Through research we conducted across our publications, we wanted to better understand the extent to which B2B sales teams were being equipped to negotiate with the “margin extraction” procurement experts on the other side of the table.
We’ve put together a more complete Research Brief to share more of the data and provide our observations, but here’s the headline:
Now…I realize that it’s incredibly risky to interpret any type of poll these days…and I know that these results may seem “too close to call”…but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that not a lot of sales teams are being trained to negotiate.
Might this explain some of the pricing pressure companies have been experiencing? Could this contribute to some of the margin erosion pricing people are reporting? Is this one of the reasons that over-discounting seems to be such an intractable problem?
I think it’s safe to say that it certainly doesn’t help!
I think this is a great example of how “pricing problems” can have their roots well outside of the pricing department and well beyond the price-points themselves. After all, when salespeople aren’t being equipped to deal with the sophisticated negotiation strategies and tactics being used against them, how is a different pricing strategy, or different set of numbers, really going to help?
The point is that your pricing may not be the problem. You’re welcome 🙂
How Many B2B Sales Teams Lack Negotiation Skills?
We wanted to better understand the extent to which B2B sales teams were taking steps to develop and maintain skills in negotiation. Explore what we learned in this Research Brief, complete with helpful charts and analysis.
