All you need to know about how to manage negotiations in order to get what you want for your new business
As an entrepreneur starting business can be tough on a lot of terms, especially having to deal with a big variety of people who present you with their own beneficial conditions. Considering the fact that you bear the most important role in your new business you have to possess the right skills for communicating with people and informing them about your role and position in the job. This can otherwise be called as negotiating. Negotiating is a crucial part in your everyday business life and a crucial part of every interaction that you have in the scope of your business whether it’s with your own employees or your potential business partners.
Negotiating is an ongoing process, and it can take a lot of time and effort, which is why you need to be accessible for the other potential negotiating parties as much as possible. A way to do that is to currently stay in touch with them, whether it is through calls, emails or social media platforms, which have an increasing popularity in terms of starting a business. For the starting phase, you will have to stick to your phone and make sure you are available online. Now, considering the cell tower coverage problems in some areas, being available for negotiations can be a lot more tough which is why you can consider investing in a mobile phone signal booster for your office, home or perhaps even in your car. It can help boost the connection in the office for you and your employees.
Moving on, being available alone won’t make the negotiation process easier. Which is why we present you with some tips that can help you be long-term successful in starting your new business.
1. Understand your negotiating style
People use a variety of styles to be able to negotiate with others, however understanding which style fits you the most and which style may or may not harm your new business can be difficult. You can adopt a style that matches your personality, or you can try to adapt to each negotiation by using different styles.
One of the most popular ways of determining your style can be through following the Personality test developed by Brent O’Bannon, America’s Momentum Coach for entrepreneurs, individuals in business as well as companies. The personality test is combined of 5 negotiating style that are named after animals: turtle, fox, teddy bear, shark, and owl.
The turtle aims at a style which involves avoidance. To be clearer, turtle negotiating style means whenever a conflict arises the negotiating party doesn’t rely on finding solutions or trying to alleviate the situation but rather let it go with the flow and see what happens, by thus avoiding the conflict.
The fox style aims at accepting the requirements of both negotiating parties and coming to a compromise by sacrificing a part of the requirements in order to achieve beneficial results. With the help of these intermediate solutions that foxes may have, they can also be manipulative which is exactly what the shortcoming of this style is.
The next one, the teddy bear negotiating style aims at resolving the conflict for whatever means possible and making the negotiation a success via sacrificing their own requirements and fulfilling the requirements of their business partners and employees. The problem with this style is that teddy bears are loving and sacrifice everything for their business partners and in the end, give up on their own beneficial terms that can be crucial for your new business.
Regarding the shark negotiating style, they are all about competition and pushing forward their own terms and conditions and ignoring the opposing negotiating party with whatever offers they could possibly have. This can be helpful for you striving business. However, it is only short-term because this type of competition is likely to hurt your business partners and they would refrain from a long-term partnership with you.
Lastly, the owl negotiating style aims at understanding and analyzing both negotiating parties thoroughly and coming up with a solution that will not hurt both parties, in the same way, that it will not cause both parties to sacrifice any part of their offers and terms. As perfect as it may seem, the collaborating owl style also has its shortcoming, which is time. In order to come up with a solution that unanimously benefits both parties you will need to spend a lot of time, and sometimes, especially in a new business, you will not have that much time.
Once you decide which type of negotiating style fits you and your starting business the most, you will be one step further in your negotiation game.
2. Remember who you negotiate with
When you engage in the negotiating process, it will be quick enough for you to lose the track of who you are negotiating with and what are the terms and how you should move forward in order for it to be successful and beneficial for your new business. As an entrepreneur, your role involves negotiations with both the inner and outer circle of your business. There are several ways to break down the overall process to understand it better. However, we will present you with one of them, which is the concept of “Small n” and “Capital N” negotiations developed by Deborah M. Kolb and Jessica L. Porter.
“Small n” negotiations involve all the negotiations that are done within the workplace. These types of negotiations involve you as the entrepreneur and your employees. In a starting business, it is important to negotiate with your employees with terms that are beneficial for both of you in order to help the business kick off.
“Capital N” negotiations involve your potential business partners, customers, and clients. These are all the formal negotiations that require all your responsiveness, critical thinking, and attention. It is important to clearly state your terms and do you best to collaborate with your business partners in order to create long-term partnerships with them.
References – https://www.pon.harvard.edu/shop/negotiating-at-work/
3. What to do during the negotiation
As tough as it may sound, negotiating is not always a tricky and dangerous thing that can be done only by professional negotiators, everyone starts somewhere at some point. It is in your best interest to carefully research and examine who you’re about to negotiate with and first of all, you have to listen and understand their terms after you present them with yours. Listening and communicating is key to any human interaction, especially in negotiations.
Throughout the entire negotiation process, you are going to exchange data, ideas, and opinions, so it is essential to stay focused and make sure you jot everything down in your mind. Likewise, you need to be able to present as much relevant data to your negotiating party is possible. Relevant data you provide is just the right amount in order not to reveal too much about your new business and at the same time not to seem as though you are not serious about the potential partnership. The more reliable you seem, the more likely you are to find a unified solution with the negotiating party.
Now that you have some understanding about what negotiation is and how it works, you can start building your business more confidently and more cautiously, considering every possible business partner’s availability and at the same time paying enough attention to your employees.
