My part in this case is that I acted as a sales account manager in my internship. Since there was a nondisclosure form with the contract, I will not disclose the name and go to much into detail about the contract that was signed.
The main part of negotiations I had participated in, usually took place between Sales and customers. Because customers always want the lowest price, and we always want to sell as much for as high a price as possible. It is an everlasting conflict.
However, when trying to sell as much as possible. We could get a lower price as long as they can buy a large enough quantity, so this would be included in our strategy.
I was acting as a salesperson for this company, and at the time of arrival they didn’t really have a clear plan of approach to sell wine. There were a few promotions, but there was no clear direction as to who our customer should be. So, we had to find our own customers.
For my plan, I thought of wine bars, as they would probably often need large quantities of wine and would be able to order wines more frequently. Considering how this was one of the first times that I had actually done something like this, I decided to just go to a wine bar, and ask if they were in need of any wine. A waitress sat me down and I waited with a glass of wine for the owner. This I did thoughtfully, as I didn’t want to come over as rude, and came with the intention of just finding out who the boss was, if he had a need for wine, and if we could deliver this wine. By ordering a glass of wine, they could also see that I’m not in a hurry, which would make them feel less pressured.
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quizzing me about my knowledge of wines. After he asked enough, he was willing to immediately try out some wines. He even bought a few by the box to try them out without having a taste first.In afterview, I think this was a strategy to get me to think he was very serious and was willing to buy in large quantities. During our first meeting, he boasted a few times over how much wines he can move. This would make me think that he would probably need a lot of wines, and that maybe we can get a lower price to give him. The next few weeks, I would go over there regularly, making sure that he was satisfied of the wine, and tried to get him a lower price, so he could buy larger quantities. In the end, after a few meetings in which I also had my manager around, we could agree to give him a distributor discount, which was the highest discount we could offer. However, the quantities he ordered were never big enough.
There seemed to be a misunderstanding as to what kind of percentage could be allocated to this wine shop. When Maarten came back from overseas, he declared that the discount would be five percent less than originally agreed. Considering that this customer had already been ordering wines for a month at this discount, it would be something that would be hard to change without getting the customer to be unhappy.
Eventually I happened to think of a way to get him to keep the discount, which was having this customer to sign a contract in which he would agree to a yearly turnover of a certain amount. During these negotiations, the customer had lost some of his faith in our company, so he talked about kimochi a lot. These negotiations went on for about two months. I’d have weekly visits to the wine shop, and we had invited the owner over
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as well to come and see our company, try to get him to put his trust in us again. When he saw the original very general contract, which would fit about just one page. He asked for a more detailed version. After we came over to the shop with the manager and Maarten. The stamps were placed on the documents, and a deal was sealed.
But this is not how the story ends. After a few weeks of still ordering in small quantities, the owner said he could not find a suitable product to sell as fast as his other products. Even though a contract was signed, he did not buy in as large a quantity as previously agreed in the contract. Using the contract more as a guideline than a rule.
He often spoke of the kimochi not being right, about feeling that we don't trust him by asking him to pay on time.
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5 Case Analysis
5.1 Planning
In this case, the planning part wasn’t that elaborate. I looked for suitable wine shops and wine bars in the area and went over there to check it out. For the wine bar mentioned in the case, I went to drink there for a while before having the internship in Vinoza. This was also a strategy as I knew I would probably be working there so I staked out the place beforehand. I would a more general idea of what they do there, what kind of wine they serve, at what kind of price and they’d be more familiar with me.
5.2 Contact
For the first contact I just talked to the waitress, asking if they had a need for wine.
She set me down at a table for two and I ordered some wine. I did this to create the impression that I am not in a hurry, that I won’t go anywhere fast and if I came at an inconvenient time they could just take their time, finish what they were doing and then see me. When the bar owner came in he came to me directly, so he sat in front of me and then asked me about my knowledge of wines. I tried to answer all his questions and when he was satisfied he immediately ordered some wine by the box as a test run. This strategy was to make it appear that he could order enormous quantities without having to try something first, which meant that he was very confident of his selling skills.
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5.3 Negotiation
The part of the negotiation happened when we had to cut back the discount or sign a contract so that was when we really started discussing on how to get the best for both sides, so we went for a win-win strategy. When talking in the in the negotiations there was often silence this could’ve been both part of the strategy or it could be because there was a barrier in language as the bar owner didn’t have a good control in English and our boss is a foreigner who only speaks English.
Luckily both myself and the manager were there to help translate for our boss and for him but I feel that maybe sometimes there might’ve still been some misunderstandings between the both sides due to miscommunication. Our first offer was a very general contract but after seeing the contracts the owner wanted to change the contract to a more detailed one with more clauses, he didn’t even mind that more of the clauses would be negative for him, because he wanted to make us trust him in that he will sell enough as long as we maintain a good relationship.
5.4 Contract
According to his wishes the contract was a more specific one instead of the general one that we had in the beginning giving more details about how and when the wine should be delivered and about how long it would take to get there, what was most important
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for us was that he agreed to a certain number of sales per year. What was most important for him was knowing that we wouldn’t change the price.
As for the follow up I don’t think it was well implemented as after the contract was signed not much orders were taken. I felt that this was mostly due to that the owner was reluctant of buying too much. During this time I would go over there once a week, usually on Friday afternoon, to bring sample wines. At a few occasions, I even brought a winery representative to show the wines. The bar owner was however not swayed and held off on the orders. The relationship itself went quite bad as some of the wines in our store went on sales without him knowing.