meetings – Getentrepreneurial.com: Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs in 2024

One of the key aspects of a negotiation is that both parties leave feeling that they got what they wanted. The hardest aspect of the negotiation is to actually achieve that as there is always a fine line that needs to be found early. How do you find it early? You start the negotiation early.

I’m not saying make phone calls and send emails to get into the head of whoever it is you’ll be meeting with but instead it’s to start the process of understanding what their strategy could potentially be. Once this has been understood you can start to align your negotiation to match with the other member of the conversation.

Always Plan

Some sales people and business people do like to think themselves as master negotiators, they can roll up to a meeting, make their demands and leave with everything they wanted and then some.

Very few of us are like this.

Instead you need to focus on doing research on a whole host of information to better understand the potential for negotiation tactics and ideas.

– Management team

– Company direction

– Financials

– Recent News

All of these aspects can and will play a vital part in the actual negotiation and the more you understand the more you can understand where, how and why the negotiation takes the route it may take.

The idea of planning is that you can construct the ideal negotiation with a counter to follow, the most important part of doing this is that you can then align your offer with the company, individual or management’s needs. All sales are completed once you’ve understood perfectly the customer’s needs, pain points and have aligned a solution – this is the foundations of a successful negotiation.

Always having a plan A and B gives you the chance you consider your options in every negotiation, having a template that is permanently stored within your memory means when a meeting gets tricky you can fall back quickly onto this “template”.

Plan A and B is also a good way to practice getting ready for the meeting in advance, because you have to understand more you’ll need to spend more time seeing if you’ve missed anything. A Plan a and B 5 minutes before the meeting rarely works in fact it probably wrecks every negotiation tactic out there.

Fear Has No Room

People like to storm out of rooms, smack the table or throw things around during the negotiation process; this isn’t a Hollywood movie so it shouldn’t even cross your mind. The trouble with fear is that we naturally experience it when rejection seems inevitable, let’s face it leaving a negotiation without matching your terms is always going to feel like rejection.

If you’ve initiated the negotiation/meeting then you need to focus in on a win-win strategy that won’t encroach on the line of “defeat”. Again this refers to the idea that if you’ve done your research and planned early you’ll understand the company and the individuals direction helping you align and create the perfect negotiation that means no one has to leave feeling a sense of remorse.

The main point of this whole article is that you need to be prepared early, if you do that then you eliminate the fear that sets upon you pre-negotiation and it gives you the best opportunities to create a win-win situation. Few can master the strategy and a lot of the times they’ll leave with either a feeling of remorse or with a bad reputation of pushing and “wounding” the other party. First things first the person opposite you should never leave with buyer’s remorse or anything closely associated with the feeling, it’s incredibly bad for business.

I have just returned from a fantastic, if exhausting, weekend at the Annual Convention of the Professional Speakers Association, where I was honoured to be elected to the Board.
This was my third such convention and, by far, the most valuable. For many small businesses, the investment in such events, both in time and financially, prompts a lot of thought about where the value lies and whether it is worth their while attending. This weekend will see a return of several times my investment should I follow through with a number of the connections made. That’s what I call a ‘no-brainer’!
That has not, however, been the case before. Previous conventions, while enjoyable, have not necessarily produced similar results.
At my first convention, three years ago, I learnt a lot, an incredible amount. I wrote pages and pages…..and pages…. of notes from the excellent speakers and focused workshops. Over the weekend I came up with idea after idea after idea which could transform my business.
And I put none of them into action.
The simple fact is that I learnt too much. I didn’t have a plan to put the ideas learnt into action, hadn’t put the time aside to review my notes and implement key thoughts, I failed to allow for follow-up. One of my contacts took the following week off just to go through her notes and ideas and look at her business, how many of us can add this to the time already invested?
Wary of this problem the following year, I was too resistant to new ideas and didn’t really understand what I was going to get from the convention. I didn’t really understand why I was going and got exactly what I planned for from it…nothing.
As a result of that experience, I didn’t attend in 2006. With the change in my business in January, coupled with my impending election to the Board of Directors, I needed to be there this year, so I started to think about what I could get from the convention.
I knew not to write page after page after page of notes from the speakers. Instead I kept an ‘Action Sheet’ at the front of my notes and focused on writing down the two or three key points from the convention that, added to my business model or speaking style, could make a difference. I wrote only a few notes beyond that, most of them focused on particular areas I need to address.
That is no reflection on the quality of the speakers and workshops. I learnt a lot from some of the best speakers in the world; but there is a huge difference between what you learn and what you implement.
The main focus for me at Convention, however, was the networking. That may sound obvious coming from me but my networking this year was far more focused and planned than previously.
The week before the event I was reading Keith Ferrazzi’s book ‘Never Eat Alone’. In his chapter ‘Be a Conference Commando’, Ferrazzi talks about networking at conventions and says, “Conferences are good for mainly one thing….they provide a forum to meet the kind of like-minded people who can help you fulfill your mission and goals.” Going to a Professional Speakers Convention and focusing on time away from the talks may seem strange but, in a lot of ways, that’s where the value is.
Taking Ferrazzi’s advice I contacted some of the attendees in advance of the events, suggesting that we take time to meet over the weekend. I arranged breakfast meetings, rather than focusing on finding a spare seat, and spent time with individuals. In addition, I have a range of meetings to set up over the next few weeks with other contacts made in the last three days.
The opportunities already created from these connections include a promised meeting with a Director of an NHS Trust to look at networking within that Trust, an invitation to speak to a group of Chief Executives, a meeting to discuss synergies with another speaker that may lead to the creation of a new CD and cross-referrals and the possibility of establishing speaking opportunities overseas.
That’s not a bad return for an investment which, although for many may look large initially, pales into insignificance against the potential return.
Andy Lopata is one of the UK’s leading business networking strategists. He is the co-author of two books on the subject, including the Amazon UK bestseller ‘…and Death Came Third! The Definitive Guide to Networking and Speaking in Public’. Andy offers a full consultancy service and works with companies to help them realise the full potential from their networking.