Читать книгу The Negotiation Book - Gates Steve, Steve Gates - Страница 9

Everyone likes to secure a bargain; to buy something at a better price than was available before. You only have to visit department stores on December 27 to witness the effect that securing a bargain can have on people’s behavior. Such can be the frenzy that it is not unknown for violence to be used where one person feels another has pushed ahead of them in the queue. Many people just can’t help themselves when there’s a good bargain to be had. In extreme cases people will buy things they don’t want or even need if the price is right.

In business, though, what is the right price? The answer depends on a whole range of other issues, which, of course, need to be negotiated. So how do you manage the other party’s need for satisfaction? That is, their natural need to feel as though they got a better deal than was originally available.

• Do you start out with an extreme opening on price?

• Do you introduce conditions that you are ready to concede on?

• Do you build in red herrings (issues that are not real, that you can easily, and you expect to, concede)?

The psychological challenge here is to provide the other party with the satisfaction of having achieved, through hard work, a great deal for themselves. In other words letting them “win,” or letting them have your way.

Negotiating versus selling

It is a commonly held view that a good “sale” will close itself and that negotiation follows only when outstanding differences remain. However, negotiation as a skill and as a process is fundamentally different from selling. To sell is to promote the positives, the match, to align the solution to the need. It requires explanation, justification, and a rational case. “The gift of the gab” is associated with the salesman who has an enthusiastic answer for everything. Negotiation does not. Although relationships can be important, as is the climate for cooperation (without which you have no discussion), the behavior of the Complete Skilled Negotiator also involves silence, where appropriate. That means listening to everything the other party is saying, understanding everything they are not saying, and working out their true position.

silence

Silence offers you the time to think and contemplate before responding. It allows you to listen to the other party to really understand. It requires discipline and concentration. The unnerving consequence of silence is that the other party continues to talk and ultimately make unplanned concessions. At the very least they often provide you with more information than they intended.

Negotiation involves planning, questioning, listening, and making proposals, but it also requires you to recognize when the selling has effectively concluded and the negotiation has begun. If you find yourself selling the benefits of your proposals during a negotiation, you are demonstrating a weakness and probably giving away power. It suggests that you don’t feel that your proposals are strong enough and that they require further promoting. The more you talk, the more you are likely to make a concession.

So, recognizing when the change from selling to negotiating has taken place is critical. You are now negotiating. It is simple enough to shut up, listen, and think, whilst exercising patience. If this silence feels uncomfortable, it is; because you are now negotiating.