Negotiation Skills Training

What do your colleagues need in order to make the maximum contribution to your organisation?

A Big Picture Context

They will make better decisions if they understand the major performance drivers in the business and how they contribute. In almost all organisations, this means an understanding of brand - and by brand we don't mean the logo and the advertising. The biggest determinant of brand image is your staff. Glossy ads are no match for surly receptionist or rude delivery driver in the customer's mind.

"You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate."
Chester KarrassOf course, your staff need a financial perspective, particularly an understanding of cashflow.

These elements provide the foundation. But at some point they have to make deals.

Negotiation Skills

Virtually everything an organisation does involves making deals of some kind. So it hardly needs to be said that the better your staff are at making deals, the more successful your organisation will be.

For most people, getting a better deal means buying at a lower price. Cost is certainly an issue - imagine the impact on your bottom-line if you could achieve as little as a 1% reduction in your costs. But effective negotiators understand the broader aspects of their deals:

• strategic opportunities - the access that customers and suppliers can give to new markets, technologies, materials, networks, channels, intelligence (the 1% suddenly seems very small)
• win-win relationships - suppliers who are there for you when your most important customer faces a crisis or customers who work closely with you in developing new products and services - that they will then buy from you

Our courses consider all aspects of the negotiation process, beginning with selection who you should actually negotiate with followed by:

Preparation

• understanding the power balance
• identifying and balancing variables
• Harvard Negotiating Models - LIM and BATNA

Opening

• setting the agenda
• establishing a process
• empathic advocacy and assertiveness

Exploring

• the importance of questioning, paraphrasing and summarizing
• understanding the other party - their triggers - personal and organisational

The Negotiation - when an how to use:

• compromise
• bargaining
• threat
• logical reasoning
• emotion

Reaching Agreement and Contracting

• ensuring common understanding
• legal issues

Negotiating Principles and Tactics

• how to use and defend against 30+ powerful negotiation tactics

Adapted to Your Requirements

The above is an overview of our generic, white label programme. We would normally work closely with our clients to customize the course to address specific issues, for instance on branding or the particular type of deals that have the biggest impact on performance.

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Course Outlines

Negotiation Skills

Advanced Influence & Negotiation