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Sim Game Lesson #1: Opening Offers
Opening Offers Want to quickly know whether the negotiation pro you’re talking with is any good? Ask them whether you should be making the opening offer or if you should allow others to make the first offer. If they don’t immediately and emphatically respond that you should make the opening offer, don’t walk away, run! We have been instructing clients on the value of making the opening offer and how to best ensure that your offer gives you the advantage for over two decades,
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How is Gamification Revolutionizing Training?
At first, I was afraid, I was petrified…to mention the 4 letter ‘G’ word to clients. I’m embarrassed to admit that ten years ago I scolded my team when they talked about our serious business sim being a mere ‘game’. Back then I believed that accomplished B2B global leaders would not pay for their team to spend valuable company time playing games. Yet, it’s become trendy to use gamification in training courses. But what is gamification good for? In this post, I will
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How Do The Best Sales Training Activities Drive Results?
How was your company's sales event last year? Was it the same tired and tedious talk about the numbers plus a few group exercises? Too often we hear sales forces complaining of events and training that are low energy and don’t change behavior. At the same time, managers criticize low training ROI (return on investment). Plus, most reps forget their training and slide back into past behaviors within weeks. So how can sales leaders and facilitators improve on sales training outcomes?
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20 Best Sales Training Companies Programs & Courses 2025
Effective sales training has a direct correlation to high-performing sales teams. According to McKinsey, stronger sales training relates to stronger performance across key skill areas. Sales training often results in higher opportunity win rates, and maximum value through pricing and volume. It can also increase the ability to fill sales pipelines and grow accounts.
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How to Boost Your Sales Skills: 7 Surprising Tips
To hit their quotas, salespeople need a wide array of skills. From time management and people management to product expertise and value propositions. These skills are increasingly becoming crucial for even non-sales personnel. If you're looking to upgrade your sales skills, you may need a sales readiness strategy. Training and coaching can support the development of critical sales skills to close more deals faster. Here are seven insider tips that may seem unconventional
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Sim Game Lesson #2: Anchoring
Negotiation Anchoring It’s not enough to simply make the first offer to seize the negotiation advantage. You must also anchor your offer. How do you anchor an offer? You ensure that the conversation keeps the spotlight on your offer for long enough. Think of your anchor as a ship’s anchor. If the ship’s anchor hasn’t sunk deep enough, the ship will be moved by the current and waves. If others make the mistake of investing their time arguing against your opening offer, your
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5 of the Best Sales Training Games: Boost Your Skills and Have Fun
Your sales team works under lots of pressure to close deals and hit sales quotas. How can you, as a leader, ensure that your team members are regularly learning and improving on their performance? How do you find training that's enjoyable and lessons that stick long after the training exercise has ended? Using game-based training significantly minimizes costs while enhancing retention. Five of the best games that are fun and boost long-lasting sales skills include: 1. The
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Podcast: Sales Training on Price Increases
Paul: How do sales professionals feel when they hear their bosses’ words: “We need you to go get us a price increase”? Most salespeople love asking for price increases about as much as getting a root canal. Sales professionals worry about hurting the customer relationship they’ve worked so hard to build, and fear losing the business.This is Negotiation Expert Paul Kinsella. Calum: And this is Negotiation Expert Calum Coburn. In this podcast we’ll be discussing
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Best Sales Training Advice on How to Increase Your Prices
No customer wants to stomach a price increase. Sadly though, as long as central banks control our currencies, salespeople will need to keep up by increasing prices. It's simple arithmetic of more currency chasing the same amount of products and services. Not only are buyers trained to say ‘no’ to price increases, but most buyers also avoid meeting to so much as allow sellers to discuss price increases. Fortunately, yours is a well-trodden path. Our expert sales negotiation
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16 Best Negotiation Training Courses for 2025
Eight negotiation experts agreed on this up-to-date list of the best negotiation courses for 2025 for both classroom and online. We hope that their research will save you time and help you choose the best negotiation course.
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The Best Salary Negotiation Training Skills for College Students
College Students and Negotiation Experience Sometimes, college graduates are lucky enough for their employer pay for their spot on one of our negotiation seminars. So, how well do college graduates perform on our negotiation skills seminars? College students almost always get the lowest scores using our online negotiation simulation role-plays. Also, college students tend to struggle to hold their own against seasoned negotiators in our classes. Despite this, our college
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Sales Negotiation Questions to Get to the Decision Maker
We coach our clients to ask for the decision-makers - especially in the best Sales Negotiation Training and our Advanced Negotiation Training courses. Too many people ask ineffective questions like, "Do you make the decisions?" or "Are you the decision-maker?" to which most will answer "Yes." Why do people answer 'Yes' when they're not really the decision-maker? Simply because everyone wants to think of themselves as important. So, how do you get to your real decision-makers?
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Top 5 Negotiation Skills
At the start of our negotiation skills training courses, we ask students what makes them feel uneasy about negotiating. Their answers often include: "I'm afraid I won't get the best deal." "I don't enjoy working with certain types of people." "I'm not always sure what needs to be achieved in a particular negotiation and how to get there." "I can get lost in the process and bogged down in details. I lose track of what I really want to achieve." This article gives some helpful tips on
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9 Steps for Negotiation Preparation Success
Have you ever left a negotiation feeling battered and bruised like you never had a chance from the word go? Too often, I've seen smart yet unprepared sales professionals torn apart in their meetings. Admittedly, I suffered similarly early in my career. I notched my initial failings up to being part of my hard knocks sales negotiation training journey. Does the path to negotiation success have to be treacherous? I’m a big believer in practicing before the game, not in the game.
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Negotiation Types
Negotiation is a part of everyday life. Think of kids trading cards or when you ask for a salary raise at work. Even a trip to the farmer's market may involve some haggling to score a bargain. We often also use our negotiation skills to maintain our personal relationships. For instance, trying to find the middle ground when organizing events with family and friends. Or even budgeting with a partner. Getting your children to bed may sometimes take sales training level skills. At
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BATNA Explained
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket" is an old saying that has stood the test of time. To a negotiator, this wise old proverb illustrates that if you only negotiate with one other negotiating team, you may end up with a rotten deal. In fact, you may end up with no deal at all. You need to have a strong alternative waiting in the wings to have the power to say "no." Netscape’s BATNA Blunder This site’s case studies are rife with real-life examples of BATNA being the single biggest
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32 of the Best Salary Negotiation Tips
You're good at what you do—maybe you're even an ace. Are you being paid what you're worth? How many of these 32 salary negotiation tips are you using to get paid what you're worth? Sales professionals are still rewarded with the biggest pay packets. Are sales professionals better qualified or smarter than other professions? No, there's no such thing as a sales degree. Do sales professionals work longer or harder? Not really. So why, then, are IT and other non-sales related fields
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Negotiation Skills: Top 10 Interview Questions and Answers
Ever clenched your jaw at a tough interview question? If not, it's only a matter of time until you do, or you're working for daddy. I used to hate job interviews, and I confess that I usually wasn't invited back for a second interview. I got so frustrated with the questions, so I researched psychology and business books, and I published a book on the top 100 questions. Yes, I guess this makes me an obsessive freak. This article distills my top 10 toughest interview questions of all time
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The Four Phases of The Negotiation Process
"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." John F. Kennedy If you sit down and analyze your negotiation preparation, specific patterns should begin to appear. It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Without consciously being aware, most of us realize that we are approaching negotiations inconsistently. Perhaps even haphazardly. There are many benefits to following a tried and tested formula for repeated success. Negotiation skills without
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Negotiation Styles
Understanding the Five Negotiation Styles People often ask, "which is the best negotiation style?" As with much management theory, there is no single "best" approach. All five profiles of dealing with stressful and high-pressure negotiations are useful. Determining which to use depends on the given situation. Although we're capable of using all five, we have noticed in our sales negotiation training and contract negotiation training that participants tend to use between
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