The Key Negotiation Skill Of Planning Achieveable Objectives For Your Commercial Negotiations.

A critical negotiation skill in your purchasing negotiations is how you go about deciding your objectives.

I want to offer you 3 critical points that we cover in our negotiation skills training workshops to consider when you are planning for your negotiations.

1. What is the absolutely ideal outcome for you in this negotiation?

What would a absolutely wonderful deal (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 agreement.

You should know that it is important in your negotiation to always ask for a little more than you would like to receive. This means that you should always have an aspiration base that is higher than your targeted objective. 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 positive side, you may just get what you regard to be ideal if you ask for it! Don't fall into the trap of making decisions on behalf of your counterpart by saying to yourself they will not consider that .Take note that I am not proposing that you make extreme demands - extreme requests are highly risky and dependent on the cultural context within which you find yourself.

2. What is the absolutely minimum acceptable outcome for you in this negotiation?

At what stage will you decide to end or suspend your discussions?

If you do not decide on a specific point at which it will no longer be possible or attractive for you to reach agreement, then you may become vulnerable to closing a deal that you will not be happy with. This is critical to do as you could easily become emotionally committed to closing a transaction at all cost because you may think that your personal credibility is at stake.

3. What do you think are the aspirations and minimum acceptable transaction levels for your counterpart?

It is also important that you think about the aspirations and minimum acceptable deal levels from your counterparts point of view. 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 industry or kind of negotiation.

By thinking about the aspirations and minimum acceptable deal levels from your counterparts point of view, you will be able to identify the bargaining range. Knowing the agreement 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 at the negotiation table is dependent on the quality of your preparation. 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.

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