What Is A Successful Negotiation?
What is a “great deal” in a negotiation? And how do you know what successful negotiation looks like?
Is it when you get your counterpart to provide a concession from their opening position?
Is it when you’ve squeezed as much value from the deal as possible?
Or is it when both parties leave the negotiation table with the relationship strengthened and willing to do business with each other again?
This is going to sound a bit clichéd, but the answer is “it depends”. A successful negotiation could contain elements of all these factors, but there’s a whole lot more.
The reality is, knowing how to negotiate is a vital skill in business and in life. Yet, few people actually know how to negotiate, have the confidence to negotiate or are fearful of negotiation.
Without knowing how to negotiate or understanding the process, which is; preparation, discussion, opening, bargaining, and closing, a great deal will be beyond your reach.
Value could be money, but it can also be lots of other negotiables, such as quality, time, risk, service, your legal rights and so on.
In this case, you will be leaving value on the negotiation table. How would you feel about that? What could the potential impact be on your business?
Objectively understanding whether you’ve had a successful negotiation requires you to identify what you want from the negotiation in the first place.
What’s the very best desired outcome you could expect, and what’s your least desired outcome, against any and all of your negotiation variables? This is the bare minimum that you should prepare.
Discuss your thoughts with colleagues so that you’ll be sufficiently ambitious AND you’ve considered all of the potential negotiables.
The preparation phase of a negotiation is the single biggest determinant of whether you’ll be successful, yet most few negotiators put sufficient effort into this step, making up their “strategy” on the spot.
In your next negotiation, don’t leave value on the negotiation table by failing to prepare. Go into the negotiation knowing exactly what a successful negotiation outcome looks like.
Measuring your performance against an objective standard will give you the clarity you need to know whether your negotiation was successful or not.
Get in touch with me. I can help you level-up the negotiation skills of your team, ensuring you get more value out of every negotiation.
