187: Covid-19 Triggers Tougher Negotiations Part One

<p><strong>Covid-19 Triggers Tough Negotiations (Part 1)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Clients who are now suffering will shortly make you suffer too.  They will be much more price sensitive and cautious than before.  They are reading the same newspaper articles and watching the same news programmes you are, where it is all doom and gloom right now and the same prospect for going forward.  In 1929, everyone stopped spending and unfortunately that included the governments around the world.  This time we are better informed and the Japanese government is trying to prop up the economy. </p> <p> </p> <p>Clients may have not spent the lockdown boning up on economic history, so they may have forgotten some of the hard won lessons of the past.  In Japan, the safest option is to do nothing, at any point in time and particularly so in a crisis.  That means sales are going to be hard to come by and the previously agreed pricing is going to be on the table for renegotiation.  Are you ready for that?</p> <p> </p> <p>Let’s go over the basics again, so we are ready and able to join the conversation with the buyer and not get killed.  Before getting into any negotiations, we need to specify the following items:</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Our Position</strong></p> <p>What are some of the features and details of our offering, which we consider are negotiable items?  In a realistic appraisal of the “New Normal”, what would now comprise our ideal outcome?  Given things look like the virus may get contained a long way ahead of the recovery from the economic damage, what would constitute a realistic outcome?  If we can’t get what we want, can we get what we need and if not, what is our fallback position?</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>The Client’s Position</strong></p> <p>What do we imagine the client’s fallback position will look like during Covid-19 and in it’s immediate aftermath?  We must try to identify what, from a client point of view, would be a realistic outcome for them?  Putting ourselves in their moccasins, what do we suppose would be t