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Brush up your win-win negotiation skills.
Preparing for a Successful Negotiation
Goals: what do you want to get out of the negotiation? What do you think the other person wants?
Trades: What do you and the other person have that you can trade? What do you each have that the other wants? What are you each comfortable giving away?
Alternatives: if you don't reach agreement with the other person, what alternatives do you have? Are these good or bad? How much does it matter if you do not reach agreement? Does failure to reach an agreement cut you out of future opportunities? And what alternatives might the other person have?
Relationships: what is the history of the relationship? Could or should this history impact the negotiation? Will there be any hidden issues that may influence the negotiation? How will you handle these?
Expected outcomes: what outcome will people be expecting from this negotiation? What has the outcome been in the past, and what precedents have been set?
The consequences: what are the consequences for you of winning or losing this negotiation? What are the consequences for the other person?
Power: who has what power in the relationship? Who controls resources? Who stands to lose the most if agreement isn't reached? What power does the other person have to deliver what you hope for?
Possible solutions: based on all of the considerations, what possible compromises might there be?
Thank You
The key to more productive & painless negotiations is finding common ground and thinking long-term.
Thinking of alternative ways to achieve your long-term goal for any product opens up new discussion points (marketing support, displays, training, inventory management, delivery options, warranties, rebates), etc. More often than not, you can reach common ground this way but it takes recognizing that each party has a need and using thoughtful two-way communication.
Here are five points to consider in every negotiation - whether business or personal. Each point relates to a fundamental element of the negotiation.
1) People: Separate the human being from the problem, leave emotions out of the talks.
2) Communication: Without two-way communication no negotiation will be successful.
3) Interest: Concentrate on your own interests, not on your position, and try to find out what the other party’s interests are.
4) Choices: Create and consider all options and possibilities before making a decision.
5) Criteria: Insist that the outcome/result is based upon an objective norm.
Medvec is a proponent of a negotiation technique called MESOs, or Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers. The idea behind MESOs is to give the other party multiple options to choose from that are equivalent from your standpoint.
Here's how you would create the MESOs:
1. Create a list.
Make a list of all the issues that matter to both parties. For the job offer, let’s say the variables that matter to both sides are salary, commission, equity and vacation time. (There may be other variables, like the size of the sales team budget, but let’s keep this simple for the sake of this example.)
2. Weigh each option.
Estimate how important these issues are for each party. From your interviews, you gather that the VP of sales candidate really values “upside” from equity and commission but also supports a family and needs a healthy salary. You're guessing they're less concerned with vacation time. On your end, let's say you care about managing cash (i.e. needs to keep a lid on salary), maintaining a "work hard" culture (i.e. has a bias against too much vacation) and achieving valuation milestones for investors (i.e. is open to being generous with commission and equity if it’s tied to results).
3. Think about alternatives.
Identify realistic possible alternatives for each issue. Given these preferences, let’s imagine the realistic alternatives for equity are1 percent,2 percent or3 percent of company shares (with four-year vesting of course) depending on the rest of the package. For vacation time, the alternatives are the standard two weeks vacation, with the possibility for three or four weeks if that were important to the candidate, which it isn’t in this case. Let’s say there are a two or three alternative salaries and commission structures, too.
4. Narrow down the choices.
Finally, create three alternative offers that would be compelling to the other party and are mutually equivalent from your standpoint. For example, one compensation package might include3 percent equity but with a lower salary, standard vacation time, and moderated commission structure. Another might include2 percent equity with a medium salary, standard vacation time and a generous commission structure. The third might include1 percent equity with standard vacation time, as rich a salary as you can afford, and a generous commission plan.
Voila, you've created your MESOs!
This might seem belabored, but there are a number of benefits to this approach. According to Medvec’s research, the MESO technique makes you appear more flexible, increases the overall odds of reaching an agreement and makes it easier to collect information about the other side’s preferences. By offering three alternatives instead of one, you powerfully frame where there are trade-offs. Plus, the process of creating MESOs forces you to do your homework in evaluating and prioritizing all the issues.
