Friday, March 5, 2010

by Jim Camp © 2010

I can't even count the number of deals I have coached in the last 25 years. I hate this when this happens let me show you why. One month ago I stepped in to coach a team for the first time in a negotiation that is two thirds down the line. I don't like to do this but it is with a client I have been with for a long time. The team and this negotiation for many reasons didn't have visibility to me but here we are playing catch up.

I started by digging into where it all started. Here is what I have learned so far. This is much bigger than the team ever realized. Since I began coaching a month ago we have learned in the negotiation that our adversary by working with us in the long term will have a one-year technology advantage on all of its global competitors. What can that be worth? Well how many of you, no wait, how many on the planet want the latest and greatest gadget to communicate with?

Now at first blush you are probably thinking geez, what is wrong with that. You have a great customer. Right, well let me take you a little further into this. With a team steeped in a typical compromise and assumption based mindset for negotiations, pricing was given before any idea of the scope and magnitude of the agreement was know. Typical conventional wisdom in negotiations demands that you jump to a proposal based on your customer or potential customers request for proposal (RFP) or request for quote (RFQ). In this case the latter was received. The person in charge of the account whom I had never met or worked with jumped to and sent quotes on pricing and terms. What do you think happened next? Of course an attack on the pricing and of course like all good win-winners and relationship builders, deep discounting and compromise where granted.

A statement of work was agreed to and now here we are.

What would the pricing be and what would the terms be and what would the market share be if we had captured their vision before pricing was presented? Well we have their vision now so we will have to continue and renegotiate. I'll let you know how it turns out. The question will be can the coach keep the team from needing this 100mil a year deal so they can turn it into 120mil a year agreement? We'll see.

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