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Sticky Learning Lunches #33: Learn How to Effectively Prepare for a Negotiation – Step 2
Use this 3-Step Template to Effectively Prepare for a Negotiation.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me, Nathan Simmons. We are just gonna give it 30 seconds to get the final people in the room. Couple more people arriving. Great to see you. Yes, this is Friday. Yes, this is slightly more casual than my white shirt. Look Monday to Thursday. Who we got? Ryan, good to see you. Colin, thank you for being here again. Very appreciated. Darren, good to see you, Faby and Gina, amazing.
Nathan Simmonds:
Thank you for being here. Howard, June, Karen, Tim, Tracy, Victoria. Thank you very much. Camouflage not against the white wall. You know, I’m, I’m sure camouflage means I disappear into the background, not stand out from it. . So look, we’re getting into day two of negotiation skills. Really grateful for everyone being here on this Friday for 30 minutes of their lunchtime with me.
Nathan Simmonds:
So what, maybe in the future, when all this is over, we actually have a face-to-face lunch, and we all get together and we do a lunch and learn somewhere, somewhere central, and we do this and we actually have something to eat afterwards. I think that would be a great idea. You have made it fun and interesting. Made it a fun and interesting look. There you are. Very welcome. Very, very welcome. Let’s get into this. Agreed. Sounds good to me.
Nathan Simmonds:
Okay, we’ve got some, we’ve got some positive votes for a lunch and learn somewhere. It could just, well be the back of Costa at King’s Chaing cross train station. But we can get together and actually say hello and shake hands. That would be amazing. Let’s get into this. Set up the day. Let’s set up this session. Mobile phones, let’s do this. Airplane mode.
Nathan Simmonds:
Zero out the distraction, a hundred percent attention fresh pad on your, on fresh note, no fresh page on your notepad. Get keepers at the top. These are the things that you want to remember, remind yourself about and come back to and reignite to, to kind of get the thinking going and put new ideas into flow and into flight. That way when you go back, you’ll remember things that were said, ideas that were shared, and you’ll come up with new ideas as well as those two things. Converge, drink, hydrated. It’s getting warmer out there. So let’s make sure you’ve got a drink and you can keep that attention flowing on this fine Friday.
Nathan Simmonds:
And let’s do this. So welcome to Sticky Learning lunches with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home Sticky learning, and we are the leadership development and soft skills provided to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Idea of these lunchtime learnings is to help you be the best, best version of you in the work you do. Whether it’s at home right now, or whether that’s helping you to return back to the work to the, to the work environment.
Nathan Simmonds:
Doesn’t matter here to help, here to maximize the thinking and maximize your capabilities to go and deliver an even better result. Negotiation day two, starting to get into some of the technicalities of what we do, it’s gonna come off the screen share for a little bit. Quick recap on yesterday. Number one, what did we cover yesterday? Mindset. The key elements of negotiation in anything that we’re doing, whether it’s sales negotiation, one-to-ones personal development.
Nathan Simmonds:
Any conversation that we need to be having, there needs to be an element of preparation. Why? Because we, we feel under prepared, we feel underqualified. And as a result of that, it puts us under stress. Mindset is always the thing that’s gonna gonna support us. Everything is preceded by a thought. Everything happens because of what we think. It’s then our emotions that follow that thinking then, then causes some of the problems. So what we covered yesterday,
Nathan Simmonds:
Very high level. First thing is positioning about how you position yourself. One analogy that came to mind as I was writing some more in-depth information about this, this, this morning. You know, often when we go to war, we have to get a position, we have to hold a position and we have to defend a position. Does it mean that every conversation we’re going into, we’re already thinking it’s gonna be a war or a battle?
Nathan Simmonds:
Actually with this this in mind, maybe we need to relax and stop positioning ourselves. Stop defending and stop fighting. The second thing we covered was important. Lower the stress, lower the pressure, take the importance off it. If you’re looking for a new client or a new contract, let’s be frank, you didn’t have it in the first place, therefore you are not losing it. Reduce the importance. Take the stress outta it.
Nathan Simmonds:
It doesn’t mean that you have to be or sorry, in instead of doing this, you can still be confident in what you are delivering and still be focused in what you are bringing to that conversation. Again, think about what you are contributing and the growth that you’re creating, the impact as a result of you being there, rather than what you think you’re gonna get or not get. Reduce the importance. The second thing you’ve gotta do in here, or sorry, the third thing in here, because it’s gonna break into two parts, is listening.
Nathan Simmonds:
When we take ourselves out of the position, we lower, lower the importance. We can then start to listen to actually, actually what’s going on for the other person. How are they positioning themselves? What pressure are they putting themselves under? What’s the reason? Who, who do you feel is putting the pressure on them? Actually, we can start to get a bit curious. We can start to get some ideas about actually what’s important to them.
Nathan Simmonds:
And then the third, sorry, the final part for this is then thinking about our language. What words we’re gonna use, how we’re gonna approach it, showing appreciation, finding merit in what people are saying and finding the value in what they’re saying. So actually we’re gonna have a, a, a, a, a mutually beneficial conversation rather than give take or, or going in for the kill. So these are the first things. It is the mindset. Everything starts with mindset. But then we want to get into a little bit of the technicalities of what we’re doing here. We wanna, you know, have a structure to the conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And this what we’re gonna provide you with is what we call the square dance. So the, we’re gonna provide you with the link in a minute to the article, which is good, Tracy, glad you’re back in. We’re gonna provide you with the link to the article, which gives you the downloadable template of the square dance. We’ll drop that into the into the chat box in just a moment. What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna, I shared it briefly yesterday. I’m gonna share it with you now so you can see this immediately. So you have the key elements here.
Nathan Simmonds:
So this one sheet provides you with an opportunity just before you go into any conversation, any negotiation, lemme clarify any kind of business professional negotiation. Now, if you’re negotiating with a 7-year-old daughter, like I have to about bedtime, writing one of these sheets before may not be the, the, the appropriate thing, but maybe actually as I’m saying that, that might actually be a beneficial thing. Maybe I should do this at lunchtime just to work out what might happen this evening and work out what I would like to achieve.
Nathan Simmonds:
What my walkaways from and what I can, you know, what I’m willing to trade with my daughter to support her. Going to bed on time, links there now for the ultimate guide. And then there is the, the the square dance template as well. So the first part we wanna talk about, you’ve got wish and walk, and then you’ve got give and take. And then you’ve also got your tools and tactics. So in this, the first part we’re gonna cover is your wish and walks. What is your wishes? Your wish is the things that you want to take away.
Nathan Simmonds:
It is what you wanna achieve from the conversation. Now what are you wishing now what is the desired outcome of this conversation? And as Steven CO’s co co says in habits of Highly Effective People is, you know, begin with the end in mind. You want to know where you are going. I said this in goal setting. I’ve said it in the pd p planning previously in those, in those tutorials before. You need to know where you are going. And it’s like sat nav. Unless you know where you are and where you want to get to, you know, you are never ever gonna get kind of the, the right route and the right path to make that happen. So your wish is the first part. The bit that you need to be really clear of. The first part
Nathan Simmonds:
Is you make your wishes smart. And we’ve talked about that. You need to be looking for your smart objectives. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, relevant, results focused and time bound. So you need to be clear, you know, is do you want, you know, you are selling produce or you’re selling, you know, a product and you want six pound 80 for a per crate and you want to sell a hundred of those crates. And you need to be clear your wishes that I wish to sell 100 crates and they need to be at six pound 80.
Nathan Simmonds:
The moment you kind of make it unspecific and unmeasurable, I wanna sell some crates. Well, maybe you only sell two and maybe you only get them for four pound. So we need to be really clear on what we’re doing. The other part we need to think about in this, and I’ve said this around goal setting, we talk about this in in the negotiation preparation, is make your goals credibly stretched.
Nathan Simmonds:
Not incredibly stretched, credibly stretched. Now if you are attempting to sell a full focus and it’s a year old, two years old, old and you want, you know, 10,000 pound for it, do you put it in auto trader for 10,000 pound or do you put it in there for ten nine, nine nine just to make sure you’ve got some bargaining space. So we make it reasonable and credible. Why? Because if you put it in there and it’s year two years old and you put it in a 24 and half thousand and it’s a full focus, you’re not gonna get much interest because it’s not credible.
Nathan Simmonds:
And we do the same things with our own sales targets. We just wanna give them a little bit more room so that actually we’ve got some room to play with. So that if we miss the sales target, we’re still head in the head and shoulders above or we, sorry if we miss the target that we set, we’re still head and shoulders above the expectation of the rest of the business. So we give ourselves a little bit of a stretch to play with in here. Make your objectives smart and put ’em in your wishlist. The other thing that we need to talk about and actually include is something we got from Jeff Birch a few weeks ago.
Nathan Simmonds:
Plan A, plan B. So what do we mean by this? You have your wishlist, you have your smart objectives, you want to go in and you want to get this, and I’m gonna speak to Bob, who’s the head of sales, procurement, whatever it is, and he’s gonna gimme this fantastic. And you go in and Bob’s not there and all your preparation gone out the window. Oh, I’m not gonna get what I set out to get from this conversation. And who are you speaking to? You are speaking to Enid the cleaner.
Nathan Simmonds:
Oh right. So plan A rapidly went out the window because we’re not speaking to the head of of sales or resourcing, resourcing or whatever. And now we’ve gotta switch to plan B. And I’m speaking to Enid. Enid, okay, what do I want to get out of this? How do we quickly switch to the person we’re speaking to to help us get what we actually need that’s gonna help us make the next movement when we go back and speak to Bob.
Nathan Simmonds:
And if you saw the, the four, the cunning four day sales plan, you’ll see that mentioned in here. Okay, actually, if I’m speaking to this person, what is now my objective? What do I want to get from this conversation? Well, maybe that lady can introduce me to the head of cleaning and the head of facilities which actually require this product, which means I can have a different conversation about a different service that we provide. Okay, now I’m winning. Now I’m flexing.
Nathan Simmonds:
As I’ve said before, you know, if you’re in the uk, when you get to the roundabout, you come off the motorway, you hit the roundabout and you want to turn right, do you actually turn right open? Questions for all of you. If you’re in the UK and you’re on a, you know, kind of hitting that roundabout off the motorway and you want to turn right, do you turn right? Yes or no? No good.
Nathan Simmonds:
What happens exactly? You keep left. What happens if you do turn right serious RTA major problem and you lose your license in a nutshell. So sometimes when we understand when we’re going on the river of negotiation, the river of life, sometimes we have to turn left in order to go right? But maybe that conversation with that individual, you know, is the support mechanism to make the future conversation even more robust, even stronger. But if you think it’s gonna be a problem or you, you’ve missed out because of your preparation is lacking in flexibility, you’re gonna undermine the whole of your process and the whole of your outcomes. Super important. We understand this. The other thing is rule of three,
Nathan Simmonds:
We use this a lot. Toastmasters, when we’re speaking, we use it when we’re coaching, you know, what’s the best three outcomes we want to get? You know, it’s, and we use it in interior design actually there are measurements of threes and thirds and it’s the same with our wishlist. How, you know, how many wishes, you know, what do you want to get out of it? How many do you want? Three no more, no less going for three ideally because then it gives you a bit of flex and a bit of room to play with. You’re not overly confusing yourself.
Nathan Simmonds:
If you go in there with 27 outcomes that you would like, you are more than likely gonna get confuse yourself. You’ll confuse the person you’re speaking to. And as the same goes confuse people. Don’t buy. Simple as that Three items. Have some flex, have a plan A and a plan B. And make those wishes smart. Number three, your walks, your walk aways. What is it that actually you won’t have? What is it or where is it? Is actually you switch off and you disengage. How far are you willing to go or to, to flex in order to get what you want?
Nathan Simmonds:
Howard, I can absolutely do that for you. Take it off the screen share. I’ve kept the template up there just so you could see it. The walkaways are the things that you are not willing to compromise on. How low is that price gonna go? If you want six pound 80 per crate, what’s the worst terms and conditions that you will settle for at the lowest point? What’s acceptable still to you? You whatever. It’s six pound 80 per crate and your lowest one is six pound 10. Okay, any lower than that then okay, we have to have a an appropriate exit to the conversation. We have to stop what’s going on because actually we’re not getting where we need to be.
Nathan Simmonds:
What we being mindful of when we’re doing this is, is coming back to this mindset here. How we then disengage, how we pull away from that Now if we’re stuck in our position and our importance, you know, and we’re stuck in it and it’s open question for all of you. If we’re stuck in here defending our position and, and trying to shoot the enemy or being that shark on the kill ’cause it’s so important and we become needy and greedy about it and actually our walkaway, they’ve gone beyond that. What happens to the conversation when we need to disengage? How do you think that ends?
Nathan Simmonds:
Let me know, let me know what your thoughts on how you think that conversation ends when our mindset is in all of those wrong places, badly in one word. Oh, you haven’t got a few bad leads coming in. Dissatisfied. Absolutely. So when we get stuck in this mindset and that starts to happen, this is when we start to sweat, it’s when we start to get agitated, the brain starts to shut down. We flip into the kind of the primordial parts of the brain. Fight, flight, flock, or freeze kicks in our language. Use starts to diminish as the neocortex starts to shut down and our words become shorter and go to one syllable.
Nathan Simmonds:
And when we leave that room, we will not leave any space to have a future conversation. ’cause We’ll get into the fa place of, you know, fists banging on desks and red faces and embarrassment and frustration as we exit that. But if we’re staying in this place and we’re listening and we’re using our language, actually when we get to these points, we can then have a reasonable conversation and say, okay, this is, this is where we need to be. I can appreciate where you are and I can find merit and, and under and and value and appreciation in those elements. This is where we are. This is the lowest point that we’re able to go beyond that we’re not able to go any further. And I’m happy to stop the conversation there if that’s the case.
Nathan Simmonds:
Keen to make sure this is only the first parts of the template and we’re gonna talk about tradables tomorrow not Saturday. Talk about Tradables on Monday and we’ll dive in a bit further than that. But we need to make sure that when we’re getting to this place, that we’re in the right mindset when we get there. And if it’s not appropriate for you to have a relationship with that individual or for it to go, that’s also okay when we’re understanding and we have this listening here and we’ve worked out these elements here and we’ve got to this, we need to make sure that it’s mutually beneficial.
Nathan Simmonds:
Whatever the outcome is, it’s got to be and it’s gotta be viable for both of you. Why? ’cause when we get into the gives and takes and, and if we don’t have this walkaway point, if we go beyond the point that is profitable, you know, we might make a decision that can actually shut our business down because now we’re you know, what we’re actually selling the product for is actually causing us to be at a minus number that’s not financially viable. But you thought you couldn’t, you couldn’t get out of it because of the mindset.
Nathan Simmonds:
When we are in this right place, when you set these boundaries here, you’ll always be on a win-win. Now, as long as it’s reasonable and it is credible in here because at any point if it is a win-lose or even a lose lose, how are you gonna feel after you’ve actually closed the deal? How will you feel if at any point you haven’t set your boundaries here and here and the person isn’t getting what they want or you are not getting what you want, how do you think you feel after you close the deal?
Nathan Simmonds:
Lemme know what emotions come up for you when you’re thinking about this from previous experience. How do you feel self-critical being done over good. We end up with buyer’s remorse or even seller’s remorse at this point. And and is that the basis of a good relationship ship? Definitely not. I was thinking about this again, as you know, talking about kind of this sharky sort of behavior you have here going in for the kill. And if, if I’m a shark going in for the kill, you must be a dying fish.
Nathan Simmonds:
And I was thinking about, well actually was the program dragons Den or great, what sort of analogies is, is, is or images is it creating? And in America it’s called the Shark Tank. Brilliant. So you’re going into this place with these 10, these, these ideas that create tensions for these negotiations. But the only reason it’s called the Shark Tank is because calling it the show about mutually beneficial conversations that are gonna help businesses thrive, just won’t get the ratings.
Nathan Simmonds:
Set your boundaries. Understand how you’re gonna create that mutually beneficial dynamic so everybody wins. And if it’s not gonna go on it, understand where you are gonna step away and go, do you know what? Thanks very much for your time, really appreciate this today. What I know, what I’m guessing is this, we’re prepared to go to this and that’s what it looks like. How would you like to proceed? And that is okay. Hope this has been useful.
Nathan Simmonds:
We are, I’m just looking over that we are on time. What have you taken away from today’s session that is gonna help you to have a stronger negotiation and help you get your children to bed on time and maybe actually close some business deals or, or you know, get some stronger relationships at work, setting boundaries. Amazing. Good. What else has been useful from today for you all?
Nathan Simmonds:
Rule of three. Good. It works fantastically in so many places. Vic, as always, the structural approach, yes. Credible stretch, absolutely. If you go too far, you’re just gonna, you know, you cause yourself too much tension. Walk away points, absolutely know your boundaries, set them and work with them. Setting boundaries and, and to lessen the stress before you start. Absolutely plan to walk away and advance if you need to. And, and walking away is absolutely the right thing to do at right times. We’ve all done it. Who here has stayed in a relationship when they were younger? Too long, yes or no? Who here has stayed in a relationship that they knew just wasn’t healthy or beneficial for too long?
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes, yes, yes. Never really. Yes, we’ve, we’ve all done it and it’s the same in business as well now. It, we’re in relationship with everybody all of the time. But what we know is that if at some point there isn’t that boundary, at some point if it’s not feeling right and we continue to flock that dead horse, we’re just gonna cause ourselves problem. A, it’s embarrassing for us. And b it’s just, you know, it just creates tension every time you want to have that conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And when you look at the word stalemates, I haven’t looked at the actual know, the, the entomology of it, of it, the word stale mate. But in short, if you’re broke into it, stalemates, you know, like stale friends, stale relationship. So you have to set your boundaries and know when you’re gonna walk away ’cause it’s just not healthy anymore.
Nathan Simmonds:
Like I sat now, if you need to know where you are heading, absolutely Tracy, good three wishes. Plan A, plan B, good, plan A, plan B. People say, oh there shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t have a second plan. You know, plan B, you burn the boats, all of that stuff. You ask a parachutist to jump out of an airplane without their emergency shoot and see what response you get. This is useful just as we’re gonna get questions. So questions.
Nathan Simmonds:
What questions have you got for me for today that are gonna help you to strengthen your, your negotiations and your communications and your relationships? What questions have you got for me right now? While we are doing that, we’re gonna drop the link into the chat. The chat box for Monday session, if you have not registered for tomorrow now is, I keep saying tomorrow, if you have not registered for Monday, now is the time to do it. How does the buyer’s preparation differ to this?
Nathan Simmonds:
It doesn’t. Now we both have wants and needs in this and your wish might be to get six pound 80. Their wish might be to get it for six pound 40. This is being mindful of this and some of those things also comes into now what your wish might be, six pound 40. And actually their wish is to get it for six pound 80. Darren’s finding a suggestion here as well, which is great. So let should do the square dance for the buyer to see what they see. Great suggestion. Put yourself in the shoes of the other person.
Nathan Simmonds:
Coaching tool called perceptual positioning, which is phenomenally powerful, is put yourself in their shoes. What’s in it for them Now what can I see? Know? Do you know the relationship that the buyer has with their manager? Do you understand what’s going on for them as a business? What their concerns as an individual are at individual are? How well do you know that person? Very often if we are selling and we’ve got relationships with other organizations, those relationships will go on over a course of time.
Nathan Simmonds:
So it’s absolutely vital that empathy is key. Completely Patrick. It is vital that you build relationships with these people. You know, these people’s first names. One technique that I know as a coach and as a seller and all these things is find out what’s important to the people that are important to them. So what you do is you start going one layer back. So if you know that someone’s someone’s passion and someone’s hobby is staffers of bought terriers, okay, great. Maybe when you’re having a conversation with ’em, you find out how the dogs are. I’ve and one of my clients is in that space as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
And the idea is, you know, at Christmas time I send them something for the dogs, not for them. Why? Because they care about their dogs more than they care about themselves. So you’re starting to plug in these things, get to know the individual, then go back and fill the preparation sheet in as if you are them, as if you are that company rather than the one you are in.
Nathan Simmonds:
To start, give yourself a little bit of dynamic and a little bit of understanding and having it there on paper is then easy to when you step out of their shoes back and you wanna look at it, ah, this is what Brian needs, this is what Colleen wants, blah blah blah, blah, whatever it is. Okay, great. Fantastic. Great question. Thank you very much for that Howard. What other questions have you got for me right now that’s gonna help you do what you need to do in a negotiation
Nathan Simmonds:
As that coming in? So look, there’s the link there for the Ultimate Guide to Negotiation. We’ve also got the link there for Monday session as well. Virtual co virtual classrooms right now. Okay, we might have some dates. We’re returning back to a live classroom. That mean me actually meeting some of you face-to-face, potentially meeting some of your teams, helping to support your businesses, improve the results they’re getting. In many aspects of what we do in the leadership realms.
Nathan Simmonds:
The virtual classrooms right now is easy access for people to dive in and start learning some skills. So whether that be in, in coaching, personal development, negotiation, we have a virtual classroom that’s gonna fit every one of those elements. And whether that’s me or one of the MBM team coming together to make that happen, we’ve got the right skills to deliver the right impacts for you and your teams and your businesses. The link for the virtual classrooms is there in the chat box right now. If I can help you. Now’s the time to have that conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And as of yesterday, so I think Stuart said I need to convince my boss for this is the first negotiation. If you’re gonna have any homework coming out of this session today is to start planning that negotiation you are gonna have with your manager, with your leader to help get me into that classroom to help deliver better results with your team. What better homework to have?
Nathan Simmonds:
We’re almost bang on the half an hour. No other questions are coming through. Really great to have some time with you all today. Really appreciate this, appreciate, appreciate the engagement everybody. Have a phenomenal weekend getting that in advance now. Have fun. Enjoy the sunshine, spend time with the family and I will look forward to seeing you on Monday. Same sticky learning times. Same, same Stiffy learning channel with the third stage of negotiation skills with me, Nathan Simmons. See you soon.
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