Anthony Jacks - Smart Skills: Negotiation

Smart Skills: Negotiation

Legend Business, 2 London Wall Buildings,
London EC2M 5UU
www.legendpress.co.uk

Contents Anthony Jacks 2011

The right of Anthony Jacks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

ISBN 978-19082480-4-6

eISBN 978-19082483-4-3

Set in Times

Printed by Lightning Source, Milton Keynes, UK

Cover designed by:
EA Digitial, Leicester
www.eadigital.com

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Foreword

Myriads of management handbooks in print purport to provide guidance on the key skills to success and business training manuals also abound. Generally, they suffer from one or both of two defects.

Sometimes, the scope of the book is too broad. Attempting to provide comprehensive advice on all the basic business activities, there is no clear message. Nobody can gain proficiency in every field of marketing and sales, administration, purchasing, bookkeeping and financial management in a short period of time, although those who start their own businesses do need to acquire a working knowledge of most. Other titles fail to distinguish between technical capability and personal skills.

However, there are a handful of personal and interpersonal skills that are essential ingredients for success in any business: the private or public sectors and the professions; large or small organisations; employees, business owners or management consultants. These are the subject matter of the Smart Skills series on which all readers can focus to advantage because mastery of them will surely enhance both job satisfaction and their careers.

All the skills that you have acquired in reading other titles in this series are deployed on the playing field of negotiation, whether for new or repeat business, in one deal situations or long-term projects, and in the easy-to-read format of this Anthony Jacks book, Negotiation. Securing the best deal available through the negotiation process is at the heart of all successful business and readers are lead through the preparation work, managing the tight corners during negotiations and the after-negotiation period when what has been agreed needs to be put into effect. From Anthonys practical and painstaking approach to the various steps in negotiation you will be able to acquire your personal skills set as a negotiator.

In the Smart Skills Series Anthony and his fellow authors bring together their know-how of core skills into a single compact series. Whatever your level of experience and the rung of your career ladder that you have reached, this book will help you to audit your personal effectiveness and raise your game when interacting with others.

Jonathan Reuvid

INTRODUCTION:

Getting the best deal

You dont get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate.

Anon

The saying quoted above strikes a good note on which to begin a review of the process of negotiation. Negotiation bargaining to put it simply is a vital skill, one used in very many different contexts in business and organisational life.

Negotiation is essentially the important process of making a deal and agreeing the arrangements on which it is arranged; as such it is a ubiquitous, indeed essential, business skill, and it is worth noting up front that it is both:

Good negotiators are in a strong position to make a good impression and a good deal.

A MEANS TO AN END

A great deal can be riding on the outcome of a negotiation. Success in negotiating can make money, save time or secure your future (and your reputation). To negotiate and do so successfully is to deploy a technique that can work positively for you in a host of different ways. The overall deal you strike may be vital, and individual elements of it can be significant, perhaps very significant. For example, without a little negotiation regarding the delivery date for the manuscript for this work, I could not have taken it on and would have missed the opportunity that writing it provides for me.

The uses of negotiation

Negotiation has a variety of applications. The following illustrates the range:

Negotiation often involves a financial element (though it may not) and can involve two people or groups of people and take place at every level of an organisational hierarchy. Finally, it may be momentary and minor if you can deputise for me at tomorrows meeting, I can give you a little longer on that deadline we spoke about but still needs getting right.

In all cases negotiation is the process of bargaining that arranges and agrees the basis on which agreement will be concluded the terms and conditions under which the deal will be struck. Consider a simple example. In the classic case of wage bargaining, the employer wants to reach an agreement (to secure the workforce and keep the business running) and the employees want an agreement (so that the process of negotiating is over and they can get on with earning at a new, improved, rate). This process of balance defines the process.

In selling, the first stage is to get agreement from the point of view of the seller to get what they want but beyond that, negotiation is what