10 Jul Guest Blog: Five Tips To Improve Every Negotiation by Nicole Davidson
For many women, the idea of having to negotiate is right up there with having to go to the dentist for a root canal. Overall, women report that they just don’t like negotiating. For women running their own businesses, this can be a significant issue. In business, we negotiate all the time – with customers, suppliers, staff, regulators and so on.
While every negotiation will be different based around content that negotiation and the context in which it takes place, there are five things that are common to every negotiation that can help you plan for better outcomes.
Appreciation
Humans are programmed to want to feel heard and understood and valued by the people they interact with. We can improve our negotiations by making sure our counterpart feels heard and understood by us.
Prepare for your negotiation by thinking “What can I say to make them feel valued and understood?” Consider how things may appear from their perspective. When you meet, you can appreciate their reasoning without agreeing with them.
“I understand you think the price it too high, and I appreciate your belief is that our margin should be less than 50%.”
Autonomy
People also want to feel the freedom to make decisions without somebody else imposing a decision on them. In your negotiations, you need to be able to give a sense of choice to the other party even where the choices are limited.
This doesn’t always have to be on the big-ticket items in the negotiation. It can often be around choices of how the negotiation will run rather than the outcome of the negotiation itself. For example,
“I’d like to meet at 10.30am tomorrow. Would that work for you?”
Affiliation
People are also looking for emotional connection. Negotiations will run more smoothly when there is a sense of connection between the parties. You want to try and shift the energy so it’s not “me versus you” but it’s the two of us sitting side-by-side. Building a sense of connection is helpful. A little bit of LinkedIn research can go a long way here.
“I see you worked in Hong Kong for a while. I was there for three years too. How did you find it?”
Status
There is a sense in every negotiation of who is important and who may be seen as less important. No one likes to be disrespected and demonstrating a sense of respect you are negotiating counterpart is helpful. You want to aim to make sure the other party feels respected without discounting your own status
“It’s a pleasure working with you. With your expertise in design and mine in what functionality my family needs, I’m sure we’ll come up with some amazing plans.”
Role
it is important that all parties have a fulfilling and meaningful role in the negotiation. Too often, the parties’ roles are those of adversaries. It is a case of you win, I lose. To increase the satisfaction of both parties in a negotiation we need to create a new kind of role. Try to invite the other person into a more constructive kind of role.
“Let’s sit down and just try and problem solve these differences together.”
Fundamentally, every negotiation is an exercise in people skills. Putting these 5 tips into place will help give you the best starting point for every business negotiation.
For more information on how to negotiate or for assistance in your next negotiation, please contact Nicole Davidson, principal at GrowingBeyond – www.growingbeyond.com.au
Nicole Davidson is the Principal at GrowingBeyond, a boutique consultancy helping businesses to do better deals and to resolve business conflicts quickly and cost effectively. Nicole brings her experience as a qualified lawyer and her practice in finance and insolvency to her negotiation work to assist her clients in getting better outcomes.
Nicole provides clients with the following services:
- Training in negotiation and conflict management – to build skills
- Negotiation coaching to assist clients optimize negotiation results
- Mediation and facilitation to assist parties in getting to agreement
0403 523 700