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...
“I have done several negotiation training programmes in my career, but this programme from NewDawn was by far the best I have ever attended” Phil Greaves, Category Manager STW SC&P. This training programme is being followed by live negotiation support from NewDawn for critical supplier negotiations during November and December.
‘Profitable Relationship Management (PRM)’ and ‘Managing Scope Creep (MSC)’ training programmes for the Institute of Adverting Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI).
The delegates represented senior client facing roles from many of the Irish Advertising and Communication Agencies.
“I really liked how it delved into the mindset of buyers and how we as sellers can tackle the issues that they throw at us on a daily basis.” said Stephen Wade of Starcom.
“I thought both trainers (Simon and Alan) were very good - they communicated well with the trainees, gave good examples of their experiences, never rushed any topic, spent time on sections the trainees wanted more time on and put in a huge amount of work pre and over the two days.” Said Cormac O’Shae, MD of Clear Blue Water.
Creative Sourcing Strategies. Suncor Energy in Calgary, Canada.
NewDawn is running a series of training programmes and live workshops with Suncor Energy with the specific objective of helping the Supply Chain team to develop more creative sourcing solutions. This is achieved through stimulating and motivating both internal colleagues and external suppliers to want to deliver innovative solutions that may sometimes deliver Competitive Advantage that survives for several years.
Dave Balsom, Director Category Management at Suncor Energy said “We thought we had a problem with innovation and creativity in our team. NewDawn introduced us to a new way of working which overcame this perception and has helped us to develop the process and behaviours we need to implement greater creativity. The good news about these NewDawn guys is they bring a refreshing mix of experience and new thinking which goes down very well with our people. It has helped us to get creative again.”
From July 2012, and ongoing, NewDawn Partners have been providing Towers Watson with Procurement Awareness workshops. This is a senior client facing programme providing an informed analysis of the strategies, processes, tools, behaviours and tactics most commonly used by clients’ procurement organisations, in order to help them understand, engage with, and manage these procurement teams when representing their clients.
Martin O’Neil., Head of L & D, Towers Watson said “Steve Mullins’(Director NewDawn Partners) top qualities are great results, expert, and high integrity. Steve is a senior Procurement professional who demystifies this profession and gives the understanding, education and insight as to what makes Procurement tick. Therefore instilling confidence to manage these relationships successfully and without fear!! I would recommend Steve to any business that deals with Procurement. Steve’s programmes are pragmatic, tailored to your needs, and partners go on to deliver immediate payback in their engagement with client procurement.” January 25, 2013
In July 2013, NewDawn Partners delivered a series of Profitable Relationship and Managing Scope Creep programmes for Capital MSL and MSL London. Many PR and Communications Agencies are struggling to manage the growing power of procurement in this sector, and the impact this is having on agencies lowering their blended rates. The NewDawn Partners have had a long and successful relationship with the Advertising Sector and have provided training programmes addressing this specific issue to numerous Agency Groups across the globe including in USA (Miami, New York and Seattle), South America (Sao Paulo), China (Beijing and Shanghai), Singapore, India (Mumbai), and Europe (Paris, Berlin and London).
MD
MSL London wrote “A superb course, packed
full of insight and a solid process to follow.
A great use of two days”
Account
Director Capital MSL said “This was the
best training session I have attended in my career. Engaging, very informative and most of all
fun! The programme exceeded my
expectations. Great presenters. It more than met my needs”
NewDawn has worked closely with STW Clean and Waste Water Distribution teams over the period March-June 2013 in order to help them to identify how they could rapidly improve their performance and contribution to the business and add greater value to their role going forward.
NewDawn designed and built new competency maps based upon the revised and re-defined business needs. Following this definition phase, NewDawn designed and conducted a short assessment and training programme in May to identify the key development needs of individuals and the group. The results of this programme were plotted against the competency maps for each individual so that personal and team development needs could be identified and measured.
Simon Brown Distribution Central Services Manager, STW said ”This was a really good piece of work from NewDawn and the results have way exceeded my expectations”
Profitable Relationship Management and Managing Scope Creep, Wunderman in Seattle USA
In April 2013, NewDawn Partners delivered Profitable Relationship Management and Managing Scope Creep training programmes for Wunderman in Seattle. Many PR and Communications Agencies are struggling to manage the growing power of procurement in this sector, and the impact this is having on agencies lowering their blended rates. The NewDawn Partners have had a long and successful relationship with the Advertising Sector and have provided training programmes addressing this specific issue to numerous Agency Groups across the globe including in USA (Miami, New York and Seattle), South America (Sao Paulo), China (Beijing and Shanghai), Singapore, India (Mumbai), and Europe (Paris, Berlin and London).
“This was an excellent programme which exceeded my expectations and was delivered by people who really understand negotiation.” Group Account Director, Wunderman Seattle.
In 2012, Severn Trent Water Supply Chain and Procurement selected NewDawn Partners to implement a programme to enable them to be more commercially astute in dealing with the supply chain and procurement issues. This multi-faceted programme involved training the individuals, providing a toolkit for the SC&P team to use and updating the Category Management Manual. The aim of this set of programmes is to create greater awareness of the opportunities, and a step change in performance, for the STW SC&P team in terms of commerciality, strategic thinking and category management.
Peter Williams, Capital Supply Chain Manager, says “In line with our strategic goals, we need a SC&P team that has a good understanding of how global market’s work, keeps up to date with current global financial movements, can advise on social & economic drivers that can impact on business and supply chain decisions, is accomplished in a comprehensive range of commercial models, and is able to coach other parts of the organisation in these skills. NewDawn were selected as the best company to provide this training for us and designed and implemented a first class programme”.
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:
