Negotiation Skills for Consultants:
How to Close Sales and Maintain Client Relationships
Everyone knows that consultants have to be good at what they do – they have to be competent providers of whatever service they offer their clients. But Justin Wright, chief executive of Habitus Inc., makes the case that successful consultants have to be good negotiators, too, in every phase of their work. They know their business depends on their ability to negotiate effectively and build relationships with prospective and current clients.
Consultants must be able to negotiate a casual conversation effectively into a sale and to manage expectations when the unexpected occurs during a client engagement. “Negotiation skills are a key complement to the technical expertise that consultants bring to their clients,” Justin says.
Negotiation skills prevent the loss of valuable time, resources, and energy that could be dedicated to other paid work. With these skills, not only are consultants better equipped to secure work and maintain happy clients, but also they increase the likelihood of referrals based on the strength of the client relationship in place.
At this SPC dinner meeting you will learn the negotiation skills critical to
- Turn casual conversations into sales opportunities
- Identify exactly what your clients are looking to achieve
- Frame yourself and your services as the solution to their problem
- Name the rate for your services that is truly fair.
About Our Speaker:
Justin Wright is a consultant, facilitator, and executive coach. He has expertise providing transactional assistance, advising clients on behavior change, and mediating disputes. He also provides mediation and negotiation training and executive coaching.
He has trained and advised people at organizations in the United States and abroad such as Akamai Technologies; Anika Therapeutics Inc.; the Friends Committee on National Legislation; the Bavaria Foundation, a Colombian nonprofit focused on environmental protection and sustainable development; the Massachusetts-based Better Future Project; Commonwealth Financial; Eastman Chemical; IBM; the Spanish pharmaceutical maker IFC Cantabria; FINCA International, a microfinance organized based in Washington; NeighborWorks; and the Signum Foundation, an arts organization that has headquarters in Poland and exhibition space in Italy. Justin’s corporate training work is complemented by his teaching at Yale and Northeastern universities.
At present, Justin is focused on training individuals and organizations pursuing missions of sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship.
