How to win business negotiations using Bitrix24

Books have been written about the skill of negotiating, films have been made, master classes are held, and even scientific dissertations are defended. Basically, all techniques and tips work both for traditional live negotiations and for remote ones. However, our goal today is not to talk about what and with what intonation to say or show to interlocutors, but how to competently use modern business tools from the Bitrix24 set to eliminate possible difficulties of virtual negotiations and strengthen our own positions.

"Negotiation? What negotiations?”

The worst negotiations should be considered not failed by you, but those that did not take place at all for various reasons. And most often there are only two such reasons: “I didn’t know” and “I forgot”. To conduct virtual negotiations, you need additional equipment and, preferably, some secluded place where you personally or your team will not be disturbed by other employees. Accordingly, all this must be taken into account, prepared and announced in advance.

In Bitrix24, there are several ways at once to choose and agree on the date, time, place and resources of future negotiations. The most banal thing is to set a task. This will already guarantee the notification of team members about the upcoming event, its subject and purpose, and will also allow you to assign roles and set up reminders. However, there are more interesting methods.

For negotiations, it would be more appropriate to create an event in Bitrix24 directly from the Live Stream. Here you can present future meetings in a more familiar way for employees: specify the name and location, set time frames and set reminders. Each event will also be saved in the Calendar.

The third method is great in cases where communism or bureaucracy reigns in your company. For example: “Negotiations and meetings should be held only in the conference room”, “Get a projector for videoconferencing personally from the administrator and return it to him at the end of the event”, etc. other employees. Bitrix24 provides resource booking, when you can reserve a place, time, and equipment for your event. At the booking stage, you will immediately see the activity of other employees; under this process you can involve all the necessary colleagues. Resource booking is also related to CRM, in particular with leads and deals. Thus, if negotiations are scheduled with leads, their data can be linked to the booking for a better understanding of the future event.

Preparing for negotiations

Good preparation for negotiations is always more important than the negotiations themselves - this is a simple truth that does not need to be explained. Just now, by the way, he will use the task in Bitrix24 so as not to forget anything. If you are preparing for negotiations on your own, such a task may consist of a simple checklist for collecting the necessary data. For example:

• Find out how the name of their company is translated;

• Prepare a financial report for review;

• Iron the shirt;

• Check the quote of their shares on the stock exchange an hour before the negotiations.

The more important the negotiations and the larger the subject of their discussion, the more questions will have to be answered not only by you, but also by the team members. In this case, the task will expand significantly, co-executors will appear in it, to whom you delegate something. More recently, we could talk about creating subtasks for individual performers. But in the release of Bitrix24.Boston, the developers presented a very convenient checklist update. Now this is not just a list, but a functional element that allows you to make each item an analogue of a subtask. Now you do not need to produce a branched bush of subtasks: for each individual checklist item, you can assign your own responsible person, set deadlines, and add a detailed explanation. You will definitely appreciate the benefits of the updated checklist when you start using it. And following the task will be very difficult to lose sight of something during preparation.

Always at hand

During the negotiation, accuracy and specificity is the key to success. Official documentation is not only necessary to increase the credibility of you and your company, but also necessary for the conclusion of contracts. Presentations, photographs, visualizations of the future project - all this strengthens your position, and sometimes - it can truly be an “ace in the hole” that you play at the most opportune moment.

And it is always wildly unpleasant when the desired file is not at hand. You know for sure that he is, that he is beautiful ... but where is he? It’s not at all good when, during negotiations, you start shaking up the computer’s file system or looking for the right link to share the material with the interlocutor, who at that time is either talking to someone else, or, even worse, waiting.

Cloud storage in this case is very handy: firstly, you can put everything you need in one place and get access from anywhere in the world, and secondly, you can quickly share access. However, any cloud is a third party program that you will be dependent on. The policy of Bitrix24 is to reduce the dependence of its users on third-party programs necessary for business: communication, analytical, office, etc. For storing, viewing and editing files of various types, there is Bitrix24.Disk, which, without additional software, allows you to work with 40+ file formats . Thus, relying on Bitrix24 in negotiations, it is beneficial for you to upload everything you need to the Disk and set up access rights. As with other services, sharing requires only a few clicks.

A great option is to create a temporary public access link. Bitrix24 can generate special links for its own or third-party users, which will work only for the amount of time you specify. This provides additional privacy.

Invite to you

Now let's think about how we communicate with interlocutors. Maybe order a chat room, rent a platform for virtual conferences or offer to call on Skype in the old fashioned way? Nowadays, there are many options. However, with the use of Bitrix24, some very effective moves are possible.

The internal chat, which was created just to unleash the communication problem, is an integral part of the "Office" block. Today it is no longer just a messenger, but a self-sufficient and popular tool that allows the user not to think about what means of communication to use to communicate with colleagues. The chat is available in all versions of Bitrix24 - on the Portal page in the browser, in desktop and mobile applications with the same functionality. In addition to text messages, here you can send voice messages, transfer files, and most importantly, make video calls to up to 10 participants at the same time.

Of course, you will not surprise anyone with this type of connection now. But in this situation, you can take a broader look and use the chat feature in combination with other Bitrix24 tools to increase the involvement of the interlocutor in the negotiation process.

By combining the simple methods described above, we can create ideal conditions for negotiations on our rules. To do this, we create an extranet project (external) in our Bitrix24, where we conduct all the preparations for negotiations. Here we invite all the necessary employees, we set tasks. A new project is automatically accompanied by a chat of the same name for communication and disk space is allocated. Using this project, we create an event or form a schedule. And finally, at the right moment, we invite external users here - our future interlocutors. Since this is an external project, you only need an email address for this. Invited people do not have to register their own Bitrix24 or do anything extra at all: they get to your Portal by the link and use everything that you give them access to. A big plus is that extranet users do not affect the limit of portal members and are not considered your employees. But they don't need to know about it. After all, you are making a good move on the way to a long and fruitful partnership by inviting interlocutors inside your own company.

Take action!

Thus, negotiations using Bitrix24 protect you from many negative factors that may arise in technical and organizational aspects. Of course, Bitrix24 alone will not win the negotiations for you, but with such a reliable and convenient set of tools, the chances really increase significantly. In addition, by organizing virtual negotiations on your part and providing the interlocutor with comfortable conditions and a wide selection of related information, you have much more trust and respect for the interlocutor. Therefore, do not be afraid to take the initiative into your own hands and you will certainly succeed with Bitrix24! Remember — the worst negotiations are those that did not exist at all.