Chapter 55 Prepare details before negotiating

Negotiations always make participants feel very nervous. This may be because the outcome of the negotiation directly has a lot to do with their own goals, or more directly, with their own interests-those who negotiate for their own companies or countries. The same goes for people.The success of the negotiation has a lot to do with the performance of the negotiator, so the negotiation is always full of suspense.It is this suspense that gives great negotiators the opportunity to display their talents and intelligence. Negotiations are generally divided into several stages: preparation stage, negotiation stage, proposal stage and decision-making stage.These stages are undoubtedly very important.However, the preparatory stage before the formal negotiation is not only an important stage that affects the following stages, but also a stage that negotiators can fully grasp.Although it cannot be said that the preparations in the days or even months before the negotiation can completely determine the success of the negotiation, one thing is certain: Generally speaking, it is difficult to obtain favorable negotiations if you start the negotiation without preparation. Consequences - this is also demonstrated in some of the following notes on detailed preparation prior to negotiation.

There are two ways of understanding pre-negotiation preparation.I am more inclined to such an understanding that all the time before the negotiation is counted as the preparation stage.In such a preparatory stage, we need to consider the details from the following aspects. As I said earlier, the success of negotiations depends largely on the ability and quality of the negotiators.Negotiation, as an art of speaking and persuasion, has high requirements on the negotiator's expressive ability, judgment ability, adaptability and knowledge.Negotiation is a combination of immediacy and sharpness. Only those negotiators with high quality and ability can handle negotiations well.

The negotiator's expressive ability is of course very important.Generally speaking, the negotiating parties must reach an agreement within a relatively short period of time; and, if there are too many negotiators, then everyone must not have much time to express their opinions, which requires negotiators to put themselves in a limited time. The point of view is expressed concisely and powerfully. In order to achieve the negotiating goals, any remarks made by the negotiators should be conducive to the achievement of their own goals.In addition, negotiations need to encourage and impress the opponent, so the words are required to have a strong appeal.All of these require the negotiator to have a very good art of speaking.

The negotiator's judgment ability is very important.Combining the information you get about the opponent, judge which ones are useful and important, which ones are of no reference value and secondary, and judge the opponent's strength, requirements and possible negotiation methods from this information, etc. These all require you to have a high judgment ability.In the process of negotiation, it is necessary to make an overall judgment on the negotiation situation through the opponent's performance and words, and then adopt targeted countermeasures.It is necessary to provide the most appropriate alternatives based on one's own goals, those of the other party, and the common interests of both parties, and reach a final negotiation agreement.These are closely related to the negotiator's judgment.

Resilience is also important for negotiators.Response capacity is another ability based on the negotiator's judgment ability, which enables the negotiator to draw certain contingency measures based on his own judgment.At different stages of the negotiation, negotiators need to take different contingency measures to make the negotiation develop towards their own goals.In response to the different reactions of the other party, adjust the contingency measures in a timely manner, and even adjust your own negotiation "bottom line" in a timely manner.All of these require negotiators to have a fairly strong resilience.

In addition to the above abilities, knowledge and experience are also very important for negotiators.Unfortunately, some negotiators assume that they can negotiate successfully simply by being prepared in the days or even hours before the negotiation.This kind of thinking is too naive.From a certain point of view, even if they are not well prepared before the negotiation, those negotiators with strong comprehensive ability can negotiate with their opponents with ease, because this ability is more basic and more important. Therefore, negotiators should strive to improve their various abilities.Maybe this is not a good suggestion for you, because the negotiation is about to start, and it is too late to make such preparations.Then you can only perform as well as possible based on your existing abilities, but I cannot guarantee that you will be successful.Of course, if you plan to choose a negotiator to negotiate with others, someone with these abilities is the most suitable candidate.

It is also important for negotiators to learn as much as possible about their opponents through detailed research before negotiating.Knowing yourself as well as others can help you make negotiations successful. Understanding the situation of the other party will help you to make full mental preparations and study countermeasures in advance, so that you can take the initiative in the upcoming negotiations.If it is a commercial negotiation, the information you need to know includes the other party's company's performance, operating conditions, funds, etc., as well as some basic information about the other party's negotiator, such as relevant experience and personality characteristics.You can use the information you know to judge the countermeasures the other party may take and the bottom line that may be set.Of course, these things need to be amended or supplemented in the following negotiations.

Some negotiators see no need for such a hassle.They believe that what they lack in knowing nothing about their opponents, they can make up for by probing and getting to know each other.The disadvantages of doing so are obvious, not only in limited time and limited opportunities, but more importantly, your temptations may have adverse effects on you.It is obviously more appropriate if you can get to know the other party before the negotiation begins.Of course, in the process of negotiating, you do need to get to know each other better. In fact, for a negotiation, what you have to do is two things: establish your own goals and achieve your own established goals.Goal setting is a very complicated thing, because there are so many things to consider, and the goal is not necessarily fixed.

The best way to do this is to set your limits.The actual result will only float between your bottom line and the opponent's bottom line, so you should set your goal between these two bottom lines.All that's left is to keep moving your target toward the opponent's baseline. In order to achieve your goals more effectively in negotiations, you need to break down your goals.In most negotiations, the overall goal is not achieved at one time, but through decomposing goals one by one.These decomposed goals will be more actionable. No matter how big the company is or how high-status the other party is, or how important it is to you to cooperate with them, don't have an attitude and mentality that are not conducive to negotiation.The other party can sit at the negotiating table and negotiate with you, definitely because you have common interests, and you can give him certain benefits.This shows that, in effect, you are on equal footing and you are negotiating a solution to the problem.Therefore, you don't have to be trembling and let the other person feel that you are begging him.

And if the opposite is true—you think you have a higher status than the other party or the company is bigger than the other party, they are asking for something from you, which is also not good for you.The other party may refuse to negotiate with you amicably because of your arrogance, and if so, you must be the one who suffers the loss.The principle is the same as above. The attitude of being neither humble nor overbearing is what negotiators should have.This mentality can enable you to maximize the success of the negotiation and achieve your goals.