Negotiation Skills

Who and why?

Life centres on negotiation - and not just in sales or procurement. Everyone negotiates every day of their lives. But how often do we achieve the best possible outcome? There are three essential elements – preparation, practice and reinforcement.

This course is aimed at developing managers, whatever their experience of negotiating, into skilled negotiators who can win in business. It is practical and therefore immediately useful.

Theory and models reinforce new skills in relationship building, creative strategies, critical negotiating techniques and behaviours. This can remove pressure and conflict and create impact in negotiation situations. 

Course overview

This highly practical course is designed for anyone who is involved with negotiations at any level and wishes to improve their skills. It will help delegates speed up the preparation process, recognise and deal with the tactics employed by others, and use powerful tools to influence and persuade others.

The basic elements of negotiation are covered, including establishing trust, spending time on preparation for the negotiation, being clear on outcomes, including ideal, realistic and fall back stances. In addition delegates will cover the impact of personalities and the power play which is part of any negotiation.

The purpose of the course is ultimately to empower delegates to achieve a win/win in all their negotiations.

Key learning points

By the end of the course delegates will be able to:

• Develop trust and build better relationships to enhance negotiations
• Recognise the negotiation tactics of others
• Plan strategies for preparing and conducting negotiations
• Assert themselves more powerfully
• Apply the “perceptual shift” technique to find common ground
• Value concessions and know when to walk away
• Consider the options and select suitable outcomes
• Move negotiations forward from deadlocks
• Use knowledge to acquire an advantage in negotiations
• Get better deals by removing mental constraints
• End any negotiation with clearly agreed next steps