Negotiation Techniques for All Occasions

Negotiation techniques are important to all aspects of our daily lives – even when we don’t realize that we are using them.  It is extremely important to realize that negotiation begins even before you make first contact with a real or potential seller, agent, or other business or personal adversary. Upon starting your home search, you begin to formulate your approach and attitude. You decide what you want, what you need, what you absolutely must have. You also consider alternative ways of achieving your goal(s). A negotiation must be fluid–ever changing. Your seller or seller’s agent will have gone through the same process, and probably has more information to use against you.

Negotiations are Operational Daily

One author (Cohen 1980, 15, 119, 149, 163) describes it this way: Your real world is a giant negotiating table, and like it or not, you’re a participant. You, as an individual, come into conflict with others: family members, salesclerks, competitors, or entities with impressive names like “the Establishment” or “the power structure.” How you handle these encounters can determine not only whether you prosper, but whether you can enjoy a full, pleasurable, satisfying life.

Mr. Cohen describes three styles of negotiating:

Winning at all costs: Soviet style.

Negotiating for mutual satisfaction.

Win-Win.

Other styles are also recognized.

Management Study Guide