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I have been negotiating deals across cultures for over 30 years. This blog is not about negotiating skills but insights to make your negotiating more successful. Remember successful means a win for you, your company and your client.

Companies often approach me to “ELAvate” the negotiating skills of their sales people. These are companies that have a sales team in place, done the basic selling skills training a few months or a year or two ago, but they still find their sales productivity lagging behind expectations. A cursory investigation by their sales managers leads them to the conclusion that their sales people are losing sales towards the end of the sales cycle and, therefore, sales negotiating skills are weak.

Survey after survey indicate that customers do not trust salespeople. I believe one big reason salespeople are not trusted is because they are more interested in selling their solution rather than aligning with the customer feelings and emotions about the problems they face. Salespeople who don’t show compassion can come across as pushing product or seem more interested in meeting their target or commission plan even when their good intent is to show the customer how their product can solve problems.

Pause and reflect for a moment on communicators you’ve heard speak at conventions, retreats, special events or other conferences. My guess is—some of them were so good you can still remember their big idea. Others, I imagine, you only remember their name. You can’t remember what they said for the life of you. Most of you reading this article communicate with students in some context. If you’re like me—you win sometimes, and you lose sometimes.

Last week I sat down with Mette Johansson to discuss her upcoming book on authentic leadership. We discussed how being an authentic leader means actively living your core values in the cultures you live in and the relationships you have. I then read the article by Michael O’Malley of HBR on the 10 Principles of Effective Leadership and made the connection that effective organizations are led by authentic leaders.

Last week PwC sent me an article on their research on trust between organizations and their customers and employees. The research paper is called “Trust: The New Currency for Business.” PwC has much deeper pockets and global reach for research than my little company, so I have provided you with the download of the article at the end of this short blog.