Selling vs Negotiating

I believe there is a fundamental difference between Selling and Negotiating and I am going to try to make you see it.

In sales, you are attempting to convince a prospect about the value of your offering, in the hope of a monetary exchange. Hence you focus on the resulting monetary gain.

In negotiations, you are attempting to convince your counterpart about the value of your deal, in the hope of a mutually acceptable agreement, whatever that agreement entails. Hence you focus on the overall balance.

Yes, the two scenarios above may indeed look similar in some circumstances, yet - to illustrate their intrinsic difference in practice - I’m going to be using the most common example there is: “Sell me this pen”.

When you say “sell me this pen” to a salesperson, (s)he’ll undoubtedly put all efforts into giving the pen to you in return for your cash. And that's great.

But I am not a salesperson at all, so when two days ago Laura - a friend who clearly wanted to tease me - addressed that very same phrase at me, I approached it in the only way I know: like a negotiator. And this is how it went:

Laura: "Hey Simo, sell me this pen."

Simone: "Mmm I'd love to do it, but the problem is that it's not up to me to decide. You see, that's my son's favorite pen so I cannot sell it to you."

Laura: "Ok, let's assume he agreed."

Simone: "Yeh I can guarantee he would not agree to it. Anyway, how much would you pay for it?"

Laura: "I'd say the fair value if it was new would be 2 EUR [note: it was a very crappy metal pen with a hotel logo on it, and we were using it for this game because it happened to be next to where Laura was sitting], so I could pay 1 EUR for it, given its conditions."

Simone: "Well, the fair cost of it is probably 1-2 EUR indeed, but the value for my son and his evening routine is so high that I could not sell it even for 50 EUR, sadly. Anyway, putting the pen aside, you know that 2 EUR is exactly how much it costs for one ride on the toy train outside the shopping centre next-door? And I never find myself having coins with me when we go there, so in fact I'd love to get that 2 EUR coin from you, so tomorrow when I go there I can tell my son that you are sponsoring the ride for him and he'll be smiling a lot. In return I'll be sending you a super cool video of him thanking you, he is super funny when he tries to say thank you in many languages. Would I be asking for too much if I asked you to give me those 2 EUR?"

Laura: "Not at all, that's fine, here you go. Send me the video though."

Simone: "That's great thanks, he'll love it!"

The result? I got the same amount of money I'd have gotten for the pen (or possibly more), while also keeping the pen for me, while giving in return plenty of emotional joy to my counterpart Laura instead, leveraging the intrinsic value of a child’s smile to stimulate the trade.

Strictly speaking I did not sell the pen, so I actually failed at selling. But I negotiated a better deal. And now I still have the pen. And the money. And my son’s smile after getting a free ride. And Laura's happiness for having contributed to a child's fun time. Can’t you see the difference?

Hire salespersons to do sales. Hire negotiators to do negotiations. 

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