First Steps in Negotiating
I’m all about breaking things down and making them easy.
So, here are the first two things you should do when starting any negotiation. No matter how big or small, every negotiation warrants these two steps!
1. First, define what matters most to YOU (ranked by priority). This list will be your guiding light throughout the negotiation and will keep you on track so you don’t accept a deal that doesn’t benefit you (like many of us do). We get so excited by the pure fact of finishing the deal, that we might forget to meet our most important needs. So, writing them down helps.
Let’s say I’m negotiating an offer for a new job – this first step might look like this:
My Priorities:
1. Money (Gotta pay those bills)
2. Flexible Working Schedule (like WFH options)
3. Benefits (Healthcare, etc..)
2. Second, define what matters most to THEM (ranked by priority). This might feel weird, but it’s such a crucial step because you need to understand what the other side wants in order to come up with a deal that meets their needs!
Using the similar example above – this second step might look like this:
Their (Hiring Manager’s) Priorities:
1. Secure Top Talent (someone to bring results to drive the bottom line)
2. Fit (this person must fit into the current team or work will be hard to get done)
3. Money (can’t pay way over market value for this person)
*Important disclaimer to this second step: what if you truly can’t create this list and lay out what matters most to them? Then ASK! Questions should be your best friends in negotiations whereas assumptions are not.
#RealTalk: To be brutally honest, I used to be the QUEEN of assuming I knew what the other party wanted. I would jump into a negotiation like some sort of wacky mind reader. And what do you know - to my (unfortunate) surprise I definitely could not read people’s minds; And man did it show as I presented deals that didn’t speak their language or meet their needs.
So, don’t do what I used to do and wrongfully assume. It’s very common for your first initial assumption to be ‘oh this person wants the lowest cost possible.’ That’s it. Nothing more. As you’ve seen in the example above, maybe your counterpart’s interests actually involve other things, too.
If you’ve completed these first two steps, you’re on the right track. You now can safely, and confidently say that you understand each players’ needs in the negotiation. Throughout the process, you’ll want to tie everything back to these to make the most sound deal for both of you.