The Negotiation Reboot — 60-Min Training

Direct Answer

Section 1 — Frame the Reboot (5 minutes)

Open by writing one number on the whiteboard: the team's average discount over the last 90 days. Most B2B SaaS teams in the $25K-$500K ACV band run 14-19%. Then write the second number: what 1% of discount is worth to the company per year. The math lands hard.

• Say this: *"We are not bad at selling. We are untrained at the last 10% of the deal. Today we fix that."*
• Frame the source material: Chris Voss's *Never Split the Difference*, Fisher & Ury's *Getting to Yes*, G. Richard Shell's *Bargaining for Advantage*, Jim Camp's *Start With No*, Tom Williams's *Cracking the Code*.
• Set the bar: *"By end of hour, every AE leaves with a written concession plan for one named deal."*

Section 2 — Voss Tactics: Labels, Mirrors, No-Oriented Questions (15 minutes)

Tactical empathy is not soft. It is the fastest way to get a procurement officer to tell you what they actually need to greenlight the deal. Three moves, drilled in pairs.

Mirror (repeat the last 1-3 words as a question). Procurement: *"We can't justify this price."* AE: *"Can't justify this price?"* Then shut up. Six seconds of silence. Voss's data: mirrors extract 30-40% more information per turn.

Label (name the emotion or position).

• *"It seems like budget approval is the real blocker, not the per-seat number."*
• *"It sounds like you've been burned by a vendor who over-promised on onboarding."*
• *"It looks like Q4 timing is making this harder than it needs to be."*

A label is never a question. It is a statement the buyer either confirms or corrects — both outcomes are wins.

No-oriented questions (Camp + Voss). Buyers are trained to refuse "yes" questions because yes commits them. Flip every yes-question to a no-question:

• Not *"Does this make sense?"* — instead "Is it ridiculous to think we could close this by Friday?"
• Not *"Are you the decision-maker?"* — instead "Would it be wrong to assume your CFO needs to weigh in?"
• Not *"Can we get on the phone tomorrow?"* — instead "Have you given up on solving this in Q4?"

Drill (4 min): Pair up. Person A reads three real objections from this week's pipeline. Person B responds with a mirror, then a label, then a no-oriented question. Switch. Score on whether the buyer kept talking.

Section 3 — Planned Concessions & the Trade-Don't-Cave Rule (10 minutes)

Caving is unilateral. Trading is reciprocal. The rule: no concession leaves your mouth without a paired ask.

Build the concession ladder before the call, never during it. Use this template:

The four scripts every AE memorizes:

• "If I could, would you?" — *"If I could get you to 12%, would you sign by Thursday?"*
• "I can do X, in exchange for Y." — *"I can take it to 10%, in exchange for a 24-month term and a reference call with your CFO peer at Acme."*
• "That's the kind of thing I'd have to take to my CRO. What would you give me to make that conversation worth having?"
• "How am I supposed to do that?" (Voss's calibrated question) — forces the buyer to solve your problem for you.

Never discount without trading. Never offer your best price first. Never make two concessions in a row without one coming back.

Section 4 — Multi-Issue Scoping: Beat Price-Only Negotiation (10 minutes)

Fisher & Ury's core insight in *Getting to Yes*: expand the pie before you slice it. When procurement frames the conversation as price-only, you lose. When you put 6-8 variables on the table, you win.

The scoping checklist — every AE memorizes these eight levers:

• Term length (12 / 24 / 36 months)
• Payment timing (annual upfront, quarterly, net-30/60)
• Ramp pricing (lower year 1, full year 2+)
• Seat / usage tier commitments
• Expansion / co-term rights (lock in next year's price)
• References, logo rights, case study rights (marketing value)
• Executive sponsor access (your CEO meets their CFO)
• Roadmap influence / design partner status

Script for opening multi-issue scope:

*"Before we land on a number, help me understand what else matters to you here. If we got the price right but the term was wrong, that's still a no. So let me ask — outside of price, what does a 'great deal' look like for your team?"*

This single question, asked before the discount conversation, typically surfaces 2-3 levers the buyer values more than 5% off. Trade those.

Section 5 — Live Roleplay: Procurement & Year-End Pressure (15 minutes)

Three rounds, 5 minutes each. Manager plays buyer. AEs rotate.

Round 1 — Procurement gatekeeper. Buyer opens with: *"We're standardizing all SaaS vendors at 25% off list. Match it or we move on."* AE must label, mirror, refuse to anchor against 25%, and reframe to multi-issue. Win condition: AE never says a discount number in round 1.

Round 2 — Year-end closing pressure (on the AE). Buyer opens with: *"I know it's Dec 28. You need this. What's your real number?"* AE must resist the urge to cave, deploy *"How am I supposed to do that?"*, and trade term length for any concession. Win condition: AE walks away with at least 24-month term in exchange for any discount given.

Round 3 — Multi-stakeholder ambush. Buyer surprises AE with a CFO on the call who has not been in any prior meeting. AE must label the surprise (*"It seems like budget got escalated this week"*), reset the value story in 60 seconds, and use a no-oriented question to recover the agenda.

Debrief each round in 60 seconds: What did the AE trade? What did they cave on? What language worked?

Section 6 — Commitments & Close (5 minutes)

Each AE writes on a sticky note and reads aloud:

• One named deal they will apply the concession ladder to this week.
• One Voss tactic (label, mirror, or no-oriented question) they will drill on every call for 7 days.
• One concession they have been giving for free that they will start trading.

Manager logs these. Reviews them in the next 1:1. That's the reboot.

FAQ

Q: What if the buyer flat refuses to discuss anything but price? A: Label it: *"It sounds like your hands are tied to a single number."* Then ask Voss's calibrated question: *"How am I supposed to come down on price without anything moving on your side?"* This puts the problem back where it belongs.

Q: How big should the planned concession ladder be? A: Three rungs, max. G. Richard Shell's research: more than three concession steps signals weakness. Pre-commit your floor with your manager before the call.

Q: What's the single highest-ROI tactic to drill first? A: The mirror. It is the lowest-skill, highest-yield Voss move. New reps can deploy it on day one and immediately extract more information per call.

Q: Should we ever give a discount without a trade? A: No. Even a 2% goodwill discount should be paired with something — a logo right, a reference call, a faster signature. The principle is reciprocity, not the size of the trade.

Q: How do we handle "we have budget approved at $X and not a dollar more"? A: Reframe to scope. *"Got it — if we're locked at $X, what would have to come out of the package for that to work for both of us?"* Now they're cutting their own scope instead of cutting your price.

Q: When should the CRO get pulled in? A: When the trade ladder is exhausted and the deal is still alive. The CRO's job is to grant the exception once, in exchange for the largest paired ask the buyer can give (multi-year, expansion commitment, design partner status).

Sources

• Voss, Chris & Raz, Tahl. *Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It*. HarperBusiness, 2016.
• Fisher, Roger; Ury, William; Patton, Bruce. *Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In*. 3rd ed., Penguin, 2011.
• Shell, G. Richard. *Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People*. 3rd ed., Penguin, 2018.
• Camp, Jim. *Start with No: The Negotiating Tools That the Pros Don't Want You to Know*. Crown Business, 2002.
• Williams, Tom. *Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore Your Faith in the Modern World*. (B2B sales negotiation methodology), 2020.
• Galinsky, Adam D. & Mussweiler, Thomas. "First Offers as Anchors: The Role of Perspective-Taking and Negotiator Focus." *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 81(4), 657-669.
• Malhotra, Deepak & Bazerman, Max H. *Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond*. Bantam, 2008.
• Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON) — Daily Blog, ongoing research on multi-issue negotiation and BATNA construction.