This US-Based Environmental Services Firm Enhances Sales Performance Through Negotiation Skills

Negotiating to Yes™ was implemented to strengthen their salespeople’s negotiation skills and successfully institute the price increase while improving customer relationships for future business opportunities. Negotiating to Yes is a negotiation workshop jointly developed by Wilson Learning and Dr. William Ury, co-author of the bestselling book Getting to Yes™. A key premise is the importance of balancing the seller’s business objectives with nurturing client relations. Though most salespeople would recognize the value of this balance in theory, many have difficulty achieving it in practice.

This Negotiating to Yes™ implementation consisted of multiple activities centered on developing and applying negotiating skills. Specifically, the salespeople:

• Identified specific, important sales opportunities
• Participated in the Negotiating to Yes workshop, during which they developed negotiation strategies for these sales opportunities
• Received tips and reminders over a 12-week period to reinforce the use of the skills after the workshop
• Had one-on-one coaching available to address problem areas and provide support

Top executives and the participants’ managers worked closely with Wilson Learning to ensure that Negotiating to Yes™ skills were incorporated into participants’ daily work processes and reinforced. This high level of manager involvement, which extended far beyond the two-day training workshop, made a significant contribution to their results.