Negotiation“The world is a giant negotiating table, and like it or not, you’re a participant.”
Herb Cohen
Negotiation is at the crux of the relationship between the seller and the buyer, business partners and alliances, and internal stakeholders – no deal is ever done until the negotiation has been completed. Yet, negotiation is generally poorly understood and badly executed. Buyers and sellers typically spend much more time on category plans or sales proposals than they do on negotiation. Consequently, they lose value during this critical stage despite all the good work done during the earlier stages.
With our professional expertise, we are able to provide unique insights into the strategies and techniques the other party will be using, be it the buyer or the seller. But, these skills are not just applicable to customer or supplier negotiations. They apply equally well to partner and alliance negotiations. There is also the issue of tricky politics at work; internal negotiations over resources, plans and time which eat up our valuable time and cause deep frustration – often because stakeholders do not understand how to prepare and plan adequately for
We negotiate when we are in dispute or we want to do a deal. NewDawn Partners support both scenarios. In business, the majority of us negotiate because we want to do a deal that is beneficial to us and does not damage the other party. We have worked with a huge variety of businesses, across multiple business sectors and in all regions of the world.
Negotiation is not just a commercial skill; we all negotiate on a daily basis. We negotiate with family members and friends, with contractors, and with bosses and employees. So, negotiation is also a life skill. Like all skills; you can be as professional or as amateur at negotiation as you choose to be.
Companies with defined negotiation processes in place are significantly more profitable and resilient that those that do not. As a direct result of NewDawn’s world-class experience and insights, as professional buyers and sellers, we ensure that our clients not only have these processes in place but have a clear understanding of the strategies, tools and techniques employed by the other party in a commercial negotiation.
We help buyers and sellers understand the other parties’ perspective through innovative analysis. This gives them a quantum leap forward in achieving outstanding results in their negotiations. We pride ourselves on our ability to develop creative negotiation skills that are tailored to meet the client’s specific negotiation challenge rather than delivering an ‘off-the-shelf’ or ‘one-size meets all’ solution. This builds confidence and belief in dealing with complex and/or robust negotiations.
"Analysis has proven that those companies with defined negotiation processes in place are significantly more profitable and resilient that those that do not"
Source IACCM
The NewDawn Partners provide training/capability development in negotiation skills, live negotiation support, and coaching advice for negotiations.
THE NEGOTIATING SPECTRUM
Counter to much current thinking, we do not always subscribe to ‘Win: Win’ aspirations in negotiation except in rare cases. Rather we focus on retaining the right balance between the desired relationship between the negotiating parties and the commercial outcome required at the end of the negotiation.
REAL BUSINESS NEEDS
These are at the core of our sales support services. It is only by truly understanding that we are able to build tailored and appropriate solutions. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, if the needs are not correctly identified then the solution is unlikely to resolve the problem.
PEOPLE SKILLS
Regardless of the balance of power between two parties, negotiations occur between people. Their pressures, hopes, objectives, options and priorities are very often different from the brands and businesses they represent.
So, developing and utilising ‘people skills’ (leadership and teamworking, behaviour, and winning spirit) is critical to ensure that these help rather than hinder negotiations and is an area where we focus our attention and experience.
Ultimately, there is a negotiation to be undertaken which will involve some disagreement or differences and this leads to confrontation and difficult discussions. Behaviour and reactions to stress are key to managing this effectively. There is also the ‘dance’ to be done; most business people have a psychological need in negotiation to feel that they have worked for a ‘good deal’, and if they conclude too easily their mental alarm bells go off as they instinctively feel duped.
We have successfully developed a highly effective end-end process for managing negotiations supported by tools and plans plus a suite of proven behavioural skills. These have been tried and tested in a wide range of real negotiation challenges worldwide.
Negotiations are won in the preparation, planning, and rehearsals done beforehand – not at the table.
We therefore dedicate considerable effort to this phase of the negotiation process. This includes a range of analysis tools to understand the real and perceived balance of power and who controls the ‘fear of loss’, and what the buyer and seller value propositions are.
One aspect of our approach to negotiation involves the compelling combination of analysis tools. These include analyses of soft skills such as behavioural responses, persuasion styles and relationship approaches and inventories, as well as market, financial and strategic analysis tools. We help our clients to become competent in using persuasion, and different persuasion methods. This includes understanding the basics of the psychology of influencing other people’s decisions, as a pre-requisite to the specific topic of negotiation.
Persuasion is a skill some people are naturally good at it; others need to practise to become good. Whichever, we teach people to use free persuasion methods rather than expensive ones in order to protect value whilst keeping the negotiation moving.
We also look at the appropriate behavioural responses and those exhibited by skilled negotiators. Skilled negotiators look for signs of stress and then use it to their advantage. If the other party is un-assertive, they will bully, if the other party tries aggressive or bullying tactics, they will stay strong and warm. We help our clients to recognise the signals and respond appropriately so that their behaviours help their position rather than hinder it.
SOCIAL STYLES
This enables individuals to develop an awareness of their personal style and how it influences others. It also enables them to understand the other party’s style. Using this awareness, they can learn to be more versatile in order to attain more effective and productive negotiations with others, thus increasing opportunities for ongoing success.
INTERNATIONAL CULTURES
Our negotiation processes and techniques work well in different cultures with some adaptation of personal communication style to different cultures’ expectations in negotiation – e.g. in the use of logic, emotion, initiation versus reaction, simplicity versus complexity, optimism to create a positive climate or a frank investigation of problems at the outset.
We are uniquely positioned to be able to provide the depth of understanding and support for competency definition, assessment and development in negotiation.
Many businesses do not have negotiation competency frameworks or maps at all. Recruiting and performance measurement is therefore highly subjective and rife with risks. Other businesses have outdated or old competency frameworks and need to review and upgrade these to bring them into line with the current business requirements. We have substantial expertise in designing and implementing successful bespoke negotiation competency programmes in virtually all business sectors as well as within the public sector.
