You need a better price. You need a quicker turnaround. You a better return on your money. You need a better salary. Whatever you need, no doubt you’ll need to negotiate but are you any good? Many people will have experience of negotiating but often little understanding of how get the results they need.

First off lets make the distinction between negotiation and haggling. Haggling is the simple exchanges you can hear in any marketplace…

“How much for that vase?”

“£30!”

“I’ll give you £10″

“£20 no less”

“£15 my last offer”

“Deal!”

Haggling is a one variable negotiation (normally price as in the example), is often a one-off deal (you’ll probably never meet the trader again) and so usually results a in meet half way type of result and in more cases than not, one party feeling a little aggrieved.

True negotiation is often more complex with multiple variables included (price, time, quality, quantity) and will not be the only time you deal with the opposite party (they maybe an on-going customer or supplier).

To be successful at negotiating we suggest you cut out the following common mistakes…

1. Making your target public knowledge – “They will need to reduce their price by 50% before we agree to this deal”. Negotiators who make bold and public statements before going into the negotiation often never get the result they want and therefore instead of losing face they find a stalemate.
2. Making it personal – By getting personal and focusing on beating someone rather than looking at the positions and goals of the negotiation you often lose sight of what you want or need to achieve in order to deliver success. Not only will you lose sight but most likely you’ll get emotional. Emotional people are prone to making poor decisions and the negotiation table is certainly not the place to make mistakes.
3. Fail to Plan – Prepare, rehearse, prepare some more and rehearse again! There is no limit to how much preparation you should do (only the time available to you) and it is so vital. Most negotiations are won or lost at this stage the face to face discussion is only the final part. Your pre-game is where you can plan for the different scenarios, develop your BATNA and really understand what you want the outcome to be. So many people skip over this part they think simple setting a goal to achieve will get them the result they need but in the heat of battle a well prepared negotiator will know when to close and when to walk away.

When negoiating try to do the following…

1. Increase the size of the pie instead of slicing it up - Negotiations which slice the pic never really satisfy anyone but if you can increase the pie its more likely everyone will be content.
2. Always think Win Win - Too many people think negotiation is all about beating your opponent, its not. Win – Lose will always come back to bite you, just imagine how you feel when you’ve lost out in a negotiation. You may feel angry, aggrieved, dis-trust amongst many other negative emotions. All these feelings will destroy any business relationship and trust that may have existed and will probably inhibit any future dealings between the two parties.
3. Create a BATNA (Best Alternative To Negotiating an Agreement) – Not all neogiations result in the an agreed solution that both parties can be happy with. Creating an alternative to reaching an agreement can help provide you with greater power in the neogitation as you can always walk away if things aren’t going to plan. It also can be used when neogiations have reached a stalemate. Say you wanted to join the gym near your house but membership was too pricey, you speak with the manager to negotiate a better price, before you meet you look at your options your BATNA in this case maybe joining a gym further away but considerably cheaper. If the manager doesn’t want to budge you may want to mention your BATNA as a final attempt to move the negotiation. It might not but you can still walk away knowing you have a solution you are comfortable with. One note about BATNAs, don’t reveal it early in a negotiation and only declare it if you really can’t move the negotiation any other way. Early declaration of a BATNA can result in the other party simple meeting that requirement when the might have been a potentially better offer waiting to hit the table.

Remember negotiation is a game, put in the training and the preparation before you play to have the best chance of getting the result you want. Don’t feel like you need to rush into an agreement if things don’t stack up just to get it over with.

If you want more advice and help in developing your negotiation skills visit the LimeMinds Academy for our neogitation courses and training guides.