Marketing y ventas: negociación

1. Negotiating intro: Hello, and welcome to this next in this series of marketing and sales courses about negotiation. This is one of the shorter courses in this block. It covers negotiation types, different types of outcomes, different types of strategies. And it also covers sort of negotiation skills and communication. Things like body language, tone. Obviously, these are massive topics in their own right, and of course like this can't cover everything. If you're interested in the body language aspect, as an example, please go and look for a specialized body language course. They're hours and hours long. This chapter that we're doing here just really covers sort of a very high level view of the main points. And the last one is mainly for non native speakers who might be involved in negotiations in English as their second language, and it will cover quite a lot of phrases, expressions, and idioms that you might encounter during the negotiation process. And if you know about them and you understand them, you won't get confused by them, you can concentrate on actually what you're doing and not get confused by the words that people are using. As usual, there is a project, so please have a look at it. You'll find it interesting, and as usual, any questions, please ask. You'll be sure to get an answer. 2. Negotiation types: Welcome to this lesson on negotiating. So in this lesson, we'll take a brief overview of negotiation, which is, of course, a very important skill in marketing and sales. And essentially a negotiation is a discussion between two or more parties. And the idea of a negotiation is to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. And specifically, we will look at the types of negotiation and negotiation styles, how to prepare for negotiations and set goals, creating win win outcomes, and managing conflict and resolving disputes. We'll look at three common styles of negotiation here, so called competitive negotiation, collaborative negotiation, and compromise negotiation. The first one is competitive. And this is a more sort of aggressive, assertive approach where each party seeks to maximize their own interests, and this very often results in a win lose outcome where one party can only gain at the expense of the other. There's an example, two companies might be bidding for a contract and they compete to offer the lowest price to win the deal. So one gets everything, the other gets nothing, classic win lose. Then we have the collaborative negotiation. And here, we try to find a solution that suits both parties. The emphasis is on cooperation on open communication, and focusing on shared interests. And the idea here is to create a win win outcome. As an example, so a partnership agreement might get negotiated and end up with an output or an outcome rather that both parties contribute resources and expertise to achieve some common goals. We have a compromising negotiation. And here we sort of try and find a middle ground by giving concessions from both parties. So each side gives up something to reach an agreement, and this agreement may not be fully satisfactory for either party. So when negotiating the terms of a contract, sort of both buyer and seller would make concessions on, say, pricing and delivery terms, so they meet somewhere in the middle. So when preparing for negotiation, you need to have clear goals and objectives. And this really involves defining what you want to achieve and understanding the needs and interests of the other party, and you would conduct thorough research on the topic that you are negotiating. And so by setting goals, you can focus your efforts and you can develop strategies to achieve your desired outcomes. So a salesperson who's preparing to negotiate a deal with a potential client could set themselves the goals of securing a long term contract, obtaining a certain price point, and also ensuring timely delivery. Now, I mentioned win win outcomes. And a win win outcome means that both parties are happy with the agreed result. It's not a win lose where one feels badly done by and the other wins, both feel happy about it. And this requires a collaborative approach. It requires active listening, and you really need to focus on finding the mutually beneficial solution. And you do this by understanding the interests and priorities of both parties, and then you can create options that can meet everybody's needs. So, for instance, in a salary negotiation, the employer and employee would work together to find an overall compensation package that gives fair pay for the employee's skills and experience, but still aligns within the company's budgets and policies, if possible. We also mentioned managing conflicts and resolving disputes, and again, another essential skill in the negotiating process. So this involves addressing and resolving disagreements that could arise during the negotiation process. And the key management skill here includes active listening again, empathy, and also keeping calm and professional and really actively seeking this common ground. For example, when negotiating in a business partnership, there might be some disagreements on, say, profit sharing, and the conflict management techniques can be used here to start a productive discussion where you explore alternative profit distribution models or maybe find additional opportunities to address the concerns of both parties. Now, I realize that this is a very brief overview, and you can do whole courses on this. So I don't think this is everything. This is just the overview. 3. Effective communication: Welcome to this lesson on effective communication. So when we're negotiating, we need to be also effective communicators, and things that are included in this are active listening, body language, and tone and language. Obviously, we'll look at all of these in turn. Active listening, this is very important to be an effective communicator. You need to fully engage with the speaker, focus on what they're saying, and also show genuine interest from your side. And some techniques for this include obviously paying full attention to the speaker, avoiding interruptions or distractions. And you also provide verbal and non verbal clues to show that you've understood and such as nodding or saying, Yep, okay, using affirmative statements. You can also ask clarifying questions to make sure you've understood everything. You can summarize or paraphrase their key points to show your understanding. For example, the customer might say, I'm having trouble with the software. It's not user friendly. And when the salesperson is actively listening, they would show empathy by saying, Okay, I hear your frustration and then ask for clarification by saying, Can you provide specific examples of the difficulties you're facing? To body language. So this conveys emotions and interests and attentiveness and is one of the things we have usually a little bit less control over. But effective body language can enhance effective communication. So here are some examples of what we mean by this. So you can maintain eye contact to show interest. Don't stare. You know, this is creepy, but also don't keep looking everywhere but at them. And you would lean forward slightly to also show your interest. The opposite of this would be sort of leaning back and slouching, which shows that you're not interested in what they're seeing. You would use open gestures, so you wouldn't cross your arms or you would sit in a relaxed way. If you start crossing your arms, they're known as closed body language, and it really is a way of keeping people out and showing them that you don't want anything to do with them. And you can also nod and smile to indicate agreement, understanding, and general friendliness. During a business meeting, team members display positive body language. They maintain eye contact. They nod in agreement, sit upright, with an open posture, and indicates an active engagement in the discussion. I realize one slide does not cover the whole of body language. It's a very deep and involved topic. You can do whole courses on this. And if it's something that you do find interesting, I would encourage you to seek out a specific body language course, as this is a very high level overview of the most important technique aspects. Then we have tone and language, and the tone and language can really impact the message that you're conveying. And it's very important to use a tone that is respectful, empathetic, and appropriate for the situation. And choosing clear and concise language often helps convey your ideas effectively. Words, avoid jargon. So here are some techniques we can consider. So we use a friendly and professional tone. We avoid sort of unnecessary jargon or technical terms that might confuse the listener. We also use positive and encouraging language, and we adjust our language to match the listener's level of understanding. The employee might say, I'm struggling to meet the deadline. The workload is overwhelming. And the manager would say, Okay, I understand the pressure you're under. Let's work together to prioritize your task and find a solution that helps you manage the workload more effectively. Obviously, that'll be a good manager. I think they're quite rare. The normal manager would say, Well, what are you doing here? You're wasting your time moaning to me? Go and do your work. That's probably what you're more like to do here. And if we think of sort of tone and language, something very simple. If you say to someone, How are you and they just say, I'm fine. Depending on how they say I'm fine changes the meaning entirely. They could just be neutral and say, No, I'm fine. Like, Okay, or they could be like, I'm fine. Obviously, they're not, or they might even be the other way from anger. If you ask how are they, you say, Oh, I'm fine, which obviously shows they're not. So tone and language, very important. And lastly, in this lesson, we'll look at some common terms and definitions that you might use sort of during a negotiation process. So there's bargaining, which you exchange offers and counteroffers in the aims of reaching an agreement. There's concessions, which are compromises that you make to reach an agreement, deadlock. This is when neither party is willing to compromise, and basically the whole thing just stops. We have win win in which both parties benefit from the agreement, which is a desired outcome. Obviously, win lose we've mentioned in other lessons. Then we have the bottom line, and this is the minimum that you're going to accept when making this agreement. And a few other terms you might see Batna, which is anachronism, which sounds for the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. And this is sort of like alternative options that would be available if things don't progress the way you want them to. Or the ZOPA, the zone of possible agreement, which is a range of terms that are acceptable to both parties. And anchoring is another psychological tool. So you set an initial high price, which then sets the tone and the framework for negotiation. And this can actually have a very high impact on the final outcome. So by anchoring, the subsequent lower price then seems more attractive. But if you just went in with the lower price first, it would seem less attractive. If you're interested, this is the last slide. I'll just explain an interesting psychological experiment they did. If you're not interested, just carry on to the next lesson. But this was shown when they asked a group of students how old they thought Gandhi was when he died. And people all gave their answers, and they came to an average. And then the second question or the second experiment, they said, Was Gandhi younger or older than 120? And they all answered younger. And then they asked, Well, how old do you think he was? And the average for the second group was significantly higher than the average for the first group. And salespeople will use this. They'll show you maybe the most expensive option first, knowing you won't need it. And then when they come to the realistic one that they wanted, it seems a lot more attractive compared to this really expensive initial thing that they showed you. And this works even for people who are aware of this and know what's going on. It's a very, very strange thing, anchoring. Look it up. If you want more details, it's worth looking into. 4. Negotiating idioms and expressions: Welcome to this lesson on idioms and expressions. This lesson is primarily for people who are negotiating in English who may not be native speakers, but it's also useful for native speakers who might not know these expressions. Now the thing with idioms is you know all the words, but the overall meaning isn't clear because it means something else. And in this lesson, what we'll do, we'll look at some of them, we'll provide examples, and then at the end of it, you should have a better understanding of the idioms, and it won't confuse you if you come across them during, say, negotiations. And with all these examples, the expression or the idiom is highlighted in bold to make them easier to spot. So calling the shots. So we are calling the shots during these negotiations, and what they mean is that we're in control of the situation. So person calling the shots is in charge. Similar idiom would be we're in the driving seat. Obvious car reference here that we're the ones controlling the car, we're the ones controlling the negotiation. To hold all the cards is to have all the advantages. So we're holding all the cards. It means we're the ones with the advantage here. You might also have a bargaining chip, and a bargaining chip is something that is seen to be valuable that you can sort of give away during the negotiation. So you might say we have an important bargaining chip during negotiations. Whatever that will be will depend on the specific situation. So the short end of the stick is, you didn't get what you wanted. You got the worst deal. So you say, we got the short end of the stick in the budget. You've got the least amount of money in this case. A lot at stake means there's a potentially high risk. So he says everyone needs to be prepared. There's a lot at stake. In other words, this is important. And the other one here, last one, on this slide, is it was going well until the management pulled the rug out from under us. And if you pull the rug out from underneath somebody, you remove your support or you withdraw your support from them, usually in a very sudden manner. You know, you don't get a warning or advanced notice. It's suddenly boom, they've stopped. If you want to sleep on something, it means you need some time to think about it, usually a day or so. So we made them an offer, and they would like to sleep on it. They come back a day or so later and discuss it further. And here we have the ball is in someone's court. So if the ball is in your court, you have to make a decision. If the ball is in our court, we have to make a decision. And during a negotiation, you might find common ground, which is things we agree on. So we don't need to discuss those because we're in agreement already. Similarly, if you draw the line at something, you've set that as a limit. So you might say we've drawn the line at obligatory work for some people on Sundays. In other words, it's not going to happen. We're not crossing that line. That's a hard no for us. Now, somebody might be described as having a poker face, which obviously comes from the card game poker, where you try and bluff without people or without people seeing your thoughts. And if somebody's a good negotiator and has the perfect poker face, it means it's difficult to know their intentions. Now, if you actually reach an agreement, you might see the idiom to cut a deal. And they said we're able to cut a deal that made both sides happy. So we reached an agreement, and as both sides were happy, it was a win win. You also have people who lay their cards on the table, and they're sort of open and honest. And the opposite of this is people who play their cards close to their chest, so they're not open and honest. And then the last slide, if something is a sweetener or added to sweeten the deal, this is a little something extra, a little incentive just to give them that push to say yes. So, for example, here, they added a 10% bonus as a sweetener or 10% bonus to sweeten the deal. This is the thing that will just give them a little push to say yes. The here will play them at their own game. So if you play someone at their own game, you basically do to them what they do to you or other people. They use the same tactics on them that they like to use. And if somebody drives a hard bargain, it means they're a good negotiator. You might also see that someone's a tough nut to crack. Similar thing. We're getting lost in the details. Let's cut to the chase. And if you cut to the chase, you just get to the point straight away. And here's a boxing reference. They want us or wrestling reference, as well, they want us to throw in the towel. And if you throw in the towel, you say the other person has one, you can admit defeat and the fight is over. And this case, the negotiation is over. Or you could try and meet them halfway. If you meet someone halfway, you both compromise and find an agreement somewhere between your initial starting points. And if all else fails, we have to go back to square one or back to the drawing board, which basically means we've not managed it. Things are going badly. Let's just rewind all the way back to the beginning and start over. Sometimes you have to do this. Anyway, that's all the idioms and expressions or the common ones that you might find in the course of negotiations.