The Essential Negotiation Skill Of Planning Effective Objectives For Your Business Negotiations.
A critical negotiation skill in your business negotiations is how you go about preparing your objectives.
I want to provide you with 3 critical points that we cover in our negotiation skills training programmes to consider when you are planning for your negotiations.
1. What is the absolutely ideal result for you in this negotiation?
What would a absolutely wonderful agreement (one that you would be delighted to agree to) look like?
We call this your aspiration base - in other words, the level at which you will aspire to close the deal.
You should remember that it is important in your negotiation to always ask for a little more than you would like to receive. This means that you must always have an aspiration base that is higher than your desired outcome. By asking for a little more than you would like to receive you enable yourself to make a concession to your counterpart in exchange for a counter concession.
On the upside, you may just get what you regard to be fantastic if you ask for it! Don't make the mistake of making decisions on behalf of your counterpart by saying to yourself they will not be happy with that .Take note that I am not suggesting that you make extreme demands - extreme requests are highly risky and dependent on the cultural context within which you are negotiating.
2. What is the absolutely minimum acceptable outcome for you in this negotiation?
At what stage will you decide to stop or suspend your negotiation?
If you do not decide on a specific point at which it will no longer be realistic or desirable for you to close a transaction, then you may become vulnerable to reaching an agreement that you will not be able to live with. This is vital to do as you could easily become emotionally committed to reaching agreement at all cost because you may think that your personal reputation is at stake.
3. What do you think are the aspirations and minimum acceptable agreement levels for your counterpart?
It is also critical that you consider the aspirations and minimum acceptable deal levels from your counterparts perspective. This will never be an exact science but through proper planning and investigation of supporting information you may be able to get a good idea of what kind of transaction is the norm in your line of business or type of negotiation.
By considering the aspirations and minimum acceptable agreement levels from your counterparts point of view, you will be able to identify the bargaining range. Being aware of the bargaining range or zone of possible agreement (ZOPA) will help you to see if an agreement is possible or not.
Most negotiation training workshops will teach you that the agreement range is defined as the area of overlap between your minimum acceptable deal level and the minimum acceptable deal levels of your counterpart.
Remember that most of your success in negotiation is dependent on the quality of your planning. You should spend at least as much time planning for negotiations as you expect to be busy negotiating. If you expect to be in negotiations for an hour, then you should spend at least the same time in preparations.