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

 

Are you a business owner who frequently works with suppliers to run the day-to-day operations of your business? If so, have you seriously considered whether or not you are getting the best deal? Despite how minor some transactions may seem, such as purchasing office supplies, these expenses add up fast and could mean a big swing either way to your bottom line.

All businesses, no matter what the size, should regularly take a look at their budget to identify areas which can be cut back through the almighty power of negotiation. To start the process, ask yourself the following questions about each of your suppliers:

What is your relationship?

If you have been working with a particular vendor for a while and have established an amicable relationship, setting the stage for a discount can be made easier. State that you have been a regular customer for X amount of time, you are happy with the service and products they have provided and you are committed to keeping your business with them—but you think that your loyalty could be rewarded by a discount on future orders.

In most industry’s it cost approximately 10x’s more to attract new business than to keep current customer’s happy. Most likely, it will be beneficial for you supplier to cut you a deal rather than get another client to replace your business.

For example, I recently needed to purchase 10,000 magnetic business cards to market a project I am working with, but my budget for this need was not quite enough to purchase them from my regular promotional magnet supplier. Since I have worked with this company in the past and developed friendly rapport with the owner, I decided to bring my problem to him. He was glad to accommodate my request of cutting the cost by 5%. Like I have mentioned oh-so-many times before, you often get what you want—you just have to ask!

You can also check out their customer service history.  We were able to check them out through their BBB information page.

How important is your business?

Is your account keeping your vendor’s business afloat, or are you merely one of many that help to pad your suppliers’ profit margin? How much you spend and how big your vendor’s business goes a long way in determining where your negotiation power.

If your business means beans to them, spending the time negotiating with you could cost more than keeping you as a customer. Your position in this case is precarious, at best. Although, if you are working with a local company that counts on your business to bring home the bacon, you can bet that they will do whatever they can to keep you from taking your business elsewhere, including offering you a hefty discount.

Who are their competitors?

In today’s internet era of e-commerce, it is easy to be constantly finding companies willing to undercut competition for a shot at making a new customer happy. Capitalism has done wonders for ensuring that companies offer quality goods at rock bottom prices. You will find this is true for MOST products you require, but NOT ALL. If your supplier has a virtual monopoly on an industry or provides highly specialized goods specific to your trade, they have little incentive to negotiate with the likes of you.

For example, my husband has one client who specializes in selling wingtips to the airlines industry and they have no other competition to speak of—primarily because they are the only ones with the patent on this product and it solves the problem of reducing fuel costs better than any other available on the market today. I would imagine that they are in a position of supreme negotiating power because they can offer this product, which others cannot, and save their clients big bucks on fuel in the process.

Is non-monetary compensation an option?

If you are really keen on cutting down your cost of doing business, consider trading your services for a discount on supplies. The trick to making this arrangement work is to frame your offer in a way that is a win-win for both sides. If you have a website designing business, you can offer to improve the look of your vendor’s site for a trade of goods.

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