How to Negotiate Effectively (Creating Success)

There may well be occasional, or more frequent, times when the negotiation requires more than one person on your team. It may be superiors. It may be technical experts. Whoever is involved there must be clear ground rules:

• You are responsible.

• That means you have the authority on the day. Your MD or manager must make that clear and be there in a supporting role.

• Other team members know that they defer to you. You have set clear parameters of what they can and cannot say, and when they can say it.

• They know that they only contribute when drawn in by you.

• You summarise at every stage of agreement.

• You agree the final deal - after which they shut up!

If you are wise, you will have rehearsed the possible outcomes with your team. Let them know where their danger points occur. Your counterpart should not have more people than you, nor should they have experts present in fields that you do not.