How I (ideally) negotiate
As we become seniors in our careers, we start performing almost automatically. The danger is to become outdated and sloppy. So I tend to mistrust my impulses and access frameworks that can keep my head straight and a high performance.
Negotiation is a big topic in sales, especially in complex sales. Taking the time to prepare for a negotiation is essential. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. That's why I decided to share my ideal planning and preparation strategy for negotiation in this blog post. Whenever you have the time, you may take advantage of the structure.
I crystallized my negotiation knowledge with Glen Whyte, an Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management Professor at Rotman. Before his Negotiation class, I based my strategy on personal experience and books, including Never Split the Difference, which has many valuable tips. However, Professor White helped me to structure the approach clearly.
Issues: Understand the scope of problems. In this analysis phase, we must list all the topics that will likely arise. It helps to anticipate, reflect and avoid surprises.
Stakeholders: Identify who can affect success or failure. People can either have direct power over a decision or have influence that may impact decisions.
Alternatives: Understand what you can get, which are the consequences of future decisions. In this phase, we set our BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement). If you cannot get what you want, define the line you are unwilling to cross. Sometimes, no deal is better than a bad deal.
Interests: Identify the empowered stakeholders' wants (necessity, status, ego). This is different from a position that someone can take in a negotiation. An interest is not a stand but what lies behind it. E.g., if you face a situation in which status gets in the way of a decision, you may adjust your arguments instead of giving up some of the value you will get.
Priorities: Define the order of importance of the negotiation topics. And try to understand what your counterpart values, too. If they value something way more than you do and you give it up, that is a sign of goodwill that can help with other topics.
Goals: Set specific and ambitious goals. It helps to have clarity about what you want. Sometimes, losing a negotiation opens space for future and more valuable ones.
Bargaining range: The difference between the minimum you want to get and the maximum you think you can get. Having a middle number might help with your strategy.
Start position: Ask for as much as you can justify with a straight face. That would be your highest number. It has to make sense; otherwise, you can lose credibility very fast.
Target: The maximum you think you can get is not necessarily your target. Ripping off someone might compromise future deals. That's one point of disagreement I have with Never Split the Difference. In hostage situations, there's no expectation that you will deal with the criminal in the future. In real-world business situations, you will ideally deal with your counterpart in the future. If you sound fair and interested in the benefit of a client, they will come back to you in the future.
Supporting arguments: The rationale of any discussion. Doing your homework will facilitate which arguments you will use and how to present them.
Strategies like anchoring, mirroring, labelling and being empathic are all valuable, and you can check them in the book link I shared. It's good to know all the tactics to apply them whenever necessary.
I share an example of negotiation preparation with a software partner for a value-added reseller agreement with 3 main topics. This table started helping me as soon as I began building it because I could frame the discussion topics from the start.
An example of a table where I organize my negotiation structure in advance.