Decoding the buyer's negotiating style

Analysing the balance of power in a negotiation amounts to pondering over the issues we have just raised: The question of power (whoholds it, and on what basis?). Who has the BATNA, and how are the cursors placed?

It also means analysing the other person's style, his willingness tonegotiate, and his ability to negotiate. In key accounts, most of thenegotiating is carried out by purchasing-department professionals, whose style you need to decode.

Negotiating and poker have at least one thing in common: the everpresent interplay of influence. It is not your hand alone, but the wayyou use it (timing, the situation, and staging) that often makes the difference. In so far as any remark can affect the adjustment of supply todemand and vice versa, it is tempting for each side to exchange objective information, but also to try and influence the choices of theother party.

In negotiations, as the real power is the perceived power (the way in which each negotiator receives the signals of his opposite number, like two adversaries who measure each other up before they engage),the role of the KAM will be to distinguish the reality from the posturing; that is, to detect the objective situation underlying the buyer's position.In the light of the first exchanges, how do you assess the «willingness» of the other party to take a tougher stand? Also - still in the preliminaries- is the other negotiator believable? How is he seen in his own company? How persuasive and charismatic is he? What is his negotiatingbackground? Is his position realistic? In short, how harsh a negotiator can he be? Or conversely, how cooperative a negotiator is he?

Fortunately, not all business is hard to negotiate. Many clients or buyers can be in a decidedly dominant position but have neither thewillingness nor the skills to use that power - for example, by showing their supplier too candidly that they want to work with him. Others show their hand as a «phoney ferocious buyer» too readily in their first contacts by adopting exaggerated attitudes and stances, with a genuine willingness to negotiate prices, but ultimately little credibility.
To decipher the buyer's style prior to negotiations, it is also worthwhile observing his mode of communication. Is he affable and focused on the relationship with the other person - or it is he rather aloof and focused on facts and figures? For the first type you must carefully prepare arguments appealing to the emotions (length of your relationship, quality of your teams, reliability of your commitments, etc.). The second type of buyer requires carefully tuned rational arguments (return on investment, exact extent of commitment, monitoring and progress indicators, etc.).