Imagine the feeling: after months of courting a new client, who has given every indication that a lucrative contract award is imminent, you receive an email from their procurement team stating that there will be a competitive bidding process with specific terms and conditions.
This unsettling scenario is increasingly familiar to many sellers – and most assume that negotiating is more or less futile. They are about to enter a predicament we call “winning the pitch but losing the negotiation.”
Rather than deciding how to respond to ultimata and threats, sellers can instead use two key moves to improve their fortunes: Analyze the Set-up and Shape the Process.
Read the article at Harvard Business Review.