We Have a Deal We Have a Deal E-Book

Natalie Reynolds

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 322

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

SHORTLISTED FOR 'BEST COMMUTER READ', CMI MANAGEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 How do you ask for a promotion, deliver tough news to clients, or secure investment for your new business? The answer is negotiation. It is the most important skill you can develop to get what you want in business and life. No matter how much experience you've got, We Have a Deal can help you to improve your negotiation skill – developing an awareness of your habits and abilities, recognising what's really going on in a deal, and building a flexible approach that is confident and appropriate to each situation. Negotiation expert Natalie Reynolds moves beyond the old-fashioned rules of deal making to explore why people react the way they do in certain situations and how can we use that knowledge to get a good deal. Her five-step DEALS method has helped individuals and organisations to excel at all kinds of negotiation, from clinching a pay rise to resolving disputes, from developing partnerships to shaking hands on multi-million dollar deals. We Have a Deal will help you to overcome obstacles, work with different personalities and in varied cultures, and develop an intelligent and flexible approach will empower you to get the best deal, every time.

Leseprobe

WE HAVE A DEAL

How to negotiate with intelligence, flexibility & power

WE HAVE A DEAL

NATALIE REYNOLDS

CEO of Negotation Consultancy advantagesSPRING

This book is for Leo. The most fearless, wily and persistent negotiator I know.

Published in the UK in 2016 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia by

Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,

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London WC1B 3DA or their agents

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ISBN: 978-178578-032-5

Text copyright © 2016 Natalie Reynolds

The author has asserted her moral rights

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher

Typeset in Sentinel by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE: Getting Started

ONE: Why Negotiation Matters

TWO: Common Negotiation Mistakes

PART TWO: The DEALS Method

THREE: Discover

FOUR: Establish

FIVE: Ask

SIX: Lead

SEVEN: Seal

PART THREE: People Negotiate with People

EIGHT: The Balance of Power

NINE: The Psychology of Negotiation

PART FOUR: Overcoming Obstacles

TEN: Objections, Lies and Emotional Responses

ELEVEN: Is Negotiation a Man’s Game?

TWELVE: It’s a Cultural Thing

PART FIVE: Tools and Further Reading

Negotiation Tactics: Reference Guide

Further Reading

Endnotes

advantageSPRING

Acknowledgements

Introduction

This isn’t like most negotiation books. Yes, we will talk about theory and process, but that’s only a small part of what this book is all about. This book is designed to demystify negotiation and to teach you how to negotiate with intelligence, flexibility and power.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is. This is a book for anybody who negotiates. And so that’s everyone. Negotiation is the most important skill in business, and in life, to get what you want, need or deserve. Are you doing what you can to get the best deal, every time?

From an unspoken interaction in the street with a stranger as to who will go first through the revolving door, to a strained conversation with a family member about what you want to do at the weekend, to a haggle with a car dealer, to a mediated contract and pricing dispute … we negotiate all the time. It’s a social lubricant. It’s what keeps societies functioning, marriages working, businesses operating and countries interacting. Negotiation matters and as human beings we have been doing it since the dawn of civilisation.

I want to show you that negotiation is not a mystical talent that requires extreme intellect, copious charm or buckets of experience (although those things can all be useful). The ability to negotiate is a skill that can be learned by anyone. Through identifying your strengths and weaknesses, learning the processes and mastering the tools, you can start to negotiate more effectively in all parts of your life.

And as with most things in life, practice makes perfect. I always think that it helps to view negotiation as being like a muscle. If you never flex or use that muscle, and you are then called on to run a marathon – perhaps view the marathon as a salary negotiation in this context! – then it’s going to be supremely painful and a shock to the system, as you won’t be at all prepared. If, however, you have used that muscle just a little bit every day, when the time comes for the marathon (or salary negotiation), you will be that bit more prepared and far more able to cope, and it will be much less painful.

This book is designed to give everyone the knowledge, skills and insight they need to be a brilliant negotiator in all aspects of their life. Whether you are negotiating with your partner, the boss or a supplier on another continent, whether you are new to negotiation or a seasoned pro, this book will give you what you need to up your game and be the best negotiator you can be.

PART ONE

Getting Started

CHAPTER ONE

Why Negotiation Matters

People negotiate all the time. We just don’t always realise that we could be doing it, should be doing it, that we are doing it, or indeed how to do it well.

From the renegotiating of terms with a new client to the difficult conversation about missed performance targets with a supplier; from the request to your boss to have your role re-evaluated to the demanding of a lower monthly fee from your broadband provider, almost every interaction in which we are requesting something from someone else is a negotiation.

Some negotiations in life are more obvious than others. When my team works with delegates in our workshops, we will always ask them to imagine all the people they might negotiate with over the course of a day, week, month or year.

Let’s start with the most obvious people who come to mind when you think of ‘negotiation’ – the people you work with most closely. What kinds of negotiation might you engage in with them?

Colleagues: Who delivers the difficult message to the boss? Who does what work, gets what desk or pays for the coffee?

Boss: You’re likely to negotiate on a number of issues, from salary to promotion, job title, who’s on your project team, time off and deadlines.

Suppliers, customers, partners or clients: You might negotiate about price, risk, volume, deadline, guarantees and performance indicators. These are what I would call ‘obvious negotiations’; you may even note them in your diary as ‘2pm negotiation with client’.

But we negotiate in our personal lives too …

Salespeople, estate agents and service providers: Outside of work you are likely to engage in negotiations with the suppliers of services or products to you or your family. Examples might include deliberations over the sale price of a new dining table with the furniture store salesperson, trying to agree a speedier completion date for a house sale with your real estate agent or seeking a lower tariff with your energy supplier in exchange for not moving to one of their competitors. Interestingly, many people wouldn’t view buying furniture as an opportunity to negotiate, they would just pay the price on the ticket, whereas others will take great delight in trying to secure a discount, no matter how small. Similarly, some people will never really question the tariffs set by their energy companies and will simply sign up without really considering what could be changed or improved in the standard package.

Of course, a competitive and heavily populated market for energy supply should provide all of us with the incentive to push back and negotiate for better terms. Quite simply, if a provider says ‘no’, it is now easier than ever for us as consumers to find someone else who can provide what we are looking for. Similarly, I once ran a training programme at which one of the attendees was a sales director for a well-known high street furniture retailer. She explained that if a customer ever paid the ticket price for a product at their stores, the salespeople would think they were a fool. Why? Because the sales-people were mandated to offer an immediate 10 per cent discount if asked for one. If the customer demanded more, they would then ‘reluctantly’ go to 12.5 per cent. If the customer still wanted more, they could speak to the manager who in most cases would ‘reluctantly’ offer a further 5 per cent. In short, the discounts are often there to be had and are factored into the list price; you just have to ask for them.

Partner: On an almost daily basis you will have cause to negotiate with your husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend. This might be in relation to holiday plans, child-care arrangements, financial contributions or who will do the washing up.

So, I start most mornings (particularly on very cold, wet and windy days) by turning to my husband and saying: ‘If you walk the dog, I’ll get Leo ready for nursery.’ (Leo is my toddler; you’ll hear more about him in a moment.)

What’s important about the proposal I’ve made to my husband? It’s a trade. Why does the fact it’s a trade matter? Well, quite frankly, it’s because I don’t want my husband thinking I’m going to do everything for him. He has to do something in return. The interesting thing is that we often readily trade based on ‘If you …, then I …’ with friends and family. The problem is that we don’t tend to carry that through to our professional lives. Later on in this book, I’ll tell you why that is one of the biggest mistakes we can make at the negotiation table.1

Wider family: We also have to negotiate with wider family members, such as our parents, siblings and extended family over issues such as allowance, curfews, family celebrations and which distant relatives you have to invite to your wedding.

Around August every year I will also start the annual negotiations with my mother-in-law about where we are spending Christmas that year. (This has become much more challenging since our son arrived in the position of first grandchild!) This leads us nicely on to the most effective negotiators.

Children: Those of you who have spent any substantial amount of time around young children will know that they are master negotiators.

I told you I would come back to my toddler … He is an amazing negotiator. Not because I have taught him, but because children just are. The reason for this is because they focus all of their efforts on achieving the desired result (be that second helpings of ice cream, a new toy, watching one more episode of a cartoon, staying up late …), and they will do pretty much anything it takes to get that result.

My team have trained negotiators in big companies around the world, and one of the things that we are frequently told by nervous negotiators is that they are scared of ‘pushing too hard’ when they negotiate in case people don’t like them. Whereas, the interesting thing about children as negotiators is that, up until about the age of seven or eight, they don’t really care that much about what people might think of them. It’s only when we approach our teens that we start to become more self-aware and concerned as to how we might be perceived by others. So, until that happens, children will focus purely on getting the result that they need to ‘succeed’. For my son, this includes stamping his feet, throwing things on the floor and screaming; because of this it’s not uncommon for him to succeed in getting what he wants, particularly if we’re in a busy public place!

Now of course, the advice here is not to stamp your feet and scream every time you get to the negotiation table. I’m not convinced that is going to help you bag that promotion or salary increase. But what we can learn from children is that sometimes we should think more about what we need to do to get the result, rather than dwelling too much on what people might think about us. I am not advocating that you shouldn’t care at all about whether people like or loathe you; as you will see in Chapter Five, this can have an impact on the outcome of your negotiations. But it shouldn’t be the only thing you are concerned about. You still need to have the right facts and information at your fingertips, the ability to stand firm, and almost certainly the confidence to say ‘no’ in order to get the right result. In short, you need to get the balance right.

We might be familiar or experienced in negotiating with all of these groups, but we haven’t yet looked at the most challenging of negotiators, the one we have to face alongside every other counterparty.

Ourselves: Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to the little voice in your head. The little voice in your head is the forgotten party in many negotiations, and yet it has the ability to derail the most prepared and intelligent of people. It can make you sell yourself short, lose your confidence or assume you are in a far weaker position than you really are.

It’s easy to recognise that little voice. It often sounds something like:

‘Don’t ask for that, it sounds greedy.’

‘You can’t go that high.’

‘You don’t really know what you are talking about do you?’

‘They will never agree to that.’

I routinely work with clients who are smart, intelligent people, who have studied the facts, numbers and details, and who have a plan for how they want to negotiate; yet as soon as they get to the negotiating table that little voice kicks in and preys on their stress and anxiety. And it’s amazing how regularly people are swayed by it. They hear it and panic; then they ask for less, offer more or don’t bother asking at all.

We all have that little voice in our heads. Whether you are young or old, male or female, recent graduate or CEO. It’s there. It’s just that the voice speaks so loudly to some people that it clouds their judgement, erodes their confidence and ultimately prevents them from negotiating as effectively as they could.

How do you stop yourself from being a victim of the little voice in your head?

1. Get to know your little voice. One of the most powerful ways to combat that little voice is simply to recognise it’s there! By accepting and recognising its existence, you have already taken away some of its hold over you, as it is then less likely to be able to pop up and derail you unexpectedly.

2. Listen to it. Try listening to what the little voice is saying. Reflect on the messages you hear in your head when you are in a high-stakes or stressful negotiation. Annoying and limiting as that little voice is, it also reflects your inner concerns, apprehensions and fears. By simply writing down what that little voice says to you at high-pressure moments, you can prepare to fight back next time.

3. Counter it. Once you have identified the negative messages, you can start to build robust responses. If in preparing for a salary negotiation that little voice whispers, ‘They will never agree to that figure’, or, ‘You’re not worth that much’, use this insight to your advantage by researching why you are worth that much or what other employers are paying for your level of expertise. We are most vulnerable when we haven’t prepared or don’t have supporting information, so listen to the fears being voiced in your head, and then go and find out all the information you need to answer back.

4. Drown it out. So much of effective negotiation is about confidence. Negotiation can be challenging, awkward and uncomfortable, and this impacts our performance. One tip is to start to drown out the negative messages before you even get to the negotiation table. Before that little voice is able to kick in, take the time to tell yourself what you really want to hear: that you are valuable, worth it, well prepared, confident, compelling … and keep telling yourself that.

5. Recognise they have one too. Guess what? It’s not just you who has the little voice. Your counterparty does too. And their little voice is whispering to them about their pressures and anxieties. A smart negotiator realises that if all they focus on is their own little voice then they are missing a huge opportunity to tip the balance of power and gain valuable insight as to the key issues in the negotiation. While doing your research, take the time to think about what the concerns and fears of your counterparty might be. By understanding those, you can use the information to your advantage. Check out the next chapter to find out more about this.

This gives you some insight into just some of the negotiations that happen in our lives. We’ll get into the details of how to negotiate with each of these counterparties later. First, let’s demystify the idea of negotiation itself.

When my team are training businesspeople on how to negotiate, we use the following definition:

‘Negotiation is two or more parties discussing differences in order to try to reach an agreement.’

We use this definition because it is broad and not too prescriptive.

First, notice that the definition does not mention money. There is no reference to pounds, euros, dollars or yen. We do this very deliberately because we don’t want you to think that the only negotiations that matter are the ones relating to cost, fee or price. Not everyone will negotiate on financial matters all the time. Indeed, some people may never negotiate on those things. Some people might negotiate on risk, deadlines, volume, policies, positions, points of view, politics or location, and they just won’t be exposed to financial negotiations. These negotiations are no less important or influential in our lives. We should not be dismissive of negotiations just because they don’t contain discussions on mega-bucks.

Secondly, this definition does not present boundaries as to what negotiation might look like. There is no one ‘type’ of negotiation, just as there is no one type of counterparty. We negotiate a great number of different things and as a result our negotiations can ‘look’ very different. A negotiation could look like you and me having a conversation over a coffee. Or it could look like a multi-party, multi-variable, cross-jurisdiction, politically sensitive, disputed contract renegotiation. And everything in between.

Thirdly, this definition of negotiation makes reference to the fact that you might not reach agreement. Not all negotiations end in a handshake or a signature. Some negotiations will end in deadlock, dispute or a very pleasant acceptance of the fact that the numbers just don’t add up on this occasion.

So, we begin this book by being clear that negotiation is a fundamental part of what it is to be human. It’s the skill that is going to allow us to get what we want, need or deserve because, despite the old saying, good things don’t always come to those who just wait … and wait … and wait. You need to take the initiative, be in control and ask.

What’s the problem?

Despite the fact that we negotiate every day, the reality is that many of us don’t really like it that much. Many people will find it awkward, uncomfortable, time-consuming and cringeworthy.

Even the most confident and intelligent people will experience uncertainty and fear at the prospect of going into a negotiation. Their hearts will beat faster, their guts will start churning, panic will set in, and as a result they will often underperform or avoid negotiating altogether. (In Chapter Two, I will explain why the avoidance strategy is not a sensible one.)

The potential long-term cost of not negotiating

Whether it’s down to fear and nerves, not wanting to look ‘greedy’, reassessing the profitability and desirability of the deal, or worrying about whether you have the time, people will choose not to negotiate for a number of reasons.

In certain situations you might choose not to negotiate because you figure the uplift you might be able to achieve doesn’t warrant the discomfort or potential reputational risk of negotiating for more. However, you would be wise to exercise caution when adopting this approach. Take the example of negotiating your salary. Imagine that 35-year-old Tom has just received a job offer from a company that he is really keen to join. The salary they have offered Tom is £100,000. As this seems like a reasonable figure and as he doesn’t want to look greedy or difficult, he accepts. On the same day, 35-year-old Imogen, who is equally qualified, is offered the same role within the same company, for the same £100,000. However, Imogen chooses to negotiate her salary and is able to secure an additional £6,500, taking her starting salary to £106,500. Let’s say that each applicant stays at the firm for 30 years, each receiving a 4 per cent pay increase annually. If Imogen decides to retire at age 65, Tom would need to work for an additional six years to be as wealthy as Imogen at retirement, all because of that additional 6.5 per cent when they first joined the firm.

Despite it being a fundamental requirement of human existence and interaction, negotiation is one of the few skills that the majority of us are never really shown how to do well. Yes, you might have taken a module at college or university, or on an MBA course; or your boss may have told you to ‘watch and learn’ as they negotiated deals. The problem is that a lot of these courses are very abstract and theory-driven and don’t serve us that well in the ‘real world’ (which was certainly my experience when doing legal training), or that our well-meaning bosses are actually just teaching us their bad negotiating habits or asking us to emulate a style that might not work that well for us as individuals.

This book is all about bringing together the elements of both people and process when it comes to negotiation. I will help you to make sense of the academic theories and studies, learn how to master the tools and tactics and understand how knowing yourself, your preferences, behaviours and feelings will allow you to take control of your negotiations and come out on top.

Let’s begin.

CHAPTER TWO

Common Negotiation Mistakes

It may seem like a counterintuitive place to start, but looking at some of the most common mistakes people make at the negotiation table can help you to become the best negotiator you can be. The mistakes in this chapter can result in us agreeing far less productive, robust, sustainable and profitable outcomes, both for us as individuals and for our employers. By working to avoid these mistakes, you will strengthen your chances of being able to walk away with the best deal. I’m going to be really explicit about what not to do, so that you can see at a glance whether you’re guilty of falling into some of these common, deal-limiting traps.

These mistakes are made by negotiators regardless of their age, experience, seniority, location, gender or culture. My team and I have seen these mistakes being made again and again at the negotiation table.

It is really important that negotiators of all levels realise two things.

It’s not just you making these mistakes. We see them being made by negotiators the world over. If you recognise that you are making some of them, don’t think for a moment that you’re inferior to your peers. The reality is they are probably making these mistakes too … you just haven’t realised it until now.Experience doesn’t make you immune – indeed it can sometimes make you more vulnerable! It would be very dangerous for a more experienced negotiator reading this book to think that at this point they can skip ahead to the next section. Even seasoned deal-makers can benefit from a scrutiny of their skills and performance every now and then. It’s really easy to slip into bad habits when negotiating and we believe that by making a few small changes most people will be able to see some improvement in the results they are able to secure.

As you read this chapter, try to recognise these mistakes in both yourself and others. Think about times when you might have committed these errors: what led up to them, and what did they cost you? What might you have gained had you done things differently? Then commit to wiping them out of your negotiations for good!

Mistake One: Thinking negotiation is all about winning

It’s a fact of life that human beings want to win. It’s a natural urge to want to come out on top, to thrive and be the best. We have had to be competitive in order to survive. Yet interestingly, I meet lots of people who tell me that they are not at all competitive.

Really? Let’s just think about that. When was the last time you woke up, got out of bed and thought: ‘You know what? Today I really want to lose, to be second best, to come out not quite on top’?

I thought not. The simple reason is that human beings want to succeed and, ultimately, to win. This book will help you do that when you are at the negotiation table. But the first mistake many people make is to assume that negotiation is all about winning. Which it isn’t. Not outwardly anyway.

Wanting to win, rather than wanting the other party to lose

Let’s be clear. I am not advocating the approach of: ‘I want to win, therefore I don’t care at all about whether you lose.’ Having a desire to get the best result you can doesn’t make you selfish, nor does it mean you have to act selfishly. The desire to be successful can co-exist with a concern for others. Later in the book we will be exploring an approach to negotiating which allows you to do just that.

Of course, you should always try to get the best possible outcome you can when negotiating. You should want to win. What you shouldn’t do is actively advertise any victory to your counterparty. By this I mean you should avoid a huge grin, a pat on the back to a colleague or even a fist pump, if you’re that way inclined. Don’t let your counterparty see that you are delighted with the result. Why? Because nobody likes to be made to feel or look stupid.

How do you think your counterparty is going to feel after witnessing your obvious elation? They are probably going to feel annoyed, embarrassed, frustrated, resentful and angry. They might still sign on the dotted line or shake your hand, but they will be the customer or client who never pays their invoices on time, never recommends you to anyone else, always questions your judgement, always asks for more output for less cash. They will do this because human beings hold grudges. They will remember how you made them feel and will try to get even.

Instead of celebrating your victory, try making them feel like they have won. Ensure that they are satisfied with the deal. Even if you have just got the deal of a lifetime, you should be smart enough to temper your elation, keep your jubilation inside and be quietly satisfied that you have got what you need and more. You shouldn’t need the spectacle of a victory dance to feel like you have come out on top.

A word of caution here. When trying to make them feel satisfied, don’t take it too far, or it will be just as obvious as your victory dance. If you have just concluded a negotiation with someone and they then praise your performance and eulogise about what a great deal you have done, beware! They are probably trying to make you feel better about the fact that they have just walked all over you!

Mistake Two: Thinking you can avoid negotiating altogether

You may have felt a pang of recognition at the negative, intrusive thoughts of the ‘little voice inside your head’; or, when you think about negotiation, you may have a more physical response: gut churning, heart pounding, feeling awkward and uncertain. On the other hand, you may experience no fear but feel frustrated that the whole process can be slow and time consuming. You may also think that the negotiation process is damaging to the trust or relationship you have been able to develop with a client or customer. As a result of some or all of these factors, you may actively try to avoid negotiation.

We regularly observe clients going to great lengths to limit the time spent negotiating or attempting to bypass the process entirely. In an attempt to hurry things along or reach some kind of agreement as quickly as possible, we hear them using phrases such as:

‘Let’s cut to the chase.’

‘Give me your best number.’

‘Let’s talk real numbers, shall we?’

If you recognise this as something you do – stop. You might think that this strategy is benefitting the overall deal or the relationship, but it isn’t.

The reason for this is that negotiation is a necessary ritual. It isn’t a bureaucratic invention of the boardroom; it’s something we have been doing for millennia. It’s a social lubricant, an essential part of how things get done and how we co-exist in the world. It allows for friendships and marriages to grow, children to be educated, businesses to prosper, societies to function and countries to collaborate (and in all these cases, sometimes the alternative). Negotiation is such a key part of what it is to be human that we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.

So, the next time you think you can preserve your nerves, protect the relationship or speed things along by shortcutting the negotiation process, remind yourself of these three important points:

People like to be given the chance to get the best deal they can for themselves, and if you deprive them of that, they won’t thank you for it. The negotiation process is a chance for each side to explore just what might be possible in that deal. It is their opportunity to ask questions, consider alternatives, uncover risk, check they have considered all options and carry out their own form of due diligence. If you deprive them of that opportunity, then you might find that the following point will start to cause you problems.If you make the negotiation too easy (either by taking shortcuts or bypassing negotiation altogether), the other side will start to question why. You might think that by avoiding negotiation, they will be grateful. But in most cases the opposite is true. They might be happy with their expedited or easily won outcome for a time, but ultimately doubt will surface. What have they missed? What’s wrong with the deal? Have you misled them? The little voice in your head we encountered in the previous chapter will speak up and start to question just why the deal was so quick and so easy. It’s when this begins to happen that deals and agreements can become vulnerable to being revisited, renegotiated or even rejected completely.It is essential to understand that people generally value the things they have had to work hard for. And this is also true at the negotiation table. Remember when you were young and you had to save weeks and weeks’ worth of pocket money to get your hands on a new pair of trainers or a concert ticket? When you finally got that item you treasured it as you understood just how hard you had worked or saved in order to get it. Well, this is also true when we negotiate. If we have had to work hard to trade with the other side, explore alternatives and craft a clever solution that works for everyone, we will feel far more satisfied with the outcome.

So don’t try to avoid negotiation. Whether it’s for reasons of fear, nerves and anxiety or a misguided attempt to speed things up, avoiding or limiting the negotiation process is likely to only lead to two outcomes. The first is that you deprive yourself of making the most of opportunities that come your way, and the second is that your counterparty starts to question your motives and the quality of the deal that you so readily agreed to.

Negotiation is a part of who we are. Rather than speed it up or avoid it altogether, simply learn how to play the game. Ultimately your career, bank balance and counterparties will all thank you for it.

The no-negotiation doubt trap

Imagine you are looking to buy a new car and you have a maximum budget of £5,000. You have been looking at online advertisements for private car sales, and after a long period of failing to find what you are looking for, you finally see a seller close to where you live offering the model you want for £5,000.

You call up the seller and arrange to meet her the following day at her home to take a look at the vehicle. The following morning when you arrive at the seller’s property, she shows you the vehicle and takes you out for a test drive. After only five minutes you start to think just how much you like the car and how much you would like to get it. Fearful that you are going to miss out but keen to get the best deal you can, at the end of the test drive you say to the seller: ‘Look, I like the car very much. I’m going to cut to the chase here and make you an offer for your car. The price I’m offering you is £4,000.’

Imagine that the seller puts her hands on her hips, takes a breath and then says, with her hand outstretched to shake yours: ‘Thank you very much. We have a deal! Nice doing business with you.’ As you walk home to arrange finalising the transaction, how are you feeling?

The reaction I inevitably get when I pose this dilemma to clients is typically: ‘I should have offered less!’, ‘It was too easy!’, ‘There must be something wrong with the car’, or ‘It was overpriced in the first place’. Some people, however, will say: ‘I just got my ideal car for £1,000 under the asking price. What’s not to like?’ My response to those people is always the same: you might well think that. But trust me when I tell you that in about twelve to eighteen hours’ time, that little voice in your head will kick in, and it will start to make you doubt or question why the seller so readily accepted your ‘ambitious’ price of only £4,000. What have you missed? What’s wrong with the car? What does she know that you don’t? You might even start to wonder whether you should go back to renegotiate or whether a handshake is legally binding. All of a sudden, your elation can devolve into dissatisfaction.

Mistake Three: Thinking great salespeople are automatically great negotiators

Whether we are selling a product, a service or ourselves as a subject matter expert or the perfect candidate for a job, in the business world the ability to effectively sell your position, point of view or product and convince someone to ‘buy into’ your vision or way of doing things is a hugely valuable one.

It is true that in the commercial world we are often expected to sell and negotiate in quick succession. An example of this would be going to visit a potential client and selling your services over the course of a pitch, and then immediately after or a few days later, negotiating with that client the potential terms of any deal or relationship.

The potential problem here is that many people confuse the very different skills of selling and negotiating, and use them at inappropriate times or to such a degree that they undermine their position. It’s useful to think about it like this. When we sell we will use different skills and behaviours compared to those we should use when we negotiate.

When we sell

When we sell we are seeking to persuade the other side of the value of our service or product. We will explain the benefit of what we have to offer, justifying why our offering is superior to our competitors’ and explaining in great detail and with huge enthusiasm why our view is the correct one. We might list all of the benefits to be had by agreeing to what we are suggesting and may find ourselves arguing with the other side if they tell us what we have to offer isn’t their best option. We will also seek permission and consensus with statements such as:

Can I send you further information on that?

Would you like to hear more?

Do you think this would work well for you?

Does this price sound OK to you?

When we negotiate

When we negotiate we should be seeking to gather information because, as you will see later in this book, information is power. Negotiators should ask exploratory and insightful questions to understand the motivations of the other side. Negotiators should be firm, clear and concise when communicating with the other side and delivering proposals. Negotiators should listen, so they can hear anything they might have missed or that could influence the deal. A negotiator should control the interaction because if they won’t, the other side will. Negotiators should remain calm and composed, and will carefully consider all of the available evidence. And ultimately a negotiator should propose firm options, rather than asking permission from the other side.

You might think that some of the behaviours and examples in these sections would be beneficial to both a salesperson and a negotiator. For example, the negotiator’s behaviour of gathering information would be also be useful to a first-rate salesperson. Similarly, the salesperson’s behaviour of being enthusiastic can also be used to great effect by a negotiator. The difference lies in the emphasis placed on these behaviours in the two skillsets.

Salespeople seek to establish a need or desire for what they have to offer

Negotiators seek to create terms for an agreement once need or desire is established.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, you might have to play the dual role of salesperson and negotiator. In these situations, it is essential that you understand when to sell and when to negotiate.

Some people start to negotiate too early. Why is this an issue? If you start to negotiate too early – e.g. when you haven’t completed the selling process and perhaps haven’t fully convinced the other party of a need or desire – then you run the risk of coming across as presumptuous.