Is it possible to not negotiate?

I've had sales (cars) where the customer absolutely had to have what I was selling, he came to the lot with his mind already made up that he was buying, and that was it. There was no negotiating, just doing the paperwork. Is it possible to do this with more customers, in other words, get them so worked up for the product that the negotiating phase is minimal? -wesbound

The time you spend negotiating is inversely proportional to the time you spend presenting and building value to your product. Layman's terms.. Lets Isolate the presentation step and the negotiation step from the rest of the sales process and say that those two steps take up 100% of the time. If you spend 75% of your time building value and presenting the F.A.B. of the vehicle than you will only spend the other 25% negotiating. Now if you only spend 25% of the time presenting and building value then your going to spend 75% of the time negotiating price, and you will lose ALOT if not all of your gross. I do automotive sales, and about 90% of the time I have them closed by the second pencil. I also maintain a majority of my gross. So the easy way to reduce the negotiation phase to a minimal is to build VALUE into the car. If its a $20,000 car then give them a $40,000 walkaround on it. -jrboyd

Jr, thank you so much. Could you give me some examples of things you say/do during your walk around. I do spend a lot of time with them and show them everything about the car, but I must be doing it wrong because I'm still not getting them juiced up enough. -wesbound

First and foremost you have to figure out what their buying points are. For cars its usually broken down into these 6:

Safety
Performance
Appearance
Comfort
Economical
Dependability

Usually it will fall into a couple of these catagories. When you find out which of them they fall in then you base 90% of your Feature advantage benifit presentation on these buying points. -jrboyd

I always ask the question, "what's important to you in a new car?" I don't always get the information I'm looking for. Do you have any better ways to accomplish this task? -wesbound

A bunch of it is done in the customer interview and common sense. If you see that the customer has a family, then you might lead with "As a family man/woman, I take it that safety is important to you, right?" OR just ask, "Mr. Customer off the following which would you rate as being the most important feature of a car, Safety, Performance, Comfort or Economical?" You usually can leave appearance and dependability out because people will not buy an ugly car, and people will not buy a car that is in the shop every other week. -jrboyd

Can you recommend any books/videos/other resources to become the very best possible car salesman? -wesbound

I'll email you a basic guide. Message me your email address if you want because the word limitation doesnt allow me to send via Salespractice -jrboyd

Wesbound, this is in response to you, but I have quoted another member above.

Learn the fundamentals. That is how you start on the road to being the best. A few years ago when I was available for, and had an interest in, sales training, a prominant sales trainer specializing in the automobile industry hired me to coach him in a "coach the coach" effort. Later I designed a sales concept for auto dealers who were not satisfied with GMs training on leasing automobiles (GMAC called it The A-B Comparison). I know my share of the top pros in that industry, and often compared notes.

On this thread you read the following regarding selling points:

Safety
Performance
Appearance
Comfort
Economical
Dependability

GMs basic training used the acronym SPACED to make it easy to remember.

I strongly recommend that you develop the habit early in your career to NEVER skip over any buying points on any assumption that they don't need to be covered. I'll repeat that: NEVER!

Learn to start doing it right now, and you will avoid being stuck forever below the level you want to attain. -Ace Coldiron

It sounds like you may be equating negotiation with the pure act of price haggling.

Negotiation is far more than this, although I recognise I'm writing in a sales forum.

Whether you realise this or not (and please excuse my British spellings) everything you're doing with your prospect could be construed within the context of a negotiation; not just what price you may eventually strike a deal for.

'The negotiating phase' you refer to is perhaps a misnomer.

If you are selling $100 bills for $50 then you might expect you'd have no shortage of takers, and you'd run out of inventory very quickly.

This has little to do with how you 'sell' to your customers or negotiate with them, but more to do with the value of what you're offering, as someone already pointed out... whether this is perceived or real value.

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Negotiation is the process by which you communicate with someone else; here's a neat little definition:-

An explicit voluntary exchange between people who want something from each other - where each party possesses the right of veto or refusal.

Best practice negotiation, which might be what you're asking about or angling for in this 'negotiation' segment of the sales forum, involves understanding the basic fundamentals of the subject matter itself.

If you spend any time researching into the history and practice of negotiation theory, you'll discover a lot of controversies.

Most of these are mired in the differing perspectives of the 'streetwise' ploys, tactics & tricks of the old school approach, and the more recent 'principled' or 'win-win' school of thought.

Both paradigms have their defects; neither is a complete or effective solution. In some cases the blind application of their respective prescriptions can lead you nowhere, fast. You may be surprised to hear this, especially as it's not 'conventional wisdom'. Wikipedia has a great definition of this.

I've referenced a little more about these paradigms in a few other postings.

With respect to your original question (and even the more optimal and efficient 'process-based' theories of negotiation) I don't believe you'll find any magic bullets to 'get them so worked up for the product' as you're asking.

However, learning about negotiation in general may reduce your fears about it, and equip you to more effectively communicate and transact with others; whether they be your customers/prospects, your bosses, your friends, or your family. -ThirdForceNegotiator

Brilliant post my friend from across the Atlantic. Do you have any recommendations on where I can aquire such learnings? -wesbound

It is not likely. The buyer you described was on a mission. He or she knew exactly what they wanted. This kind of buyer would have bought from anyone given that sales person could offer the product this customer was seeking. Most people are not always serious to take action, some are closer and some are farther from the buying decision. It is rare to have a buyer so perfectly packaged where they make your job easy without having to probe, close, or do much work. The only way you can get more of these buys would be to have them either walk in on their own or actually do a marketing campaign that drives those customers to you. -Guru4sale

Take a look at what Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple are doing and some of the answers become clear. -richard ruff

I say there is no way to "not" negotiate. Any interaction with anyone involves negotiating. Like when a husband and wife decides what movie to go see; a romantic comedy or an action movie. This is not a situation that involves a compromise which leads to an even exchange; like if they went to see both movie genres. Usually it's a surrender; one of them forfeiting their desire to see the movie they want and watching a movie they did not want to see. -DanKhan