Negotiating Skills
Everything is negotiable.
Seven ideas to increase success include:
- Determine your primary objective? Clarify what is important to you. Be specific. Also consider your secondary goals.
- Try to anticipate the other person’s objective. Prepare questions to help discover their objectives. Never assume….always seek to clarify and confirm.
- Establish mutual benefits and be prepared to communicate these to motivate the other person to see the value of your position.
- Know “when to fold ‘em” i.e. when to walk away… set specific limits. It’s OK to say, “That’s more than I ‘m prepared to do.” or “That’s more than I‘m prepared to spend.”
- Use silence as a technique to gain more information and more power. The other person will fill the silence with information that will be potentially useful to you.
- Think of compromise …the 50/50 split, as your secondary strategy. A collaborative effort where you both uncover common ground and mutual benefits is the best approach and will produce a better outcome for both of you.
- Ask questions like:
- What will it take to close this deal?
- What will it take to resolve this conflict?
- What will it take to earn your trust?
- What will it take to satisfy you?
- What will it take to fix this?
