Part-4: PRAM – Plans, Relationships, Agreements and Maintenance

Part-4: PRAM – Plans, Relationships, Agreements and Maintenance

From the book: ‘Turn Your Customers into Your Sales Force’ by Ross Reck

It has been long from the previous article. Sorry for the delay. I was away from the blog, actually I forgot about writing blogs, or posting in blogs. My friend Mr. Arjun Surendra Bhat's articles in his blog (arjunsurendrabhat.wordpress.com)  inspired me to continue my blog works. 

In the last three parts, I have given the outline from the book “Turn Your Customers into Your Sales Force” by Ross Reck. In this concluding part, I will give the framework or model proposed by Ross Reck for Win-Win Negotiation.

The model is circular – depicting that negotiation is a continuous process. As negotiation is done with people, you cannot turn human feelings and emotions on and off like a light switch. Once you begin negotiating with another human being, you continue to do so until you terminate the relationship.

The model is consisting of four parts. PRAM is an acronym for these four steps of negotiating: Plans, Relationships, Agreements and Maintenance.

PLANS: The first step in the Win-Win Negotiation process is the development of a Win-Win Plan. The essence of a Win-Win Plan answers the question: “What can I do for the person I am about to deal with that will motivate that person to give me what I want in return?” Ross Reck explains that looking at negotiation as a give-and-take process is like viewing a marriage as a 50:50 proposition. The problem with viewing a marriage in this manner is that you spend the majority of time arguing over where you’re 50 stops and your spouse’s 50 starts. On the other hand, if you view a marriage as a 100:100 proposition, where both parties concentrate on the giving, the taking then takes care of itself.

RELATIONSHIPS: Once you have established your Win-Win Plan, the next step is the development of Win-Win personal relationships. Developing these relationships is critical because people are very willing to go that extra mile for someone they like and trust. In this step, you are trying to develop mutual assurance that if you do a favour for someone today, you can rest assured that when you ask that same person for a favour sometime in the future, the answer is going to be yes.

AGREEEMENTS: Once the relationship is in place, the next step in the process is forming a Win-Win Agreement. In it ‘I offer to give you what you want in exchange for you’re giving me what I want’. If the first two steps of the Win-Win process have been executed correctly; then reaching an agreement is merely a matter of working out the details.

MAINTENANCE: Once an agreement has been formed and both parties part company with a solid commitment to follow through, there is still much that needs to be done. As any successful salesperson will tell you, the sale really begins after the sale. The reason is that you want customers to come back, and you also want them to bring their friends. For this three things need to be maintained: the agreement, the relationship, and the plan.

Survey conducted by Ford Motor Company in 1990 endorses that “A dissatisfied customer tells his experience to 22 people as against a satisfied customer who shares it with only 8”. So, in our corporate life, to achieve success, we need to keep our customers happy at all times by employing Win-Win Negotiation process or PRAM model.

This concludes this series from the book ‘Turn Your Customers into Your Sales Force’. Your feedback and opinions are welcome. My email id: vinod.krishna@atma.edu.in