Archive for the ‘negotiation tactics’ Category

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What Role Status Symbols Play In Negotiations

Friday, May 4th, 2012
Image CreditNegotiator's status plays a role in every negotiation

Negotiator's status plays a role in every negotiation

When it comes to sitting around the negotiating table, we’re all equal, right? In a perfect world, the answer would be yes. We don’t live in a perfect world and so the answer is a very solid “no”. So what does this mean for us – do some negotiators deserve to get more?

Where Negotiating Status Comes From

Where does this status thing come from? It seems to play a role in our negotiation styles and negotiating techniques. I’m pretty sure that we’re all very aware of the role that social status used to play in European society back in the day. You had your upper class folks and then the rest of humanity. If an upper class negotiator sat down to negotiate with a lower class person, then they would be starting with a huge advantage simply because of their social status. This would undoubtedly affect the final deal that was negotiated.

Those days are long gone – or are they? In Europe, as well as in places like India, although officially the social classes have been removed, traces still linger. When two negotiators from two very different backgrounds sit down to negotiate, the ghosts of their family’s backgrounds can at times haunt the room.

Additionally, a new type of social status symbol has arrived on the scene. A person’s success in life as represented by all of the “bling” that comes with success – money, power, acclaim, etc. can elevate their social status. If you don’t believe me, then just imagine how you would feel if you were sitting across from Donald Trump trying to negotiate a deal with him!

How You Can Deal With Status At The Negotiating Table

I’d like to be able to tell you to just ignore status when you are conducting your next negotiation. Focus on the deal that you’re trying to create and ignore who the person that you are negotiating with is or where they come from.

That’s easy for me to say and very hard for you to do! It’s never going to be easy for you to overlook the other side of the table’s status – it’s going to affect your negotiation process. Instead, I’m going to suggest that you do something else that will help you to work through this issue.

In order to retain your composure when you are negotiating with someone who has more status than you, you need to boost your status. The easiest way to go about doing this is to do additional work preparing for the negotiations. I have found that people with status often assume that their status is going to help them to reach a deal and so they will often not do as much preparation for a negotiation as they should have. Do your homework and you’ll be better prepared than they are and their status won’t matter as much.

What All Of This Means For You

We do not live in a perfect world – we are not all equal. Instead, status and status symbols play a role in every negotiation – this is almost a part of the negotiation definition.

What this means for you as a negotiator is that you need to realize that status can play a role in how you both view and treat the other side of the negotiating table even when you are conducting a principled negotiation. You need to work to overcome any status advantage that they may have by working extra hard to prepare for the negotiation – you need to be the best prepared person at the table.

Status as something that makes people different is something that we’ll always have to live with. As long as you know that this is an issue, then you can take steps to deal with it and make sure that it does not influence the deals that you make.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way that you have ever used to overcome a status advantage that the other side may have had?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

We’ve all see what the image looks like on TV: the bad guys break-in somewhere, things go wrong, and all of a sudden they take hostages. This is never a good thing and it can very quickly go very wrong. The same thing can happen during your next business negotiation – the other side of the table may decide to take hostages — assets not people hopefully. If they do this, then how should you respond?

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Counterstrike: 5 Ways Negotiators Can Deal With Threats During A Negotiation

Friday, April 27th, 2012
Image Credit When you are threatened during a negotiation, you need to fight back

When you are threatened during a negotiation, you need to fight back

There you are in your next sales negotiation and everything is flying along nicely. All of a sudden, wham! The other side goes and suddenly threatens you with something if you don’t do or agree to one of their demands. Oh, oh – that “Dummy’s Guide To Negotiating” book that you read last month didn’t cover this situation. What’s a negotiator to do now?

The Danger Of Using Threats During A Negotiation

I’m pretty sure that we’ve talked about it before, but it probably can’t hurt to mention it one more time. Threats can be a powerful part of any negotiator’s negotiation styles or negotiating techniques; however, threats are difficult to use correctly and can easily cause a great deal of damage. No matter what’s being negotiated, the other side will probably threaten you at some time. How should you deal with these threats?

5 Ways That You Can Deal With A Threat During A Negotiation

You can’t stop the other side of the table from using threats against you during your next negotiation process; however, you can be prepared when they do. What you need to have ready are the following 5 threat handling techniques:

  1. Will They Shoot Themselves?: I can’t tell you how many spy movies that I’ve seen where the hero wins in the end because the bad guy tries to shoot him with a gun that really fires backwards. When you are threatened, you need to take a close look at the threat and determine if the other side follows through on the threat if they would end up harming themselves as much as they would harm you.

  2. Hold Your Position: Sure the other side can threaten you, but do you really have the stronger position? Do you have a product or a service that they truly need and can’t get anywhere else? If so, their threats may be meaningless and you need to not budge.

  3. Time For A History Lesson: If the other side of the table is threatening you during a negotiation, then it’s probably not the first time that they’ve used this negotiating tactic. That means that they’ve got a history. You need to do some research and check with people that have negotiated with them in the past – do they follow through on their threats? If not, then you may be able to disregard their threats.

  4. Tell Their Boss: Using threats during a negotiation can go against the principled negotiation standards of the organization that the other side works for. Simply by informing the other side’s boss that threats against you are being made may be enough to get the other side in trouble and make the threats go away.

  5. Tell A Story: One of the most effective ways to get a point across is to tell a story. We all know that threats can backfire and may have unintended consequences. If you take the time to tell the other side a story about threats going bad after they’ve made a threat, you may be able to get them to take the threat back.

What All Of This Means For You

Negotiations always seem to somehow include threats, either explicit or implied. The trick is not to try to avoid them, because you can’t, but rather to understand how to deal with them when they show up.

Skilled negotiators know that that every threat has the ability to blow up and harm both sides of the table. That’s why you have to take the time to determine who might be hurt and by how much. You also have to make sure that the other side is aware of the damage that the threat that they’ve made may cause.

During a negotiation, when you’ve been threatened, it’s not the end of the game – threats are almost part of the negotiation definition. As a negotiator, you need to learn to roll with the threat and evaluate what it really means to you. Once you understand the scope of the threat, you’ll be able to take the appropriate actions that will bring the other side of the table back to the negotiations and will get you once again moving towards reaching a deal.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: When the other side makes a threat, do you think that you should call for a break in the negotiations in order to show how serious you think that this is?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When it comes to sitting around the negotiating table, we’re all equal, right? In a perfect world, the answer would be yes. We don’t live in a perfect world and so the answer is a very solid “no”. So what does this mean for us – do some negotiators deserve to get more?

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6 Things A Sales Negotiator Needs To Know About Using Threats During A Negotiation

Friday, April 20th, 2012
Image Credit Sometimes during a negotiation, your bark has to be as bad as your bite

Sometimes during a negotiation, your bark has to be as bad as your bite

Who doesn’t like to use a threat during sales negotiations every so often? Threats are yet another one of the negotiation styles and negotiating techniques that we can use. It’s like a big stick that you can haul out and set on the table. There it sits, out where everyone can see it and the other side of the table knows what you could do with it if you wanted to. It turns out that that big stick has some consequences that you need to be aware of.

Threats Are Not Without Consequences

Every negotiation that you are involved in will have the possibility of at least one threat involved in it. Give it some thought – every negotiation has the possibility of ending in deadlock as one possible outcome – that’s a threat!

When you decide to use a threat of either taking or not taking some action, you need to understand that with a threat comes both intended and unintended consequences. What makes a threat really powerful is if the other side decides that they will either gain or lose by believing your threat.

6 Things That You Need To Know About Using Threats In Negotiations

If you aren’t careful, the use of threats during your next negotiation can result in hostility. Not only that, but they can also result in unintended consequences for you. Because threats are such a tricky weapon to use, here are 6 things that you need to know in order to use threats correctly:

  1. Credibility Counts: Your threats won’t have any impact on the other side if you aren’t going to be seen as being willing to carry them out. We see this all the time around us when we see parents making big threats that they have no intention of ever carrying out to their children in order to get them to behave.

  2. The Threat Has To Match The Issue: We’re talking about proportionality here. The threat has to match what is being negotiated. If you are trying to get the other side to agree to a small request, then don’t use a huge threat to nudge them to give in.

  3. No Threats Without Backing: Make sure that your organization is going to back you up on your threat. If the other side of the table knows that they can just go around you and get what they want, then your threat has no teeth.

  4. Threats Linger: Before you use a threat, you need to realize that a threat can linger as part of the negotiation process long after you use it. The other side of the table may become angry at having been threatened and may be looking for ways to get revenge later on in the negotiations.

  5. Threats Change Relationships: If you have a preexisting relationship with the other side of the table, using threats may forever change that relationship. You need to evaluate whether it’s going to be worth it to use the threat.

  6. Threats Can Get Away From You: Once you’ve made a threat during a negotiation, you can’t take it back. A threat that has been released into the wild can easily get away from you and may get out of control. How the other side reacts to your threat may be far beyond what you had anticipated.

What All Of This Means For You

Threats are a part of every sales negotiation no matter if we want them to be or not. They should almost be part of the negotiation definition. They have a role to play even in a principled negotiation. The key thing that every negotiator needs to realize is that threats have consequences that you need to be aware of.

If you make the decision to use a threat during your next negotiation, then you need to take certain precautions. These include being credible, making your threats proportional, making sure that you have backing, and understanding that the use of threats has long-term consequences.

In order to be a successful negotiator, we need to be able to make use of every negotiating tool that is available to us. This can include the use of threats. Keep in mind that as powerful as a threat may be, threats do come with some significant consequences that you need to be aware of. Keep these in mind and you’ll have yet another powerful tool at your disposal.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to determine if you have the backing of your company before you start making threats during a negotiation?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

There you are in your next sales negotiation and everything is flying along nicely. All of a sudden, wham! The other side goes and suddenly threatens you with something if you don’t do or agree to one of their demands. Oh, oh – that “Dummy’s Guide To Negotiating” book that you read last month didn’t cover this situation. What’s a negotiator to do now?

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Posted in negotiation tactics | 2 Comments »

What To Do When The Other Side Tries To Intimidate You By Raising The Stakes

Friday, April 13th, 2012
Image Credit Sometimes negotiators need to carry a big bat…

Sometimes negotiators need to carry a big bat…

Intimidation can take on many forms during the course of a sales negotiation. One of the forms of intimidation that we are all very familiar with is when the other side of the table starts to raise the stakes. All of a sudden, what used to be a simple negotiation process suddenly become a lot more important. What’s a negotiator to do?

Why Do They Try To Intimidate Us By Raising The Stakes?

Negotiating is all about power. The more power you have, the better the chances that you will get what you want out of the negotiations. This means that the other side of the table will always be looking for the negotiation styles and negotiating techniques that will provide them with ways to get more power while at the same time taking power away from you.

One way to go about doing this is to find ways to intimidate you. Anything that they can do to make their position seem more threating to what you are trying to accomplish will make you want to give in to their demands that much faster. This may not be the best example of principled negotiating; however, nobody can argue with the fact that in many cases it’s very successful. Many deals have been negotiated using this technique.

One of the classic ways that the other side can seek to intimidate you during your next negotiation is by raising the stakes. When they change things or make an offer that all of sudden makes it very expensive for you to say “no”, then they have raised the stakes.

Ways That The Stakes Can Be Raised

There are a lot of different ways to raise the stakes during a negotiation – far too many for me to hope to be able to list them all here. However, we can cover a few of them in order to give you a flavor of what this tactic looks like.

One of the classic ways to raise the stakes occurs when you’ve been negotiating with the other side of the table for a while. You’ve reached agreement on a number of issues, and then all of a sudden they hit you with either a new demand or they increase their demands in a number of areas. At the same time they tell you that they are backing away from all of the previous agreements that they have made with you. Congratulations, the stakes have just been raised.

Another example is when you are already in a business agreement with the other side of the table. If they show up and offer you a bigger agreement, but insist that your current agreement will go away if you bid on the bigger agreement is not low enough, then they have just raised the stakes.

What We Can Do When The Stakes Have Been Raised

The very first thing that you need to understand about the negotiating tactic where the stakes are raised is that there must be a reason that the other side is doing this right now. There can be many reasons: this was always their goal, they are running out of time to negotiate, they are close to striking a deal with somebody else, etc.

Ideally, you’ll find out what is motivating them. This is critical knowledge that can help you to decide what your next steps need to be. However, in many cases this simply won’t be possible.

In those cases, you need to plan your next steps carefully. The first thing that you are going to want is time to evaluate the new situation. Ask for a break in the negotiations. Next, determine if raising the stakes on your side would cause the other side to back down. If not, then pick apart their position – where do you need to have agreement with them and what issues don’t matter as much.

Instead of allowing the other side to present you with a “take it or leave it” proposal, come back to the negotiating table and explore which of the issues they are firm on and where they have some flexibility. I suspect that there is one issue that is most important to them and the process of raising the stakes was just designed to get their way on that one issue.

What All Of This Means For You

In order to get what they want from a negotiation, the other side may resort to using intimidation tactics. One of the most common ways to do this is to raise the stakes as you move through the negotiation. This is so common that it’s almost a part of the negotiation definition.

There are many different ways that the other side can go about doing this. These include bluffing, changing their mind on previously agreed to agreements, or presenting alternative deals. As negotiators we need to always be aware of when this type of intimidation starts to happen. We need to evaluate the risk to them and look for ways that we can raise the stakes for them.

Intimidation by raising the stakes is something that we will all have to deal with during negotiations. Being aware that it’s happening is the first step and then knowing how to respond is the second. During your next negotiation, don’t be intimidated no matter how high the stakes go!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: When the other side raises the stakes, do you think that you should call for a break in the negotiations?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Who doesn’t like to use a threat during sales negotiations every so often? Threats are yet another one of the negotiation styles and negotiating techniques that we can use. It’s like a big stick that you can haul out and set on the table. There it sits, out where everyone can see it and the other side of the table knows what you could do with it if you wanted to. It turns out that that big stick has some consequences that you need to be aware of.

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Posted in negotiation tactics | No Comments »

Negotiators Need To Learn How To Deal With Experts

Friday, April 6th, 2012
Image Credit Just because he's an expert, doesn't mean that you should give in…

Just because he's an expert, doesn't mean that you should give in…

So let’s think about your next negotiating session. There you are and everything is going along quite nicely. You are making your points and the other side doesn’t seem to be objecting to them too much. All of a sudden another person arrives and joins the other side of the table. They are introduced as an expert and they then proceed to tear big holes in the justifications that you had given for the deal that you were proposing. Dang it – done in by an expert once again.

Why Experts Cause Us So Much Trouble

You are a bright, smart negotiator. Why does the arrival of an expert at a negotiating session cause you so much trouble? What seems to happen is that when an expert shows up, all of a sudden we shut up. We are no longer willing to exert ourselves.

What’s up with this? It turns out that one of the big problems that we encounter when an expert shows up is that they speak funny. It’s like they have a completely different vocabulary that they use when they talk about the part of the negotiation that they’ve been brought in for. All we can do is sit back and take it in – we don’t have the same vocabulary.

When we find ourselves in the presence of an expert, we do pretty much anyone else would do – we become passive. We really don’t want to speak up because we fear looking foolish. The problem with this response to authority is that we can allow the negotiations that we are involved in to slip away from us because we’ve become quiet.

How To Handle Experts In A Negotiation

This all leads us to the really big question: what can a negotiator do when the other side brings an expert to a negotiation session? Short of asking them to go away, is there some magic technique that we can use to deal with them?

The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is yes. Right off the bat, you need to have a talk with yourself when an expert shows up. What you need to remind yourself about is the simple fact that nobody is an expert in everything. In fact, the more that someone knows about something, then the less they probably know about more things.

The other thing that you need to keep in mind is two simple words “so what?” Yes, the other person is an expert in some area and you are not. However, if this deal is going to happen, then you are going to have to agree to it. The expert may have many valid points to make, but who cares? At the end of the day it’s going to be up to you to either accept or reject what they say. The really neat part about this is that it does not matter if they are correct or not – you can reject what they say even if they are right!

What All Of This Means For You

Nothing can screw up a good negotiation like the arrival of an expert. For some reason when we are in the presence of someone who has been introduced to us as an expert, we freeze up. Our negotiation skills seem to vanish.

The reasons for this differ from negotiator to negotiator, but it’s all due to the fact that we don’t know how to handle someone who clearly knows a lot more about a subject than we do. What we need to learn to do is to understand that there are limits to how much any one expert can know. This coupled with the fact that their opinion won’t control the outcome of the negotiations means that you still have the power.

We can’t do anything about having experts introduced into a negotiation. However, what we can do is to decide just how influenced by their presence we want to allow ourselves to become. Minimize their influence over you and you can still reach a great deal with the other side of the table.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: When an expert gets introduced to the negotiating table, do you think that you should call for a time out?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Intimidation can take on many forms during the course of a sales negotiation. One of the forms of intimidation that we are all very familiar with is when the other side of the table starts to raise the stakes. All of a sudden, what used to be a simple negotiation process suddenly become a lot more important. What’s a negotiator to do?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in negotiation tactics | No Comments »

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