Eh, no Sparky. You need to get better at everything else you do so you never have to negotiate. Or at least negotiate 90 percent less.

Negotiation is for people who are lousy at selling, don’t understand buying motives, haven’t provided value, are unable to differentiate themselves from the competition, can’t build trust, and have failed at building relationships.

That’s why they have to "negotiate."

Negotiation is not a problem. It’s a symptom.

Negotiations are all about "concessions" and back-and-forth bickering about what you provide and how much it will cost. Negotiation "experts" call it give-and-take or win-win. That’s garbage. It’s lower your price and sacrifice your profit.

I fly as many as 20 times in a month. It seems every airline magazine has a two-page ad for "effective negotiation." It must work. By that I mean they must be successful in selling their course.

"It’s like steroids for your career!" proclaimed one of the ads I saw recently. The word of sport has taught us steroids are for cheaters. So, in other words, what this ad is saying is "Hey, you too can gain an unfair advantage!"

In the case of negotiation, they’re advocating you use manipulation and sacrifice fair play, ethics and relationships.

Why do you have to negotiate at all? Because you were calling on the wrong person or people in the first place.

People at the top, in the C-suite, don’t negotiate. They discuss, discern, and decide. And they do it based on perceived value and trust, not price.

Here’s why you have to negotiate:

• You failed to prove value beyond your competition.

• You failed to prove you were different from others selling the same product.

• You failed to gain enough trust to get a decision.

• You won the business at a low level, and were sent to procurement.

All upside down propositions (and you are at the bottom).

Once you’re in negotiations, you’re relegated to manipulating and groveling to get the business – at a lower price with less (or no) profit.

Great move. And you call that making the sale? I call it a pyrrhic victory.

The whole concept of negotiation seems like a win-lose proposition. They win. You lose.

To make matters worse, at the end of a "successful" negotiation, you almost get to the point where you hate the people you were negotiating with.

Want to know if it’s likely you will have to negotiate in order to win a sale? Answer these questions:

How high up in the organization is the person you’re dealing with?

What is your value proposition?

Do you know how the customer profits as a result of buying your product?

What is the customer’s urgency to buy?

Do you have their trust?

How strong is your relationship?

What is your reputation in the marketplace?

CEOs tell procurement departments what to do. With one phone call, they can eliminate all negotiations and create a purchase order, from a now friendly, or even accommodating, purchasing agent.

Negotiation is nothing more than someone else trying to get in your wallet and lower your price. If you’re negotiating, it’s because you started too low on the sales food chain (because it was easier entry), and you’re now faced with a price war.

Departments like plant maintenance, information technology, human resources, office administration and other low level - yes low level - branches of a business have budgets. Maybe you should be talking to the people who make the budgets for greater success.

And just so we’re clear, I’m not saying don’t take the negotiation course. Any knowledge on how to win, and how to deal with customers could prove to be valuable. But what I am saying is if you have to use negotiation to win a sale, it’s likely you have given up your profit along the way. Not good.

If you want more ideas about negotiation strategies, and why there’s a better way, go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first-time visitor, and enter the word "negotiate" in the GitBit box.

Contact Jeffrey Gitomer at salesman@gitomer.com or (704) 333-1112. Gitomer is president of Buy Gitomer in Charlotte, N.C., and the author of "The Little Red Book of Selling." He gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. Sales Moves appears weekly.