Negotiation Training

Our public Negotiation seminars and in house Negotiations workshops are enlightening, educational, measurable and fun. Negotiation training courses can be scheduled at your offices or through our open enrollment classes. We do offer negotiation skills training seminars to the general public.

Contact us today to discuss your specific Negotiation training needs or to sign up for one of our public negotiations workshops. 

Participants in the Win- Win Negotiations class will learn to:

• Develop an effective plan and strategy for any negotiation
  
• Know when and when not to negotiate
  
• Negotiate face-to-face, on the phone, and through e-mail
  
• Learn to become a more persuasive negotiator
  
• Develop a common negotiating language with the other parties
  
• Use negotiation techniques that pull information from the other parties
  
• Read client and employee behaviors styles to maximize closure
  
• Recognize interests and issues and avoid unnecessary positions
  
• Neutralize manipulative negotiation tactics
  
• Minimize negotiation conflicts and deadlocks both internally and externally
  
• Coordinate negotiations within client organization
  
• Meet business objectives by focusing on planning rather than on tactics

 

The 'value gap' between sellers and buyers is often driven by the personal needs of the seller.

When I am identifying a value gap between buyer and seller, I often start by looking at the personal needs of the seller, rather than at the business.

That provides a goal-line for the business owner, a benchmark. In the private company marketplace we've found that so much relates to the personal needs of a company owner, and it isn't always money related.

Part of it is financial, but part of it is lifestyle, part of it is philanthropic needs, part of it would be family needs.

So we encourage people to take the time to do a personal assessment of what sort of financial needs are required. We find so often that the business and personal financial picture is very muddled and intertwined.

Obviously the way a business owner pays himself and all of the personal benefits and tax advantages is likely to change after a sale transaction. After the sale, the company is more likely to be run by professional management in an arm's length fashion.

There's certainly a level of transparency and accountability that most business owners never face personally. The business is likely to be held to a whole different standard after the transaction.

So business owners need to pause and do an assessment of what they really truly need - which forces them to think about what life is going to look like after they sell the business.

One of our members had the owner of a private company agreeing to accept an offer from a private equity group at $90 million. Although the seller thought he would want to complete the transaction, during the due diligence process - prior to the closing - he changed his mind. The reason being he simply couldn't let go of the personal satisfaction and he had no plans personally as to what he would do after the sale was completed.

Although he would have got more than he ever imagined in the way of financial value, it wasn't what he was able to accept in the way of lifestyle. So this is why we say you should take the time to do this very thorough personal assessment before you begin the sale process.

So there's an element of personal assessment and personal education around the entire process and how this could impact your taxes and all other things.

So much of it relates to things like your personal risk profile. By that we mean, how is somebody to know how much they're likely to have available? It depends upon what sort of investments you're comfortable with personally.

With a higher level of risk, there is going to be most likely a higher return but, these days, where yields on low risk investments are so very, very small, clearly it's hard to know.

One is going to need to invest more in a low-risk, low-return environment. So it takes time not only to look at what you would like to accomplish personally, but to look at how you would generate the funds, how you would invest in what sort of returns, so much of it relates to risk factors.

Another factor is taxes. There are ways to complete a transaction where the tax is deferred. Very rarely would a business sell today for all cash. Almost always the seller of a private company will be asked to finance part of the sale price in the form of a seller note.

You have to look at all of these different options and alternatives, and that's why financial modeling is needed.

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