Patent ID: 7203662

Claim:
A computer implemented method of making selling decisions for selling a product or service, comprising: storing one or more rules identifying strategic selling policies in a storage device in a computer system; storing one or more attributes for the product or service to be sold in a storage device in the computer system; automatically determining an initial offer of sale for the product or service; automatically providing the initial offer of sale to a customer; obtaining history information regarding the product or service; determining acceptable terms of sale based on the history information; receiving a modification, which was made by the customer, to the terms of sale; automatically negotiating, by a negotiating engine in the computer system, with the customer terms of sale of the product or service based on the initial offer of sale, the acceptable terms of sale based on the history information, the one or more rules, and the one or more attributes of the product or service; and the negotiating engine automatically negotiates by determining and providing a counteroffer to each modification of the terms of sale made by the customer until the customer and the negotiating engine agree to mutually acceptable terms of sale.