Your Insufficiently Developed Business Negotiation Skills Capability Could Cause Critical Negotiations To Fail Due To Poor Planning

Two people are involved in a negotiation - one accomplishes his/her objective(s) and is satisfied, whilst the other walks away dissatisfied with the outcome. Does this scenario sound familiar?

How often have you felt disappointed with an agreement that you have reached? Have you ever entered into an agreement only to feel regret soon after reaching agreement?

SUCCESS VS FAILURE

What distinguishes success vs failure in business negotiations?

Most of us understand the significance of preparation to achieve success and it is therefore interesting to note that the majority of commercial negotiators do not spend adequate time preparing for negotiations, often due to not enough negotiation training. Professional sports people spend considerably more time preparing for competition than they spend in competition; should it not be the same for commercial negotiators?

THE EVIDENCE

Business negotiators only spend about 1/3 as much time planning for negotiation as they actually spend in negotiation. If you were a professional sports person, this would mean that you applied only 1/3 as much time training & preparing as you do in competition. The number 1 contributor to profitable business negotiation results is the quality of your planning for the negotiation.

As a matter of negotiation strategy, consider the following main 5 elements of preparation and at the same time you will simultaneously improve your negotiation skills:

1. Understand Yourself

Before we even employ best- and leading practice negotiation, it is key that we first invest in understanding our own strengths & weaknesses and it is important that we make use of personal profiling tools to emphasise our areas of preference within the framework of business negotiations, which enables us to have a reference point from which to plot our skills development.

2. Vision

What is the ultimate goal behind the negotiation? Is the negotiation about price or is it about the value that can be added? What are the key motivating issues behind your counterparty's position? What common ground, if any, exists between your and your counterparty's vision? It is key to understand the interests or silent motivations behind the positions of all parties to the negotiation and it is only by asking questions that we will expose these motivations.

3. Value

What are the key deal objectives being targeted in this negotiation? What are the facts and figures contributing to the negotiation environment? What alternatives does each party have, if any? Once again we should try to recognise, prioritise & weigh the goals of all parties to the negotiation and only then are we in a position to highlight those goals that are shared and at the same time deal with those objectives that are likely to produce conflict.

4. Process

Have you spent time thinking about an agenda for your upcoming negotiation? Have you listed all the trades that you will give & receive? Do you have tools/templates at your disposal to support the effectiveness of the negotiation cycle.?

5. Relationship

It is easy to forget that we deal with people who have goals & aspirations similar to our own and it is not always just about the money. The research is clear that people are more likely to deal with those whom they trust & like, than with those with whom they little in common. Try to focus on those interests that you share with your negotiation counterparts, and do not forget to focus on the people.

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