1. Awareness
When you negotiate:
- Spend time thinking of the scenarios and what you would say.
- Visualize success and negotiate with yourself beforehand. Play both roles in the negotiation. This will help you better value what you bring to the table. The exercise will also highlight your strengths and weaknesses.
- Know that you are the owner of your time. Creating artificial deadlines is one of the most used negotiation tactics. When facing time constraints, always evaluate if you can ask for a longer deadline, do a counter offer or break the bluff by walking away expressing openness to re-engage.
- Remember that…
- business is always business. No matter what happens or how much time you spend in a negotiation, you can always walk away.
- there\’s always a right way to say things. Learn and practice how to say no, how to say yes, how to diffuse aggressive behavior and how to walk away in a calm and professional way.
- trustworthiness has to be at the center of your every action.
2. Diligence
Beyond personality and negotiations experience, successful deal-makers excel in preparing. Diligence is paramount, when you negotiate:
- Do your research (a LOT of research).
- Know what you want and what the other party wants.
- Know the person you are negotiating with.
- Be aware of your venue setting and its impact on the negotiation.
- Understand yours and your counterparts\’ corporate and country culture.
- Choose the right type of interaction (in writing, in person, over the phone, with or without a translator).
- Know your BATNA (best alternative to non-agreement), it will tell you when is right to walk away.
- Have a plan. The plan shall include a purpose (what do you want to get out of the negotiation?), an agenda (what items are you going to cover?) and a pace (how long is it pertinent to negotiate?).
- Find the right framing. It is different to say “I am looking for a mini-van for my family of five” than saying “I have a family of five and I want to see if I can afford a mini-van”.
- Know and understand the legal terms that are important to you and your counterpart.
3. Foresight
An ideal negotiation is not one where all parties get what they want today. It is a negotiation where all parties get the long term value of their assets.
When negotiating, make sure that your side of the equation is calculated correctly. A win is getting what your assets are worth to the market, even if those assets are less valuable to your organization. Certainly, sometimes the right choice is to settle at lower than market value. This usually happens when the asset is valuable for a niche segment (that includes your counterpart), or when the asset\’s demand potential is still in development. On those situations, negotiate clauses to creatively get back in the future the value given away today.