Mark Hunter

Social media has blown on to the scene the last couple of years with the popular websites of Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and many others. Nobody can tell for sure what social media will look like five years from now, but what everyone can agree upon is that the concept of using the internet to socially communicate is not going away.

For salespeople, an important question is, "Can social media help in negotiating?"

My answer is, "Yes, it can." I'm not saying you should directly negotiate with another person by way of a social media (although I suppose there might be exceptions where this is possible). What I am saying is that social media is a perfect tool that someone can use to help frame a situation or build their on-line reputation before the negotiations even begin.

Negotiations are won or lost in two critical areas. The first is the period of time leading up to the start of the negotiations, when both parties are preparing to negotiate. The second is...

We all have at least one - a customer with whom we just don't like working. Before you get too excited thinking I'm going to say it's okay to fire any customer - regardless of the reason - guess again.

What I am talking about are customers we don't like because after we do everything we do for them, we simply are not making any money from them. Not making any money off of a customer goes beyond your commission or bonus. It's the bottom-line profit your company is not making because of the customer. No salesperson is going to intentionally go out and find unprofitable customers, but too often we do end up with a few of these.

We wind up with unprofitable customers not because of the price we're charging them, but because of the intensity of their demands and requests. You know what I'm talking about. It's the customer who seems to always want one more thing. No matter how good of service you think you're providing them, they keep asking for...

Every customer has a price range where they are willing to make a decision without any further thinking. I refer to this as the Price Tolerance Ratio – also known as the PTR.

Knowing your customer's PTR is critical. I believe it is one of the major obstacles salespeople fail to comprehend. As a salesperson, when you don't understand a customer's PTR, at least one of the following results is inevitable:

* You offer a price that does not maximize the profit potential.

* You get the order but encounter resistance from the customer that hinders the relationship.

* You encounter resistance that leads to spending too much time on the selling process and ultimately no order.

Let's look at each of these individually, starting with the first one where the price offering does not maximize the profit potential.

I start with this one because it is the most common. The salesperson rarely finds out the price is lower than necessary until long after...

When is the best time to sell a price increase? I get asked this question a lot and my response is "right now." After I say this and see the expression on the person's face, I then have to back up my response with my rationale.

Taking a price increase is not something to be taken lightly. It has to be done with confidence, and too often, salespeople will put off taking a price increase under some false belief that if they only wait a couple of weeks, some how things will be better.

Sure, waiting is an option, but often the only thing you’ll experience is more of a belief as to why you can't take the increase, as well loss of the added revenue during that time frame.

My perspective is you can take a price increase anytime any of the following conditions occur:

1. A competitor has gone up in price.
2. You've incurred an increase in your costs.
3. Your customers have just taken their prices up.
4. Other key players in...