Negotiating a deal is a skill, and while it’s something everyone can do – not everyone is good at it. Try out these three tips to instantly improve your powers of negotiation:
- Use your ears more than your mouth. Getting to know the person you’re making a deal with plays a large part in how reliable they are. One word that can describe what you need to know about them as a person is- form.
Family- The importance of family stems for how willing and how much time they have to dedicate to whatever deal you are negotiating. Will this person be willing to give his share of time to this deal?
Occupation- What does this person do for a living? This could potentially be a deciding factor in the language and familiarity used in this deal.
Recreation- This point is to get to know them better as a person, in terms of creativity, energy, etc. You’d be surprised how much the activities a person does says about them. Take note.
Money- As nice as it would be to pry into their finances and see what they really have in their pockets, this point is more about what their money goals are for this deal. When negotiating a deal, it is important to know people’s monetary expectations and figure out how lenient they are on price points.
- Think of negotiation as trading quid pro quo cards. This means that some cards are more valuable than others and you may have to trade a couple for one valuable card. Trading cards is similar in the fact that another man’s trash may be another man’s gold. Use your negotiation strategically and figure out what something is worth to someone else.
- Be a problem solver. If you see a problem within a deal or even a potential added benefit where there was no problem, do something about it. Creating a solution can be tricky at times, but by working together, most problems have an answer. If you still can’t find the answer after a negotiation, pass the deal off to someone else or find something else worth trading. Being resourceful to others is important because passing a deal off can be mutually beneficial later on.
Negotiation has never and will never be an easy task. As the scale gets bigger, it seems that more and more people are involved in negotiation. First lawyers, then consultants, but as a small business, it’s important to be resourceful and be a problem solver. Use these tips and see how your first negotiation turns out! It might just go better than you thought it would.
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