I received a call the other day from a client that told me he was about to enter a meeting with a very important prospect and he was a little apprehensive about his strategy. After he explained to me what he had already done and what he was about to do, it was clear to me that he had done a wonderful job of selling the prospect. This meeting was a negotiation, not about selling. I told him that the prospect would ask him for one final concession, because he knew that salespeople are always nervous about losing the sale, and will give something away at the last minute to “save” the deal. I told him to preempt the prospect by praising his negotiating skills and tell the prospect that he had already made more concessions than with any other client. He called back an hour later and said that he had contract in hand without making any more concessions. But that is not the point.
Make it a policy to run your strategy by someone that has no emotional connection to the decision. I could give him the proper strategy because I was not emotionally attached to the decision. That gave me a clarity that he did not have because he was too close to the deal and his emotions were clouding his judgment. If the roles were reversed he probably could have done the same for me.
The bigger the deal, the more important it is to get an unemotional analysis from someone that is not attached to the deal. By definition, that cannot be you.