How to Overcome Anchoring in a Negotiation to Win More Sales

If you find yourself working with a prospect who is exhibiting anchoring bias, consider the following tactics as you navigate your negotiation.

1. Do your research

Take time to adequately prepare before you enter any negotiation situations. Research the background of the prospect to make sure you understand what they are actually looking for and run the financials on your end so you know exactly what you can and cannot accept as a final offer. 

For example, knowing your prospect's set budget which they want to stick to allows you to prepare the best possible solution your company can provide which would suit the goals of your prospect and meet your financial objectives.

Take time to research what your competitors are offering for the same solution, because in some scenarios prospects may want to price-match or reference what another competitor is offering. If you take the time to prepare a response to this ahead of time you are less likely to be caught off-guard.

2. Propose a counter-anchor

The goal is to swiftly disqualify an anchor before countering with an ideal price. Don't reply with a figure because you would be haggling for a price, but the best way we've found is to make it known to the prospect so that they understand that their offer is far lower than what you're willing to accept.

Only once you have shared that this is too low of an offer for you to accept and your prospect understand this that you can state the new price you would like to see the product go for and explain the value of what your prospect is getting in return.

3. Reject the anchor price

When you're in the midst of a negotiation and you find your prospect is not willing to negotiate and the value of the deal is not worth it, you can choose to reject the anchor. This can lead to a few outcomes:

• You can revisit the counter-anchor strategy later in the process
• You can start from scratch to discuss a different offer or set of terms that better aligns with their budget
• The two parties can examine if the collaboration is worth pursuing.

Conclusion

The more experience you have at negotiating the more comfortable you will be to navigate these different scenarios.