Attributed to Harvey Mackay in his pithy book “Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive”, I like this adage because it is, like many other aspects of negotiation, so counter-intuitive.In his view (and ours), you’ll be amazed how much the terms of your deals will improve when you learn to say ‘No’.
However, there is a heck of a lot more to this expression than first meets the eye.
We live in a world of noise where silence has almost ceased to exist. A significant majority of people are uncomfortable with it and seek to fill it even with mundane background noise. We regularly see this manifest itself in countless businesses where we see people in meetings and negotiations talking too much, tripping over themselves to ‘lead the conversation’ or to interject as soon as the other person pauses so that they can post their arguments. It is as though silence is to be avoided and immediately filled...
There is nothing quite so empowering to a negotiator that knowing that they can walk away from the deal if necessary. This hugely important factor enables them to be assertive on their goals, confident that if an acceptable deal is not reached, they have an alternative option. Similarly, the other party will sense this too and will be commensurately wary of pushing too hard. Unfortunately, the opposite is true too! Having no alternative, such as in a monopoly situation, can leave you in a very vulnerable position.
When negotiating, a good mindset to adopt is the one that says everything has a value and that nothing should be given away for free.Yet, far too often well-intentioned or naïve negotiators give away items to the other party when they need not.The irony being that by giving it away too easily, its value becomes much diminished for the recipient.
To negotiate people must have the ability to exchange ideas, concerns, proposals and arguments – in short, communicate effectively.
In negotiation, and in life, everything that you do has repercussions – actions have consequences. It comes back to you one way or another.
Absolutely fundamental to negotiation is our ability to persuade others to accept our view.
“There are, of course, many ways by which sellers can categorise or segment their customers. By far the most common is size or revenue, but this is simply not adequate if you want to determine how to manage a relationship or how to negotiate with a customer. ”
“Value is the extent to which a product or service is perceived by the other party to meet his or her needs or desires, measured by their willingness to pay for it. It commonly depends more on their perception of the worth of the product than its intrinsic value.”
There was no greater war leader and strategist than Chinese military general Sun Tzu. His philosophy on how to be a great leader and ensure you win in work, management, and life is often quoted – for good reason. Sun Tzu also states the “Every battle is won before it is fought” – a point we picked up in our Rule No2.
In our experience, only one third of the delegates attending our programmes spend more than one hour planning, preparing and rehearsing for a negotiation. Often this is done in a café, taxi or train en-route to a customer, or in a rushed pre-meeting, which is prone to regular interruptions, just prior to a key meeting with a supplier!
This is our “Rule Number 1 for Negotiation”. Although it may sound like a statement of ‘the blindingly obvious’, we are still struck by the number of people who fail to ask for what they want in a negotiation. In our view, ‘Asking’ is the most important discipline in negotiation. Have you ever wondered just how much money you may have left on the negotiating table because ‘you did not ask for more’? Perhaps you do not want to know, but importantly you should not want to leave any more in the future! If so, read on...
Managing Scope Creep programme for Aon completed. “Really excellent. This was very relevant and would be equally so for senior management”.
Negotiation follow-up sessions with the Poland team including on-line questionnaires and coaching sessions. “I have used the input that I got from your training a lot. I use it every day in the way of thinking. And I have used your preparation template at two meetings. But now I do it more in my head before the meeting.”
Mark Henderson conducted CIPS Certification Training in South Africa, Lesotho and Botswana over the period 29 March – 8 April
“What an incredible experience we shared with Mark learning how best to assist our African clients through the CIPS Corporate Certification programme. Mark is extremely knowledgeable about procurement, shares great rapport with clients and is able to explain the complexities of the certification requirements in a way that makes real sense to us as future certifiers as well as our clients.
I look forward to inviting Mark to “ring the bell” for the first
certification success in sub Saharan Africa in the very near future
NewDawn selected by Aon Global Benefits and Expat Insurance teams to run ‘Managing Scope Creep’ training programmes in April and ‘Negotiation and Profitable Relationship Management’ programmes in September.
Procurement Strategy Development & Coaching 360
Mark Henderson supports AFS in Procurement Development Strategy and Coaching.
“Simon Buzza from NewDawn Partners contributes as a guest speaker on the Masters Level courses for Sales Strategy programmes. He is excellent at bringing out clear and relevant messages from his military background and applying them in a productive way to commercial situations. In addition, Simon focuses on using statistics, based on the extensive research and experience of NewDawn Partners, to demonstrate the relevance of the key points being made. The students, who are from many diverse national backgrounds, find the talks engaging, inspiring and fun – they love them. Many comment on the fact that they never realised the potential links between what appears to be 2 quite contrasting areas. A great learning experience” - Rakesh Sondhi, Adjunct professor, Hult International Business School.
Alan Cooley of NewDawn has been selected to work with PMMS Australia and CLP in developing a pool of facilitators within CLP to sustain the core P3 (Proactive Procurement Process) facilitation capability across the C&P (Contracts & Procurement) departments and in building a structured process for people and team development within CLP. This commences in December and will continue throughout the first half of 2016
We are privileged to have worked with some of the best global, regional and national companies. Here is a snap shot of some of those companies:
