Negotiations are at the same time very simple and very complex activities.
Have you ever looked back on a negotiated settlement and felt you were taken advantage of?
There are a few vital rules in a negotiation. Here are our top 5
- Know exactly what you do and don’t want. Unless you are really clear about what you really want, you can't keep the negotiation on the right track.
- Keep focused on this throughout the negotiation. So many times I see people get so much less from a negotiation as a result of not being completely certain of what they really want to achieve. Not only that, but in the heat of the negotiation they get distracted, and find themselves making concessions that completely undermine their ultimate aim.
- Know what the other party does or doesn’t want. If you don’t know what the other party really wants you don’t know which buttons to press. Unless you press the right buttons you will never get the great deal you are looking for. You should spend as much time working out what the other party wants as you do working out what you want.
- Pre-prepare as many variables as possible to negotiate around. There is so much to negotiate around that doesn’t involve giving away money. This is the area that most people have the greatest difficulty with. And yet it is the second most important part of a negotiation.
- Always trade concessions, never give them. And take your time in making them. Conceding too easily gives a clear signal to the other side that you are too eager.
How can we help you?
Bringing us in to help you with negotiations can make a massive difference to your business. We can do any or all of the following with you.
- Train you and your team in the important skills of negotiating.
- Role play negotiations with you. Either we can create some general role plays to use as skill development exercises, or practice a specific negotiation in order to give you the best chance possible of coming out with a great deal.
- Attend negotiations with you or on your behalf in order to get you the best result possible.
- Review, coach and advise you during specific negotiations. By working in the background with you in a specific negotiation we can make a significant difference to the outcome you achieve.
Here are a few examples of negotiations that we helped clients with.
We worked with an events company to help them negotiate a multi year contract with one of their main clients. The events company asked us to attend the negotiations with them and to sit at the table as one of their team. We attended two sessions with our client and at the end, the client had not only the multi year contract they wanted, but had changed the terms so that the contract was much easier and cheaper for them to deliver. In addition, they achieved a 20% increase in the price compared to the previous year.
We were asked by a theme contractor to negotiate an agreement with a new customer. The customer was imposing terms that were extremely difficult to achieve and offering a price that would just about allow a break even for my client. However, the client really needed this contract and just didn’t know how to get a higher price. We phoned the customer on his behalf and managed to change the delivery terms to make them much easier to achieve, and negotiated a £20,000 price increase at the same time.
We worked with a web design company on the proposal for a project that involved a large amount of complexity. This company had created an application for a client and that client wanted to roll out the application to all his branches in a short period of time. We advised the client on the best way to structure a proposal to their client and helped them to see the benefits to that client, and so built confidence in their pricing. The roll out is now under way and our client is enjoying a very significant increase in their business turnover.
We were approached by an events company to help them launch their business. They had a potential client that they hoped to work with, but that client, recognising that they were in a weak position, was trying to impose terms that would have been incredibly difficult to meet. We helped the founder recognise what his real ambition was, and so change the nature of the negotiation to completely different ground. By advising the client while staying in the background, we helped him to stay focused on the real goal and to resist the pressure from his client. In the end, he completed a 7 figure, three year agreement that will help him meet all his long term goals.
This is what they had to say -
"Phil thank you so much for your Negotiating to Win coaching in the past and your recent help and advice with our latest and biggest ever contract.It still seems incredible to me that three years ago our biggest contract was for £170,000 and today I have signed a contract worth well over £1,000,000 and possibly as much as £1,500,000 over three years.Put quite simply, were it not for your calm, objective and incredibly experienced advice Chameleon Theming would not be the thriving business it is today."
If you would like to know more about negotiation, or how we could help you please use the form on the page to get in touch with us for an informal chat.