The Negotiation Guru

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
- Aristotle

Many negotiation gurus are so successful in their negotiations because of the key habits that they develop over a long period of time. I spent most of my week reading and researching into the key habits of great negotiators. Some of them have a few recurring key habits.

Your goal is to become a negotiation guru. Learn the habits from the great negotiators. Apply them into your life and see how the habits will work for you. Keep experimenting with them.

These are the 4 key habits that they have:

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You can win in a negotiation just by being better prepared. It can help you get what you want from the negotiation. It does work for everyone.

There’s no secret. You really just need to know how to prepare and which preparation framework to follow.

It’s not a difficult thing to do at all. This post will provide 4 key steps which you can use to help you prepare for your negotiation. You can adopt this preparation framework immediately to any of your negotiation.

Think of them as guidelines for your preparation process. Use them if you are serious about winning in a negotiation.

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The problem with many negotiators is that they do not direct their questions towards a certain purpose. The art of questioning has to be strategic. To be truly prepared, you need to put some thoughts and time into the type of questions you direct to the other party. Work out the questions with a strategic plan in mind.

Many negotiators believe that by proving inconsistency in the other party is strategic and tactical. They cannot be further from being strategic. When you show that you are trying to provoke them in your questions, you turn on the defensive mode of the other party. You put them on guard and that is not something you want to achieve during a negotiation. As the other party starts to get defensive and closes up to any form of conversation, the negotiation will go nowhere.

The true art is to make the other party open up to you. Lower their defense wall. And attack from a direction they did not anticipate.

Let me introduce the Socratic Method

This wonderful method requires you to understand both the viewpoint of the other party and HOW he came to that conclusion. By truly understanding the other party’s position, you will be able to identify the weak areas and start ripping them apart in a subtle way.

How do you apply the Socratic Method to negotiation?

First, begin by letting the other party express his interest and his decision. Ask him how he would like the negotiation to be resolved. Appear to agree with him at first and acknowledge whatever they are saying to be valid.

Start asking questions that presumably fringed on the main topic of the negotiation, but attacked the weak points into everything the other party has put out during the initial stage of the negotiation.

What you are trying to achieve, is not only to influence the other party to change his initial stand on the issue. But also make it appear to be his own idea.

With this, you truly convince.

You can still hold on to your initial viewpoint but the key is really to act like others. People do not like to believe that they are wrong. They always think that their decision is the best and they strongly believe in it. By proposing a challenge to their belief, you are attacking their ego. Again, you want them to tear down their own position and not build a wall around it.

With this Socratic Method, you will be able to question anyone’s fundamental beliefs in any topic. And of course, essential in negotiations.

Think about how you would apply the Socratic Method for your next negotiation. Email me your thoughts and results. We will evaluate them together.

Remember: Never challenge the other party’s position and viewpoint. Apply the Socratic Method to tear him down.

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Jens Thang
Negotiation Skills for Everyone

Email: jens@thenegotiationguru.com

Before you step into the negotiating room, you have to consider many things. One of the things that you should consider is “what other options do I have?” Answering this question will alter the way you negotiate with the other party.

All skilled negotiators know their objectives before they start negotiating. They also have a bottom-line ready in case they need to walk away from the deal.

Apart from having your objectives and bottom-line, you need to consider your alternatives.

“What will I lose if there’s no deal?”

“Is there a better option?”

“Do I have another offer?”

“Can I get this from another firm?”

Think through all the possible alternatives that you can have. There are usually more alternatives if you look hard enough. One of the common mistakes a negotiator make is to think that they have everything to lose if there’s no deal. This will change the way you negotiate. Be really careful of this.

Never be too focused on trying to close the deal.

Imagine you have to shop for a birthday present for your best friend. You decided to get him a red tie.

Now there are 2 scenarios:

1) There’s only 1 shop in this world which sells red ties

2) There are 10 shops in your neighborhood that sell red ties

The way you negotiate in the 2 different scenarios will be vastly different. If you think that there’s only 1 shop in this world that sells red ties, you probably haven’t looked hard enough. There’s probably another shop that sells red tie just round the corner.

Having alternatives will improve your leverage when you negotiate.

Remember: Always have alternatives before you start negotiating.————–

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Jens Thang
Negotiation Skills for Everyone

Email: jens@thenegotiationguru.com

Recently, I went to a consulting workshop conducted by Wharton school. One of the speakers from a prestigious consulting company said “I always take notes during meetings.” The audience laughed. He went on to explain why note-taking is important. This is the same for negotiations.

Note-taking gives you clarity. When you physically write down the key points during negotiations, you will be able to reflect on some of the important points that your target has revealed. In a negotiation, both parties usually have more than one interest. Listing out clearly on your notepad the interests that your target has can be used as a tool as well. You can go on and say “Let me see if I understand you correctly. You wanted a good price, after-sales service, technical support, quality products and speed-to-market.” Your target will appreciate that you are clear with what he wants. From there, you have a clear idea of his wants and can go on to work on how to negotiate a win-win deal.

This can also be used to prevent the other party from going back on their words. This is a consistency tool to be used so to keep your target committed. Very often, you find the other party changing his mind after a few days. The negotiation has to go back to square one because his interests are now totally different from what was initially discussed. To prevent this, you can use your notes as a consistency tool.

“I have it written that you mentioned in the last meeting that you wanted a good price, after-sales service… Is that still right?”

If you want to appear slightly more aggressive, you can add that:

“I believe that we can have a good deal. If your interests are unclear and change from day-to-day, I am afraid we won’t have a mutually beneficial outcome. Let me know after you have discussed with your team, we will resume negotiation then.”

This is a powerful tool. People are afraid of appearing inconsistent. The consistency principle works on everyone. I will elaborate on the consistency principle in my future posts.

Remember to take notes when you negotiate.

Having an agenda ready before you step into the negotiation room is essential. You need to know what you hope to achieve after the negotiation. I have negotiated with sales people who absolutely have no idea what they want to achieve from the deal. Sitting on the other side of the table, I felt that the party is either not interested in the deal or totally insincere. Either way, this is not a good thing for a relationship-based deal.

To go into negotiation with an agenda, you need to prepare beforehand. You have to consider your objectives, needs, wants, bargaining points and walk-away value (BATNA). This require due diligence on your part but it always pay off. You will save both parties a lot of time if you know what you want. No one likes to have a long dreary negotiation.

Do not enter the negotiation hall without knowing what you want.