. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so, um, I don't know if we've actually like sort of made our way through a 10, a top 10 item list here, but, um, We've got past number one. Okay. I think we're on like three or four different points here.

[00:14:56] Um, um, I think you want to be, uh, exploring, uh, some of these conditions the whole way along the conversation, the whole way through the sales, uh, process. The negotiation isn't a moment in the deal. Um, so we're talking about closing though in, in, in may.

[00:15:22] So you, you get to the, the end where you're, where you're, you have to get a signature on a contract and agreement, um, established, um, in complex deals. I hope that the complexity of the deal itself is something that's been workshopped all the way through.

[00:15:45] And you might be in, into the review of the agreement, the paperwork, the contract towards the end. If I think a lot of organizations will know that whether or not that is typically a sticky moment in their deal closing process.

[00:16:05] Um, uh, historically in, in, in our case, our paperwork, our template for our contract has a couple of places where sometimes people have some questions and, and, and need clarity or discussion about the legal wording. Um, but we've actually modified it over the years to avoid some of that, some of that stickiness. Like, okay, fine.

[00:16:32] Well, maybe if we changed it or, um, you know, modified it one way or another, we'll just get past that. But there are certain things that definitely need to be, to be in there. There, and I know that for certain businesses, you're gonna have that come up time and time again. And it's, and it's an unavoidable requirement of the language. Well, fricking put that out right at the beginning.

[00:16:57] Hey, listen, I want to make sure that we don't get stuck in legal at the end of this process. So I'm going to just send you our, our, our boilerplate language. Now, if you don't mind getting the right people on your side to just start workshopping it, we might throw it out at the end of the day, but let's get it in the queue. Cause that can sometimes, you know, kill the whole thing in parallel. We'll talk about the substance, uh, of the statement at work. Yeah, no, you're completely right.

[00:17:25] I mean, getting that right team around the, uh, the whole deal is really important. And I said, this is why, you know, you start with defining what that whole thing looks like, and then you understand who's involved. And then, you know, you, you basically mirror the, uh, the, the complexity of the deal, you know, you put the right people in the right roles to, uh, to have those discussions. And as you say, that may not be a case that, you know, 20 people end up sitting around the table and then hashing out, you know, these things will happen over time.

[00:17:51] Uh, and during this, uh, long sales cycle that goes on for these more complex deals, but, uh, but the fact is those complex negotiations do require the specialists in those particular subjects to be involved and with their equal counterpart in the, uh, in the customer's business as well. Um, similar theme, as you were talking, started, we started entering my brain. We have just finished a, a rather, you know, a more significant deal.

[00:18:19] It's been something that's been on again, off again, working back and forth for months, probably close to a year. Um, it required on, on our side, different people to come in and out of the conversation as it got started.

[00:18:37] It was stuck or hung up or objections came forward or uncertainty was just, and just by changing the personality of who's in the room helped continue to move it forward. So it, you know, in, in one case, it might be somebody very tactical, very strategic. Um, in other cases, somebody creative, um, in other places, somebody that's, you know, looking at the, the, the setup of the, of the paperwork.

[00:19:04] And I think you need to sometimes, uh, pull on those levers. Uh, you want, as you know, you've been talking about having the right people in the deal. Well, sometimes you need the right person at the right time. Yes. Completely. Not everybody at once all collaborating. It's like, no, now it's time for, you know, or Hey, it's stalled out. I don't know what to do. They won't accept it, but we know there's a need.

[00:19:31] So, you know, Hey, why don't you take over for a little while? Why don't you engage and work on, you know, advancing this? I think. Yeah. And again, I mean, many, many deals will sort of implode, uh, before they even get to the negotiation table because of the misaligned management and silos and last minute red lines that have been drawn in the customer's business. Or in your own business as well, that you need to make sure that you're aware of and that you can overcome.

[00:19:58] And what, what you've got to remember, like you were saying, Scott, it's, it's more of a, you're not just negotiating with a business, you know, or with individual peoples. You, you, you, you are very much trying to influence, um, uh, kind of a coalition of internal interests, you know, in both organizations. And that's what you've got to be aware of that. These are the things you're trying to overcome, not just trying to close a deal and make this sale.

[00:20:25] And, and so back to the point I was sort of work working on, I don't think I like detachment is, is, is part of this in my, in my opinion, like you need to make sure you're coming in this with the right intent. It is not to close the deal. The intent is to get the right value delivered mutual value delivered. Right.

[00:20:47] And if you, if you fall into the trap of trying to close the deal, you're working counter productively. Yeah. Uh, one, one important thing I'd like to say, and again, I've lost track of how many we're on now, but I think we're like, sure. I'm sure we must've been close to 10, if not, if not specifically outlay them. Um, but to your point, again, humans are involved in this, you know,

[00:21:16] and human personalities and human interests and relationships there, there, but people don't buy the data. So please stop trying to shove books and books and books of numbers and words. And, you know, I, I'm very much have the opinion that the more pages there are in the proposal, the less substance there actually is. And, you know, really people buy vision that, you know, so, so great negotiation is, is about telling a story.

[00:21:46] And getting people to buy into that story and understanding and seeing where they are on that journey with you. And that's where you're going to sort of create that transformative mindset and, and make them feel like there's a success there before there even is. And that, that's the way to go. Really? It's, it's, it's about creating that emotional engagement rather than making them go, oh yes, the numbers make sense. Mm-hmm.

[00:22:13] I was talking to somebody earlier about the fact, about one of those proposals that's just like thick with numbers and data. And sometimes again, you can't avoid that because you're going through some sort of structured procurement process and it's all got to be in there. And so you think that by following all the procurement rules, you've, you've done the best job you can. And, and my suggestion was, yeah, but it doesn't say you can't also add a section of your own.

[00:22:37] And to your point, I said, put it, put something at the very beginning, an executive summary and overview that, that is actually just the fricking simplest, most spoon fed version. If they read nothing but this, they would be able to come away with sort of a good understanding of what you're trying to deliver. And then, yeah, here's my, you know, detail. So. Love it. Thank you very much, Scott.

[00:23:00] I think, I think we've given a lot of information and a lot of inspiration and anyone who is engaging in a complex deal or complex negotiation do get in touch. We'd be happy to, to work it through with you and have a conversation about that because we enjoy this sort of stuff, as you can tell. And if you're planning on joining us on a digital call, make sure that you dress nicely and think about your background, think about your audio and you actually turn your camera on.

[00:23:30] We'd really appreciate it. If you want to get in touch though, you do that by going to tea and timbits.com where you can find many ways to get in touch and watch all of the older episodes where we go on other rants about other topics. Thank you very much, Scott. Thanks, Andy. This is a good one. Cheers.