Friday, September 15, 2017

Negotiation Pays Dividends Part 4

BARGAINING CHIPS
  • A bargaining chip is the currency of exchange in negotiations.  Currency, or chips, can be traded, preferably for your client's chips of equal or greater value.
  • By analyzing and managing your bargaining chips, you can help yourself get most of what you want and satisfy your client.
  • By judiciously making concessions, you appear flexible and willing to truly negotiate rather than inflexible and demanding.
  • You've identified your ideal, realistic, and acceptable goals for a particular negotiation.  Now you must figure out what, when, and how to concede to make the negotiating process of success.
  • Hold firm on major issues – do not concede on these.  Plan the majority of your concessions on minor issues.
  • Save your most difficult issues for last.  Allow time for your client to become comfortable with you and the negotiations before discussing major issues.
  • Allot more of your chips to protecting your ideal goals, some to your realistic goals, and few, if any, to acceptable goals.
  • Make early concessions on minor issues to help move the process along. Never be the first to back down on your major issues.  If you must concede on major issues, do so as a last resort to close the deal.  Try to win early concessions on your major issues.
  • Being prepared is a major component of successful negotiations.  While concessions will help demonstrate your flexibility, it is also important to have a backup plan should they fail.
  • When offering concessions, learn to appreciate silence as the client makes a decision based on the information you provided.  Train yourself to listen to what is being said before making your decision for additional concessions.
We've covered just a few elements of negotiation here.  Practice in this area can pay huge dividends.   Both Forbes and Fortune have designated negotiation as the skill that produces the biggest dollar return.

Until next time...






Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/

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