Science and Art of Negotiating Training Course for Buyers and Business Owners

 The course is divided onto five sections: 

• The Science and art of Negotiation
  • The Heart of Negotiation
  • Negotition Planning and Preparation
• The Art of Negotiation
  • Communication Skills
  • Tactics - Selecting, Exploiting, and Countering
  • Body Language

Please review the entire course curriculum below. To sign up for the course please send your request and specify your requirements for the number of participants. We will get back to you with specific offer.

The Heart of Negotiation

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

•  How to identify and quantify the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
•  Developing TCO = the costs of Quality + Service + Delivery + Price (Price ≠ Cost)
•  How to calculate the Best Value (lowest TCO)

Spot Exercise “Rank QSDP” 

Establishing Cost criteria and rankings for procurement – a mini Negotiation Plan

Price Analysis

•  How and why are prices established?
•  Pricing strategies – huh?
•  The relationship amongst Price, Cost, and Value

Cost Analysis –The most essential tool for buyers

•  How and why buyers identify and eliminate unnecessary costs
•  Cost reduction and profitability
•  Quantifying a basis for negotiation
•  Avoiding Robinson-Patman problems

Spot Exercise “The ‘Ol Restock Fee Play” 

How to handle this supplier’s question using Price and Cost Analysis and TCO  

Supplier Evaluation as a negotiation tool

•  Evaluating supplier performance
•  What data do we collect and analyze
•  How and why does it save money to reduce the supplier base
•  Investing in supplier development?

Formal Exercise “The Gaylord Principle “ How to create a simple, workplace-friendly model to measure and evaluate supplier performance and apply it as a negotiation too

Negotiation Planning and Preparation

Writing an Effective Negotiation Plan

•  How to prioritize issues on the basis of costs
•  How to align our Negotiation plan with our Purchasing strategy
•  What to include in the Negotiation Plan

 Capitalizing on the Importance of High Initial Demands (HID)

•  Why HID is necessary
•  Won’t unrealistic HID turn off the other side?
•  How HID trains the buyer
•  What to do when they counter my HID with theirs?

Deploying Concession Behavior 

•  How and do I make a concession
•  How to build in concessions and make the other side want them
•  The proper way to offer the size and direction of concessions 
•  How to estimate the other side’s concessions

Spot Exercise “Where do I have to be?” How to handle this supplier’s question using Price and Cost Analysis and TCO  

Negotiation Strategies

•  How to define: Win-Win, Win-Lose, Lose-Win, Lose-Lose?
•  How can buyer and seller both win?
•  When is Lose-Win better?
•  How and where strategies apply in the construction world
•  What is Best Value and how do I know who gets it and how?
•  Selecting a strategy based on importance of Issues and Relationships of the parties

Formal Exercise “The Negotiation Template” How to use this simple tool to capture all you’ll need to plan for a successful negotiation outcome

The Art of Negotiation

Communication Skills

Communication (the stage upon which the Negotiation play unfolds)

 Skillful questioning techniques

• Closed ended questions for precision
• Open ended questions for probe 

 Listening Skills

• Mirroring/Modeling/Matching
• 4 problems with listening

 Speaking Skills

• Connotation and denotation
• How to improve (do not emulate politicians)

 Verbal language clues to seize upon, Listening or Speaking

 How to negotiate effectively on the telephone

Spot Exercise “The One Word Story Game” An ear opening exercise in improving listening and communication skills

 Dealing with Personality Types

•  How to recognize and neutralize personality types
•  Secrets to Communicating in their personality style
•  The Golden Rule How to communicate in the personality type of the other side (Quand en la France, il faut parler francais!)
• “Are you talking to me?”
•  Tell tales words to listen for and avoid
•  Separating stated positions and motivations
•   “I” versus “you” statements and reflective response
•  How to negotiate effectively on the telephone

Tactics Selecting, Exploiting, and Countering

We will demonstrate dozens of Negotiation tactics and how to effectively counter them.  Tactics constitutes only about 10% of a professional negotiator’s arsenal.  Mastery is essential, however, and we will learn about many.

•  Dozens of tactics and how to effectively counter them  
•  The Amateur Negotiator’s Top 20 Boners   
•  The ‘No” statement, the ‘Huh” statement? “You” versus “I” statements…
•  Handouts of Tactics we don’t get to cover
•  How, when and why to use or not use all of these and much more  

Body Language What’s a body to say?

Body Language intrigues us. We usually focus on the signals of others, disregarding the messages we transmit to them.  Is more than half the meaning really transmitted non-verbally? 

•  The four C’s of Body Language
•  Interpreting gestures and their meanings
•  How can I “neutralize” my gestures?
•  How do I know if that’s what he/I really meant?

Spot Exercise “And now a word from our live studio audience” Participate in transmitting a simple message and have the audience determine the meaning.  Winner gets a free home version of our game!

Request your free quote

back to buyer training services