Negotiation Skills Training Courses

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

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

Participants in the Win- Win Negotiations course 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

 

I was approached by the educational division of a major film studio that wanted to me to video a half-hour distillation of one of my popular seminars.

When I sat down with the producer, she asked me what I would charge for a one-day shoot. I replied in the high five figures, plus royalties based on sales.

She paused briefly, but without blinking said: "I think we can do that."

How did I arrive at my price?

Did I do some very careful math? Did I benchmark what they would pay against what they had paid others? Did I compare what I could earn doing a one-day seminar or a keynote speech, elsewhere?

No, I pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

I simply decided that it would be nice to earn the amount I had recited for a single day of work, plus I added what I felt my video was "worth" to them as an entrepreneurial venture.

The dollar amount was a mishmash. There was some reasoning involved, but not much. In truth, what I asked for was irrational.

I'm here to tell you that most prices, fees, charges of any kind are exactly the same way: They're crazy.

We can see this stark fact at the top ranges of most professional salaries. For example, why are some baseball players being given $100 million+ contracts? Strictly speaking, are they worth it?

Can we say that adding Cliff Lee to the Phillies payroll will guarantee World Series championships? When he pitches will fan attendance and TV ratings spike so much that the team will be repaid and earn a profit?

Why are teachers paid 1% of Lee's bounty, over the course of their careers?

How did society make this dramatic distinction? You must admit, the differential in compensation is at least slightly irrational, yes?

Allow me to repeat my thesis:

Most prices, fees, charges of any kind are exactly the same way: They're crazy.

If you do any research into the literature of negotiation you'll find folks that contend everything is negotiable. They can back-up this assertion because the entire foundation of bargaining, pricing itself, is built on sand.

Push just a little bit, say by asking one of the Harvard Negotiation Project's favorite questions, "How did you arrive at that figure?" and you'll destabilize what a moment before seemed an impenetrable fortress.

When your counterparts reveal the thinking that supports their pricing positions, they too will appreciate how arbitrary their rationales are. And in moments, they'll become amenable to finding other ways to satisfy their needs than defending their initial money positions.

So the theory goes, and it holds true, providing you can cajole them into disclosing pricing information.

When you cannot, simply implying or telling them, subtly or directly that they're out of line, dreamers, unrealistic, or nuts, will do the trick.

Because they know they are.

I like my car mechanic because on top of being a reasonably competent, pleasant chap, he provides me with enough negotiation episodes to fill several books.

Recently, we've gotten into a certain routine. He'll quote me a price on a part for my wagon, and I'll shop it online, and find it at about a quarter to one-half of his price.

His price on a replacement climate control unit for my dashboard was $500. I found it without much digging for $200, with a one-year warranty. His price on an air cleaner bracket, $100: My price, $26.

This announcement of a figure and my beating it, is getting old, and I'm waiting for him to simply give-up, to say, "This retails at $100 but I'll give it to you at my cost, plus 15%."

But he doesn't. With every part, he reverts to the default setting, never conceding that his margins are crazy.

So, what is the Best Practice In Negotiation that we can draw from the fact that most prices, fees, charges of any kind are exactly the same way?

As you enter every negotiation, keep this fact in mind. Let your verbal and nonverbal communications ooze cynicism. Display a wry sense of humor as your counterparts try to establish and defend their prices.

Practice asking, "How did you arrive at that?" and saying "Let's be realistic."

Instead of the typical, "Can you do any better than that?" try "How much better than that can you do?" and "You'll have to do a lot better than that!"

Don't worry about offending these people. If they're truly taking their own prices seriously, then that is crazy!

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