Negotiating is arguably the most important part of managing a business. Mastering negotiation strategies will put you ahead of the game for everything from setting employees' salaries to getting the best prices from your vendors. Negotiation skills come in handy at all levels of business, from a sole proprietorship to a large transnational corporation. Anyone in a position to hammer out a deal can benefit from keeping a few negotiation strategies in mind.
The first order of business in any negotiation is to decide your position. All the negotiation strategies in the world won't help you get what you want if you yourself don't know what that is. Decide in advance what you want, how much you're willing to give in exchange, and where your unbreakable boundaries are. If you've decided beforehand that you can't give up a market position, you'll be ready with a definitive no when your adversary asks for it. This usually settles the question so decisively that it won't come up a second time.
It is important to know your counterparty before the first meeting; make the effort to learn what the other person wants. If you can identify the other person's goals before meeting, you stand a much better chance of finding common ground and getting an erstwhile foe to start working with you. Opening with your common interests and showing your partner how to profit by working with your company or paying a higher salary makes any deal you strike easier to sell when the other person takes it to the shareholders.
One of the negotiation strategies that will save you more time and effort than most is to avoid ultimatums. If you are issued one, try to pretend you didn't hear it, and come back to the subject later. It's possible that the other party's offer refusal is actually negotiable, but there's no chance of negotiating with someone who feels boxed into a corner. Avoid making the other person repeat a refusal or an ultimatum because this may reinforce intransigence and make it harder to reverse.
As a management professional, sometimes it's difficult for you to be seen giving into the demands of others. Of all negotiation strategies, knowing when to give is perhaps the most important. When you show that you're willing to flex on minor matters, you signal to your counterparty that you're a reasonable person who isn't wasting time. Most negotiation strategies anticipate that the other person will work to achieve consensus eventually, so showing a little flexibility early on—especially on an issue that you're not especially serious about—can work a dramatic change in the tenor of your negotiation and make your own negotiation strategies more effective later.
Negotiation skills are not inborn in all humans. People have to learn negotiation strategies as they grow up. Indeed, it can be argued that learning how to negotiate with other people is the essence of adulthood because it calls for maturity and reasonableness. Showing up to the table with a toolkit full of effective negotiation strategies shows that you're a serious person, and it encourages others to see it also.
(Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)
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