In the digital age, a business’s online reputation can make or break its success. Customers often turn to online reviews and social media to research and make purchasing decisions. This makes it crucial for businesses to actively manage and protect their online reputation. In this article by Adam Frampton an Associate Partner at The Gap Partnership, we’ll discuss the importance of online reputation management and provide tips on how businesses can effectively monitor and improve their online presence.
You are four hours into an intense negotiation with a counterpart, but you have not made any progress. In fact, you feel like the other party has dug their heels in and refused to move. What a predicament: you are sitting opposite a negotiator who doesn’t know how to negotiate!
This is a frustration I regularly hear my clients complain about. How is this going to affect the outcome of the deal? Will you even come to a deal? It’s likely that in this scenario the person opposite is going to have the animalistic hunger for a win. They may end up purely focused on beating you into submission so they can hold their head up high, when in reality they may have missed an entire amount of value.
So, what can you do to change the outcome, educate the other party to the value, and bring about a value-creating deal? Below are three things to consider:
Control the negotiation. With an inexperienced negotiator this can be difficult, as it may feel to them they are relinquishing power. But using an indirect approach to control the process can work in your favor. Some ways of doing this are instigating the use of an agenda – and by making it a jointly created agenda you give the illusion of control to them while ensuring you move the conversation along to the points you need to cover. Think about other ways that you can control a negotiation to keep focus on negotiating rather than fighting.
Keep making those proposals. Whenever you make a proposal in a negotiation, you will have a subconscious effect on the counterpart. They will be thinking about your number, and this can have impact on what they do next. Can you get them to change their strategy and think about your approach? Another way to open up the inexperienced negotiator’s eyes to the advantages of creative negotiation is to repackage the deal. I use a phrase on my client engagements that goes, “Negotiation is the art of letting them have your way”. If I can change the shape, structure, sides, and color of a deal, but still have the same value at the end, won’t that still work for me? If that answer (which I would point to be a yes) was yes, then why not reshape the deal to make it work for your counterpart? Get them to a deal they will be prepared to accept.
Make them feel like they’ve won. Inexperienced negotiators or uncreative negotiators tend to focus on one thing: winning. Every negotiation will feel like a game to them. Now you and I know that negotiation is not a game, but can we use that to our advantage? To the inexperienced negotiator, the symbols of success are what keeps them up at night. “How do I finish this day with a sense of achievement through victory?” is what they may be thinking. If we (as skilled negotiators) recognize this, then we can use this to our advantage. “People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but won’t forget how you make them feel” (Maya Angelou), so can we make our untrained negotiation partners feel that they are winning? Pander to their egos and give them an imaginary victory that they so very obviously desire.
These are just a few things we can consider when faced with an untrained negotiator, where making it our job to educate them as to where value resides can work in our favour. Take them on a journey to get there. But, a final word of warning: if they do not want to bring the key to unlocking the value of the negotiation, then we may need to redirect our efforts to a hard bargaining negotiation and the behaviors that will reflect that type of engagement.
