3 Tips to Make You a Better Negotiator

Are you an experienced negotiator? If you answered no, do you have a spouse, partner, child, family? Is so whether you know it or not you’re a negotiator. In fact, anyone who goes out into the world and interacts with other humans does a large amount of negotiating. It’s the conversation you have with your partner or spouse on which house to buy or the discussion you have as a family on whether or not to take that new job. And it’s not just the big things, it’s the back and forth with your friends when you’re deciding which movie to see or the inevitable “what shall we have for dinner” conversation that takes place in a million homes each evening.

Have you ever wanted to be better at negotiating? Well you can with these 3 simple tips! Implement just one of these and I guarantee you’ll come to agreement faster and leave everyone feeling a little better about the experience.

Tip #1 – Shut up (and listen)

When we’re nervous, our default is to talk. We need to learn to suppress that impulse. This is easier said than done for most people but the good news is that this holds true for both sides. The person you’re negotiating with also wants to talk and you want to get them talking! The more they talk, the more you learn about what they feel and need and the better able you are to negotiate with them effectively. So ask open ended questions and embrace those awkward silences to encourage others to talk more!

The other thing to do is listen to understand, not to reply. This is the first rule and possibly hardest part of active listening. Most often while people are talking, we’re thinking about what we want to say when they stop. This effectively stops us from fully hearing what they’re saying. We do this because we equate quick with smart. We feel like the quicker we respond, the smarter we appear. In reality if we fully listen and then pause to form our response, the other person will appreciate that we’re taking the time to form a thoughtful and relevant response.

Tip #2 – Avoid winning (at the expense of your opponent)

Anyone can win a battle but do you really want too? Have you ever been the victim of a hard sell. You know the ones where the salesperson pounds and pounds away at you until you finally give in and buy whatever service or product they’re selling. How do you feel? Will you ever go back to that person for future needs? They’ve won the battle but lost the war and whether it’s business or personal, burning the bridge is almost never worth it. The best outcomes are WIN/WIN, not WIN/LOSE or even WIN/win. What I mean by WIN/win is those times when one party got most of what they wanted and the other party got much less of what they wanted. The second party, even though they did get some things, will likely consider it a WIN/LOSE outcome and another bridge will be burned or at least singed.

Tip #3 – It’s not business (it’s just personal)

We’ve all heard the expression, “It’s not personal, it’s just business”. It’s usually something uttered by the person on the winning end of a situation and it’s simply not true. The reason it’s not true is that we don’t deal with or negotiate with businesses, we deal with people. And people are personal. EVERYONE acts based on emotion and EVERYONE has an agenda (some are just better at hiding it). It’s important to recognize that people are emotionally messy, it’s what makes them people and it’s what makes people amazing. You need to work with these emotions when negotiating. What makes them happy/sad/envious/content/angry/etc? Until you understand what makes them tick, you’ll be semi effective at best in getting to a mutually agreeable end endpoint in your negotiations.

So the next time you’re in a negotiation, and I guarantee you will be in the next 24 hours, try these out and you’ll be on your way to being a better negotiator!