Business Negotiation October 5, 2016

You Have Negotiating Pressure

The current economic climate is creating pressure on most negotiations.. Uncertainty prevails and many decisions are being delayed. Now is the time for you to stop and analyze your current negotiations. Identify and clearly understand the pressures you are having to respond to --- from all kinds of different sources. Buyers are being asked to bring costs down. Salespeople are being asked to increase volumes and margins. Manufacturing people are being asked to increase plant efficiencies and productivity. Engineers and managers are being asked to do more with less. There is not a day that goes by that we don't hear about another downsizing. Now, more than ever, please remember that in any negotiation there are pressures and problems on BOTH sides. Yet it is human nature to immediately focus on our own problems and pressures and forget about the other party. Don't fall into this trap! Take the time to fully analyze all of the potential problems and pressures on the other party. If you don't know, invest some time to do some investigative work and find out. Your analysis will provide clues to ways you can come to agreement. Just by recognizing the other party also has certain problems and pressures increases your negotiating power, and strengthen your negotiating position. Think about your negotiation. You know your needs (your pressures). The other party has needs too, which they feel as their pressures. Ask yourself, "What's on their sheet?" Try to use the negotiating process as a tool to help you find opportunities for a Both-Win solution -- an agreement that takes the pressure off both you and the other party.