Seven Practical Tips on How to Negotiate Better

How good are you at negotiating? Do you consider it a skill based on deception or one that can be channeled for good? The truth is that even though we may fail to recognize it, we negotiate with others every day. Sometimes, these negotiations are on major deals but most times, they are over far simpler things. Either way, since this something we do frequently, every day, it makes sense to learn how to do it better. So, in this post, we will share seven practical tips on how to negotiate better. We will also list a few reasons why learning to negotiate is important to your life and career. By the end of this post, we believe you will be better equipped on how to negotiate with others.

Like we said earlier, the art of negotiation is a fundamental part of daily life and business. For example, in business, regardless of whether you are a buyer or seller, understanding the basics of negotiating is essential. This is especially true when you need to buy something but have a limited budget with which to get it. In such a scenario, the best way to get what you want with what you have, legally, is to negotiate.

Before we delve further into the subject of negotiating, here are some related posts you might find useful:

1. Five Things All Successful Companies Do Well
2. Five Ways a Positive Attitude helps create Success
3. Fifteen Quotes about Seizing Opportunity to Motivate You
4. How to Break Through Self Imposed Limits
5. Seven Content Marketing Tactics to Boost your Web Traffic
6. Five proven Sales Strategies that Work
7. How to handle Tough Situations

In addition, if you’ve been inspired by this post, we encourage you to subscribe to our mailing list today. Your free subscription allows us to send you inspiring posts like this directly through email. To subscribe, simply enter your name and email below:

In the next section, we will list a few reasons why learning to negotiate is important. We will then go on to share seven practical tips on how to negotiate better.

Five Reasons why Learning to Negotiate Better is Important

We know that some of you today may question whether this post is really for you. In fact, you may imagine that because you aren’t in business you don’t need to learn how to negotiate better. However, this is sadly, a common misconception.

Here are a few reasons why you should consider learning how to negotiate better:

1. A good understanding of how to negotiate can be useful in interpersonal relationships and conflict resolution.
2. It can also be useful if you ever need to buy or sell anything or negotiate a salary increase.
3. Also, a mastery of negotiation skills can help one proffer lasting solutions to conflicts at home or in the workplace.
4. Learning how better negotiate with other’s helps improve one’s reasoning and creative thinking abilities.
5. Finally, it makes you a better strategist and helps one figure out productive ways to deal with difficult clients.

It’s worth noting that while these skills may seem immaterial, they can really come in handy at the right moment.

Seven Practical Tips on How to Negotiate Better

As we’ve said repeatedly, knowing how to negotiate better could be helpful for one’s personal and professional life. For example, the same steps used to end a conflict among your sibling children could be used on work colleagues. By employing negotiating techniques like active listening and mirroring, you could encourage team spirit and create a better work environment.

On that note, here are seven practical tips on how to negotiate better:

1. Do your Research: By research, we mean prepare for the negotiation. Such research 2could include background information about your client and their unique needs. Or research on who their competitors are, what their products are and what advantage they have over your client. In general, the more information you have, the better you are likely going to be at negotiating
2. Communicate: Communication is essential during negotiations. However, some information should be kept close to your chest and others should be shared. Knowing the difference can make you a better negotiator. Also, through communication, one can understand a client’s needs and how best to meet them.
3. Remain Calm and Avoid Emotional Decisions: Negotiations that have a short time frame to make a decision are almost always a bad idea. This is because they force one to make a decision based on incomplete information. Sometimes, it is healthy to take a step back, re-evaluate and make decisions based on logic.
4. Don’t Sell yourself Short: The greatest harm one can do during a negotiation is to sell oneself short. By this, we mean undervaluing one’s contributions and assets. While blowing your own trumpet isn’t recommended, a certain degree of confidence is always useful.
5. Be Willing to Walk Away: Good negotiators understand that they must be willing to walk away after a certain threshold is reached. This is because a party that is unwilling to walk away is a desperate one. This could raise questions as to the quality of the product or even make the other party lower their bid.   
6. Seek a Win-Win Solution: A win-win situation is when both parties can benefit from the resulting deal without feeling cheated. Depending on the type if negotiation, try to ensure that your interests, as well as those of the other party are reasonably met. Negotiations that end up one-sided never succeed and could also give you a bad reputation.
7. See the Negotiation from all Angles: It is easy to enter negotiations with a singular focus on what you will get from it. A better way to negotiate is to see the negotiation from the other party’s angle as well. Doing this helps you understand what they need and what your weak points in the deal are. Seeing the negotiation from multiple angles can help you better prepare and decide what terms are acceptable or not.

Think about it for a minute. What types of negotiations do you face daily? How do you handle them? Are they any unique tips you use that are not listed here? Feel free to let us know by leaving a comment at the end of this post. As always, we would love to hear from you.

Today’s Funny Quote

Our funny quote for today is by Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian Adventurer. He said:

Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.

Do you agree with him on that? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment. Or just send us a message to say hello. We would love to hear from you.

Did you know that Innovate Today is a part of Innovate Design Studios Ltd? We are a web design company that provide premium web design, website maintenance and graphics services. If you’d like to know more about the service we provide, feel free to check out our Services page. On the other hand, if you’d like to get a free, no obligation quote for your web design project, contact us to submit a quote request.

If you found this post inspiring, kindly remember to share it on social media. Also remember to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Our social media handle is @idscreate.

Remember that as long as you live and work around people, you will always need to negotiate. So, take time to learn how to negotiate better.

Have a great week ahead, stay safe and we will see you later in the week with more inspiring posts.

Innovate Design Studios

Innovate Design Studios creates innovative web design solutions that provide you with a secure, custom designed web presence that promotes your business and generates revenue and exposure.