“Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.”  Edna Ferber

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about going above and beyond and giving a little extra…  I am now going to play devil’s advocate, so please bear with me.

In life people are taught that “If you don’t ask, you won’t get” – this adage has been ingrained into client’s minds so much that you will see RFPs with outrageous requests.  Free this, upgraded that, gimme, gimme, gimme…and there are those of you who will give it all away gladly.

But, what are you gaining?

Respect? No – your buyer now just has the perception you are a pushover.

Oh, that’s right you won the business….But at what cost?  Has your boss ever laid out the “soft and sometimes, hard” cost of those free/upgrades/perks and made you associate a dollar amount to that?  What if they insisted you take that amount off your booked revenue?  Would you look at the freebies differently?

You gain trust and build relationships through negotiation.

It is only when you start a meaningful dialog with your customer about what is really important to them and what is fair for you to give to them as a “bonus” that you truly  start building a foundation for a lifelong relationship.  They will respect you for the going back and forth – as long as it isn’t one sided towards either party and comes to a conclusion.

Let me repeat the last sentence:

As long as it isn’t one sided towards either party and comes to a conclusion.  The point of this post is not to have you drag out negotiations weeks, even months.  That will get tedious and annoying.  However a healthy give and take will benefit everyone and you will respect yourself in the morning.