Nearly all of us at some point in both our personal and business will have to negotiate something, whether it is a better price, more sales volume or which program to watch on TV.

The majority of us will go into these negotiations wanting to win, to get the best results for ourselves, but this is a fundamentally flawed approach to negotiating. Whilst we should always look to maximise our profit in business when negotiating the win/lose mentality limits our ability to achieve greater results.

Why? Well because simply looking at the cake and seeing how it can be divided so that I get the biggest piece normally develops an air of conflict and competition. Few agreements are reached under such conditions and often when one is reached one party feels hard done by. Whilst leaving your counterpart reeling from the loss may work if you never have to deal with them again or anyone they may know. It certainly doesn’t develop long term business relationships, or bode well for repeat business.

Win/Lose is a zero sum game and its better to create more options and variables than to haggle over one or two. Instead of splitting the cake, make it bigger. Whilst Win/Win doesn’t really exist the feeling of mutual win is the key. Both parties should feel satisfied and both should look to make concessions in order to create that satisfaction within the other party.

When approaching a negotiation try to look at it in other ways then the simplistic sporting analogy of we win they lose. In the end you should find you actually gain more and will find people enjoy doing business with you.

For more on negotiation please read some of our other articles, we also have worksheets and short courses available through our Academy which you can download.