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Demonstrate your competence. Convincing your buyer that you have both the expertise and the will to support your end of the negotiation builds trust. We are all more comfortable with someone we can look to for honest answers, options and solutions.
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Make sure that the nonverbal signals you are sending match the words you are saying. The buyer can tell more about your total message by reading and understanding the nonverbal signals you are sending than by just listening to your words. Congruence between your verbal and nonverbal messages helps create trust in the relationship.
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Maintain a professional appearance. Rightly or wrongly, people do judge a book by its cover. A well-groomed, professional appearance is important.
Making the Sale by Building Trust while Negotiating
Negotiating with a Bully, Shark or, Jerk… What Should You Do?
Based on our research from seminars and training on negotiation skills, we have learned that the most difficult person for many people to negotiate with is a bully, more effectively referred to as a shark in our book, The Only Negotiating Guide You’ll Ever Need.
When most people encounter a shark, the number one goal that jumps in front of them is to get away from the shark. No one likes to deal with a jerk. The problem is, to get away from a shark in a negotiation, many people tend to give in. It is a simple strategy: give the shark, bully or jerk something they want and then GET OUT.
The problem with this strategy is that this is the worst thing you can do when negotiating with a shark. Giving in only rewards the shark and increases the chances they will rely on bully tactics the next time they negotiate with you. The best strategy is to get closer to the shark. We have four different tactics that will help you do that:
Nonverbal Communication in Negotiation
Gesture Clusters
Many skeptics argue that it is difficult determining what someone is thinking by singling out one gesture-and they are right. A single gesture is like a single word; its true meaning is vague out of context. But, when gestures come in clusters, their meaning becomes clearer. For example, while a person’s fidgeting may not mean much by itself, if that person is avoiding eye contact, holding his hands around his mouth, touching his face and fidgeting, there’s a good chance he is not being completely honest.
As you study nonverbal behavior, you will begin comprehending the clustering process. When scanning a counterpart for clusters of gestures, view the body in four categories:
Negotiating Win/Win Deals
Negotiating Desirable Outcomes
You may not realize it, but you are involved in negotiation a good part of every day. Any negotiation–whether it involves settling on the price of a product or service, agreeing to the terms of a job offer, or simply deciding on a bedtime for your children–ends in one of five possible outcomes: (1) lose/lose, in which neither party achieves his goals; (2) lose/win or (3) win/lose, in which one party achieves her goals and the other does not; (4) no outcome, in which neither party wins or loses; and (5) win/win, in which the goals of both parties are met. It’s easy to see that numbers 1 and 4 are less than ideal, as is number 2 if you are the one who loses! But what about the other two outcomes? Isn’t win/lose just as desirable as win/win, as long as you are the winner?
The Win/Lose Outcome
In some negotiations, you will be the winner and the other party will be the loser. At first, it may seem that this is the ideal situation for you. But think about it. If you have ever lost a negotiation, you know that the feeling is not pleasant. A significant problem with a win/lose outcome is that one person walks away with unmet needs–and this person is unlikely to be willing to engage in future negotiations with the other party. Ultimately, this sets up the potential for a lose/lose outcome.
The Role of Power in Negotiation
The word power has had a bad connotation for many years.
It has received this reputation because most people associate the word with one side dominating or overpowering the other. I define power as the ability to influence people or situations. With this definition, power is neither good nor bad. It is the abuse of power that is bad.
Types of Power
Various types of power can influence the outcome of a negotiation. I emphasize the word can because if you have power but don’t use it, your power is of no value. The following are a few types of power that can be significant in the negotiating process:
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Position. Some measure of power is conferred based on one’s formal position in an organization. For example, if you are the marketing manager, you can influence decisions that affect the marketing department.
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Knowledge or expertise. Knowledge in itself is not powerful; it is the application of knowledge that confers power. It’s important to take the time prior to a negotiation to research facts and statistics, find out what the other party’s goals are, and discover what areas he or she might consider negotiable–and then use this knowledge!
Nonverbal Negotiation Skills
Researchers in nonverbal communication claim that as much as 90 percent of the meaning transmitted between two people in face-to-face communication is nonverbal. This means that little of your verbal communication will have an impact on the outcome of your negotiations! If these figures are even close to reality, the importance of nonverbal negotiation skills cannot be overestimated.
Learning the language of nonverbal communications is almost as difficult as acquiring fluency in a foreign language. In addition to studying your own gestures and the meaning you are conveying, you must also become aware of what your counterpart is conveying.
Gesture Clusters
Many skeptics argue that it is difficult to tell what someone is thinking by singling out one gesture: and they are right. A single gesture is like a single word; its true meaning is difficult to understand out of context. However, when gestures come in clusters, their meaning becomes clearer. For example, while a person’s fidgeting may not mean much by itself, if that person is avoiding eye contact, holding his hands around his mouth, touching his face and fidgeting, there’s a good chance he is not being totally honest.
As you study nonverbal behavior, you will begin to understand the clustering process. When scanning a counterpart for clusters of gestures, a good formula to follow is to divide the body into five categories:
10 Types of Power
Several types of power can influence the outcome of a negotiation. We emphasize the word “can,” because if you have power but don’t use it, the power adds no value to the negotiation.
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Position. Some measure of power is conferred on the basis of one’s formal position in an organization. For example, a marketing manager can influence the decisions that affect the marketing department. However, the marketing manager has little power to influence the decisions that affect the finance department.
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Knowledge or expertise. People who have knowledge or expertise can wield tremendous power. Of course, knowledge in itself is not powerful. It is the use of knowledge and expertise that confers power. Thus, you could be an incredibly bright person and still be powerless.
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Character or ethics. The more trustworthy individuals are, the more power they have in negotiations. The big issue here is whether they do what they say they are going to do-even when they no longer feel like doing it.