B2B sales professionals: resist mindless discounting, level the playing field against tough procurement organizations, and close the deal on your terms! Negotiating with Backbone, Second Edition definitive guide for every sales pro facing the “procurement buzzsaw” – and it’s just been updated with even more powerful strategies and techniques! Where traditional purchasing managers negotiated, procurement officials seek to dictate, through multiple tactics with a single intent: to gain unprecedented discounts and concessions. Premier pricing strategist and sales consultant Reed K. Holden gives you the powerful new strategies and tactics you need to protect your margins and get the right deal. Holden guides you through recognizing what purchasing negotiators are really up to, keep value at the forefront of negotiations, and avoiding the mindless discounting that wrecks profitability. Holden details eight strategies for all types of pricing negotiations, including approaches for negotiating with price buyers, relationship buyers, value buyers, and poker players, reverse auctions, and much more. In this Second Edition, he offers extensive new coverage of establishing your foundation of value, and developing crucial give-get options, including value-added services. This book will be an invaluable resource for every B2B sales professional, customer-facing professional, and every executive responsible for leading successful sales organizations.

DR. REED K. HOLDEN (Concord, MA), CEO/Founder of Holden Advisors, is a world-class pricing expert who helps clients build go-to-market strategies to drive price leadership, selling backbone and profitable growth. He pioneered the Value Discipline^SM, a process to tune and sustain pricing power in highly competitive markets. His latest work focuses on successfully dealing with discount-oriented procurement departments through more effective product positioning, selling, and negotiation. With Mark Burton, he wrote Pricing with Confidence: Ten Ways to Stop Leaving Money on the Table. When not helping clients improve profitability, Reed is an avid reader, marksman, tractor-driver and beer connoisseur. Find out more about Reed and Holden Advisors at www.HoldenAdvisors.com.

Part 1. The Great Game of Procurement