It’s price negotiations time.  The prospect of handling sensitive discussions is looming and so is the question:  how do I handle objections from my clients?  In truth, your current and long-standing clients can be the ones who are getting the best deal as a result of your long history of agreeing an increase that doesn’t quite work for you.  So where do you go from here?

It’s easy to come to these discussions seeking to dismiss your clients’ objections – even seeing your clients’ concerns as “objections” stimulates a certain way of thinking.  I wonder, how are you viewing the possibility that your client might express concerns?  What does the word “objection” evoke in you?  And then there’s the question of your underlying philosophy as you approach your discussions.  I particularly raise this question because for many people, this lies outside their conscious awareness:  what beliefs are your bringing to your discussions of which you are not even aware?

Personally, I favour approaches which come from the desire for everyone to come away a winner – this will come as no surprise to regular readers of my blog, who know how much I favour Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and Roger Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Approach.  You can find out more about Rosenberg’s approach by browsing the website for the Center for Nonviolent Communication or reading his book Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life.  Equally, you can root around on Roger Schwarz’s website, sign up for his newsletter, buy articles, or his book The Skilled Facilitator Approach.

But what about handling objections?  Amongst my fellow students of Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Approach some point to the books that spring from what’s known as the Harvard Project:  William Ury’s Getting Past No:  Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation, Roger Fisher and William Ury’s Getting To Yes:  Negotiating An Agreement Without Giving In and Bruce Patton, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen’s Difficult Conversations:  How To Discuss What Matters Most.

Others recommend the VitalSmarts series which includes Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler’s Crucial Conversations:  Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, and by the same authors Crucial Confrontations:  Tools for Talking About Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behaviour and Influencer:  The Power to Change Anything.

I also wonder about Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling, recognising that this gives an overall framework in which to view objections – and recognising that many other authors and thinkers have tackled this same subject.

I wonder, in what situations do you handle objections and what resources (books, ways of thinking etc.) have you found most helpful?