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Requesting a salary increase. Buying a house. Deciding who does the dishes.
Negotiating skills aren’t only for salespeople or corporate deal-makers. Everyone, at some point, will need to know how to deal. The more you practice, the better you’ll become — as will the people you’re negotiating with.
Many essential negotiation skills are the same leadership skills you’ve likely cultivated over the years. It’s just a matter of leveraging them to persuade your audience.
The art of negotiation
Negotiation is a strategic dialogue where two or more parties aim to receive something — and they want to convince the listener to give it to them. Ultimately, the hope is that everyone walks away feeling good about the outcome. This means negotiations often end in compromise to ensure the results satisfy all parties.
Humans have always negotiated. It was an essential skill that ensured communities had enough resources to survive life-or-death challenges. A lot has changed over the last 200,000 years. In most cases, the consequences are less dire, but negotiation is still a big part of life.
Why are negotiation skills important?
While negotiations might seem limited to big decisions like international trade treaties or legal disputes, anytime you work to maintain a relationship through compromise, you’re negotiating.
Despite being a common occurrence, not everyone feels comfortable bargaining. A study of millennial workers found that 25% of new employees fail to negotiate a job offer because they don’t know how. But the same study found that, when new hires do bargain their salary, about 44% gain what they asked for and another 30% achieve a compromise.
But developing your negotiation skills doesn’t only improve your financial outlook. Becoming a better negotiator can help you:
- Build confidence
- Ensure everyone’s treated fairly
- Improve your strategic planning skills
4 stages of negotiation
The first step to becoming a skilled negotiator is understanding the process. From there, you’ll know which negotiation skill to apply.
Start by deciding where and when the meeting should occur, who should attend, and the challenge you’ll discuss. Establishing a timeline for your bargaining session can discourage ongoing arguments.
Once you set a time and place, move through the four steps of the negotiation process.
1. Prepare
Thorough preparation is vital to effective negotiation. Clarify your understanding of the facts and gather supporting evidence that could improve your position. Once you've learned all the pertinent details, ask yourself:
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What’s the nature of the conflict?
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What do I want to achieve?
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What alternatives am I willing to accept?
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What am I willing to give up?
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What’s non-negotiable?
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What are the other party’s goals?
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Is the other party willing to settle?
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At what point should I walk away?
By fully understanding your position and thoroughly preparing your arguments, you’ll reduce the chance of conflict at the negotiation table and remain focused on finding a solution.
2. Discuss
During the discussion phase, both parties must thoroughly explain their side. It’s possible at this stage that emotions come to the fore. You need to appear objective, so controlling your feelings is imperative.
Explain how you arrived at your current position and present your research. Ask open-ended questions to glean the information necessary to understand their perspective.
You could ask:
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How did you arrive at this conclusion?
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What do you think of this alternative?
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Why is this item of negotiation important to you?
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What part of the solution causes the most concern?
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Is there anything else I should know?
Make sure everyone’s clear about their goals, as misunderstandings can derail your negotiations. And try to identify any common ground you can leverage in the next step.
3. Negotiate
Now, the hard work begins. Discuss options and present alternatives, focusing on a win-win outcome — where both sides gain something. Each party should feel heard.
Use all the information gathered during the preparation and discussion stages to inform your arguments and strengthen your case. Listen to what the other side has to say. If their argument makes sense, prepare to adjust your position.
It’s essential to stick to the issues at hand and remain objective. Emotions can lead to poor decision-making, so keep them in check by using critical thinking skills to balance your feelings against logic.
4. Find an agreement
Considering everyone’s perspective and interests, decide on something you all feel good about. Keep an open mind during this part, as you might need to part with some of your requests. If you’re negotiating your salary, for example, you might have to accept more flexible working conditions if your employer simply doesn’t have the budget for a raise.
Make sure you document all terms, clarifying everything along the way to ensure nobody’s dissatisfied or confused in the future. You should also agree on how you’ll monitor the agreement’s conditions.
If necessary, formalize the negotiated terms as a legal contract. Once that’s done, both parties implement and monitor the agreed-upon terms.
10 essential negotiation skills
Successful negotiators rely on an extensive skill set to build relationships, gather and evaluate information, and make the best decisions possible. Here are 10 negotiation skill examples to consider when preparing for your next negotiation.
1. Communication
You need effective communication skills to make your intentions clear and establish boundaries. If you don’t articulate yourself well, you might cause confusion and frustration, and you want to set limits to ensure you don’t give more than you take.
And be sensitive to non-verbal communication, like body language. The more information you have about how the other side feels — like nervous or arrogant behavior — the better you can tweak your negotiation tactics to suit.
2. Active listening
Active listening skills ensure you engage with and retain important negotiation details. Asking questions, paraphrasing, and providing feedback demonstrate you’re trying to see the situation from the other person’s point of view. These actions help establish a relationship based on empathy and trust, which can ease tense discussions.
3. Emotional intelligence
As much as everyone tries to remain objective and not take things personally, emotions often come into play during a negotiation. Emotional intelligence allows you to channel your emotions productively while giving you insight into how the other party feels. Cultivating this awareness helps you understand the implications of what they say, not just their explicit meaning.
4. Expectation management
Both sides have goals, and you won’t meet them all. You must prioritize those outcomes to ensure their inclusion as part of a “good deal” without making promises you can’t deliver. Expectation management requires balancing being steadfast in your negotiations against collaborating with the other party to reach an agreement.
5. Patience
Negotiations are time-consuming, often involving offers, counteroffers, and renegotiations. You need to be patient. Take your time to fully evaluate terms and assess information to ensure you don’t miss anything that could compromise the deal’s quality.
6. Adaptability
Thinking on your feet and developing new plans on the fly are integral to negotiation. Each situation presents unique challenges and opportunities. Your approach must be flexible to offer individualized solutions or adjust negotiation strategies when faced with evolving demands.
7. Problem-solving
You're participating in a negotiation because you have a problem to solve. Maybe it’s access to a limited resource or a shifting budget. Whatever it is, your ability to identify options and alternatives that consider all aspects of the issue helps both parties achieve their desired outcome.
8. Value creation
Creating win-win scenarios for negotiation means adding value to your offering. Consider suggesting alternatives that don’t cost you anything but benefit the other party. You could negotiate a shorter payment window if you accept three smaller weekly shipments rather than two larger ones, for example, lowering your warehousing costs.
9. Decision-making
Good negotiators are adept at quickly evaluating options and not overthinking a decision. If you hit decision fatigue or analysis paralysis early on, the discussion won’t go anywhere, and you might simply accept whatever terms they suggest to escape the stressful situation. Assertiveness removes stress and uncertainty from the process the other party could use to their advantage.
10. Integrity
Negotiations require fairness, respect, and honesty. You need to demonstrate your trustworthiness by following through on your commitments. Otherwise, people might not want to collaborate with you in the future.
How to improve your negotiation skills
If becoming a better negotiator is on your to-do list, here are a few suggestions to level up your skills:
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Practice: The more you negotiate, the better you’ll become. If you don’t have many real-world opportunities to bargain, role-play with a friend or mentor. Create simulations that require different negotiation styles to become more comfortable.
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Build your confidence: Confidence is key to successful negotiations. You instill assurance in the listener when you feel self-assured, making it more likely they’ll agree to your terms. And without confidence, they might perceive you as underprepared and unsure of your terms.
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Set goals: Walk into a negotiation knowing what you want, how you hope to achieve it, and where your compromise boundary is. This gives you a clear path toward your goal and options for counter offers if needed.
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Make the first offer: Take control of the negotiation by setting the baseline. This defines the standard for discussion and forces bargaining to move forward from your chosen position.
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Learn from experience: Whether your negotiation was successful or not, take time to review your performance. Evaluate what went well and where you need improvement. Once you identify your weaknesses, you can address them through further negotiation training.
5 careers that require negotiation skills
To make negotiation your full-time job, consider these careers:
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Lawyers negotiate settlements in civil lawsuits, plea deals, and sentencing in criminal cases
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Mediators are experts in conflict resolution and handle situations like helping hostile parties avoid costly litigation or assisting broker agreements
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Entertainment or sports agents assist clients by negotiating for better pay, working conditions, and promotional considerations
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Diplomats conduct business on behalf of their home country’s government, which might involve collaborating with other governmental representatives to develop trade agreements and resolve conflicts
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Real estate agents assist with selling or purchasing homes and private or commercial properties, and this often involves negotiating prices, closing dates, and repairs
Seal the deal
Practicing negotiation skills benefits every area of your life. Learning to collaborate, communicate, and read body language can help you become a better coworker, partner, and friend.
Start small, first preparing simple asks (maybe to lower your rent slightly). Then evaluate the listener’s nonverbal cues and information delivery, trying different negotiation techniques to achieve what you want.
As you foster your skills in low-risk situations and learn what works, you can apply these tactics to larger-scale situations, like adjusting your salary or gaining a significant discount on a new house.
