Connect
To Top

How To Enhance The Outcome Of Negotiation

As a small business owner there are several ways you can enhance the outcome of negotiation. We have looked at the idea of handling all your negotiations in a professional manner, without look at the issues at stake, the duration, the amount and the people involved. These are the things we covered in the first part of how to negotiate in your small business.

We want to look at other items of interest that will help you in enhancing the outcomes of your business negotiations.

Set The Objectives Of Your Business Negotiation

Every negotiation has an objective that is unique to it. Such objectives are basically the things you are looking to achieve.

Setting An Objective Simplifies The Negotiation

Once you know what you want to achieve, it reduces all the seeming complexities connected to that negotiation to that single objective. A business negotiation does not have to be connected to a single objective.

If this is the case, you will have to list the objectives of that negotiation and it will still serve the purpose of simplifying it.

Setting An Objective Opens The Possibilities Of Developing Winning Strategies

You build your plan around your objective. This is a time-tested approach that has worked for others. The same rule applies to developing a strategy for a business negotiation. Once you know your objective, it would be easier to determine the best approach to get the best out of the negotiation table.

Enhancing the outcome of a business negotiation is not about wishful thinking. It is about setting up a plan that you believe will deliver when it is executed.

It will help you to decide if you want to adopt a competitive or cooperative style of negotiation. A solution-based style might serve as the best means of getting the most out of the table. The point here is that having a stated objective will give you the direction you want to take with respect to the business negotiation.

Objectives are linked to the nature of the business negotiation. A client might have resorted to the negotiation table (alternative dispute resolution) rather than taking your business to court for what it deemed to be a failure on your part. Your objective may be that you do not want the issue to be leaked to the public because it will be damaging. You want to adopt a hostile or competitive style of negotiation.

You may want to be conciliatory or adopt a solution-based approach. The objective may also include concluding this negotiation as quickly as possible and having a gag order penned in the agreement. This would mean you would have to put something on the table that would be hard to refuse.

Are There Alternatives You Can Place On The Table?

The outcome of a business negotiation could change in your favor if you can present multiple options that are viable. It may be lack of ideas that decreases the chances of having a positive outcome. Good alternatives will give you more tools to trade effectively on the negotiation table.

This implies that you will have to do a little bit of homework on your part. There are certain negotiations that has a lot riding on the offers that have been placed on the table. A solution based business negotiation thrives on this. It is a type of negotiation that requires you to present enough multiple options to solving a problem, which is usually the reason why there is a dispute in the first place.

All the options on the table does not have to favor the other party. However, it is important to have a variety of options that are favorable to both parties mixed with others that may be favorable to one or none of the parties involved. This would create a contrast that will show the various directions the negotiation would go from that of individual to collective losses and gains.

Individual And Collectives Losses And Gains

Your list of options should lean more on the collective losses and gains because this will give the other party viable options to select from. The collective losses may depict what will happen to both parties if they pick an option that will not serve the two of them. This will be presented in a negative light because you would naturally want the other party to pick the one that will have collective benefits.

However, there are times when collective losses can serve as the conciliatory option. We will look into this when we look out how you can use concessions to enhance the outcome of your business negotiations.

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

More in Business