Knowing how to negotiate is a critical skill all people need to learn.

The reason being is you are going to negotiate all throughout your life. From buying a car or some antique at a market, you are going to negotiate in one form or another. Today we are going to go over 3 easy tips from our interim executives, on how to negotiate.

Plan Before You Negotiate

You don’t want to walk in to the negotiating room without knowing what is at stake for both yourself and the other party. You need to prepare yourself like you are preparing for a final. Figure out what are your priority’s, what’s the lowest/highest offer you can accept, and what is the point where you know you will have to back out. Preparing for yourself is easy, but what most people forget is to prepare for the opposing party. You need to think like them. Figure out what are their priorities and what they are looking for. By doing that, it will make it easier for yourself and the opposing party to reach a compromise because you have a sense of what they are trying to get out of the deal before hand.

Ask For More

When you get to the point where you begin to decide on a price, always ask for a little more. This is because it will give you some more negotiating room. Here’s an example. You are trying to sell a car and you want to sell it for no less than $10,000. If you start the negotiations from $10k, then the buyer will obviously low ball with an offer of lets say around $8k. You then will have to lower your asking price to get him to agree. Had you said that you are selling the car for 15k, then the buyer will offer a lower price, and then you can negotiate to a price that is either higher then what you are trying to get, or right on the price you are looking for. Just remember to not go crazy with your offer. Keep it reasonable.

Know When to Say No

Saying “no” is hard for anyone, including me. But when it comes to important negotiations such as business deals or buying a car, you need to be able to put your foot on the ground and walk away. Its pretty easy to tell when a negotiation is going south. When the numbers are way off or when you can’t find a compromise regarding the terms, you are better off taking no deal. The best way to sum this tip up is to use the saying, “there are plenty more fish in the sea.”

There you have it, 3 easy ways to improve your negotiation skills. The key takeaways are to always prepare before hand and to know when to walk away because no deal is better then a bad deal.

To learn about how Cerius Interim Management can help you and for more information on interim executives, please visit our home page by clicking here.