Resources
We hope that business negotiators find what they're searching for in our free resources. This is the next best thing to coming to one of our negotiation training courses.

Principal and Agents in Negotiation
In negotiations, you have to know who's sitting at the table. Some of these individuals can make binding decisions on the spot. In many other situations, the people involved represent the decision makers. They may have only limited authority. Or, they may have no authority at all. Let's look at this in more detail. Principals In all negotiations, the principle parties are the decision makers. These are the people who ultimately make or break the deal. These are the 'Top Dogs'.

Integrative Negotiation
Integrative negotiation is often referred to as "win-win" and typically entails two or more issues to be negotiated. It often involves an agreement process that better integrates the aims and goals of all the involved negotiation participants through creative and collaborative problem-solving. Relationship is usually more important, with more complex issues being negotiated than with distributive negotiation.

Business Negotiations in Japan
Shattering Common Stereotypes I discovered many things from my 1980s consulting and training work in Japan. One of them was that Westerners in business meetings with Japanese were generally more ill at ease, uncomfortable, and awkward than were the Japanese. This went so much against the stereotypes that both Westerners and Japanese business people shared. People generally viewed the Japanese as shy violets; Westerners as sociable and extroverted. My research about businesspeople,

Negotiation Agent
A person who acts for or in place of another individual or entity as their representative in a negotiation with a third party. An agent, sometimes referred to as a third party agent, has full or limited authority to act on the behalf of the party they represent.

The Trust Building Process in Japanese Society
Build Trusting Relationships The Japanese believe that once the initial contact and introductions are completed, the next stage of the process involves developing trust through deeper knowledge of what the Westerners have to offer. This includes: How we handle ourselves as businesspeople and managers. Our efficiency, manufacturing methods, and the standard of quality of our products. Whether or not we are people they can do business with. There are times when the seller

Negotiation Positions vs. Interests
When two people take opposing sides on an issue in a dispute, they both often refuse to budge from their differing viewpoints. The result is a stalemate. If both sides find a solution, then both can win. We call this resolution a win-win negotiation outcome. You can achieve a win-win by training yourself to pay attention to the interests driving the other side's position in a negotiation. The Negotiation Position The simple reason why many people fail to find a negotiated agreement

Your Ideal Negotiation Meeting Location
The question as to where a negotiation should ideally take place is a critical one and gives rise to both well-thought advice and knee-jerk reactions. The most widely held belief taught on most sales negotiation courses and buyer negotiation courses is that negotiators are at an advantage holding negotiation meetings on their own territory. I would like to offer some alternative food for thought. Negotiation text books often make analogies with sports events where, true

Ways to rationalize a stalled negotiation
Everything at the office was moving smoothly along until a nasty little hurricane decided to tear a hole in your supply line. In a time of short supply and high demand, your main supplier is sitting across from you at your desk. He is poking his finger in the air for emphasis, while loudly demanding a 20% increase in their delivery costs. He ends his tirade by telling you that he is,' Not going to budge.Period!' Now, you ask yourself, how am I going to deal with this guy when my company

Sales Team Negotiation Training: Customized Case Studies
The Negotiation Experts make extensive use of case studies and negotiation training games in training sales negotiation teams. Simulating commercial sales negotiation training scenarios customized to our client's business reality is the best way to assess sales negotiators' strengths and weaknesses. There's no better method of rapid feedback. Mistakes in role-playing don't end up costing sales revenue or sales margin, and role-plays are highly engaging. In this article,

Frameworks in Negotiations
Preparing for a negotiation can be equated to a couple coming together to build their dream house. Each will have different ideas and visions,on how the house will be designed. They both want the house, but their interests in what they want to derive from the functionality of the house will vary from their unique perspectives. One wants a brightly lit solarium filled with tropical plants; the other wants a roomy workshop. They can either work at cross purposes and end up in a drawn

Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts
Resolving interpersonal conflicts in the workplace is a healing process often utilized by management. However, it's also a powerful tool that management doesn't often make available to front-line workers. This can be a costly mistake. Interpersonal conflicts between co-workers, can escalate and lead to harmful and bitter repercussions. The resulting damage, if not immediately addressed, can have a negative impact on both morale and productivity. The Issue of Interpersonal

Negotiating Skills give you options in the Furniture Store
"Let me propose a few options, each of which would be acceptable to us," I said to the furniture store manager in our negotiation. "Either provide us with 80% of our money back for the practically unused piece of furniture we purchased or give us store credit for the full amount. Bear in mind that we just bought a new house. We may very well purchase more items at your store in the future." "Interesting," he replied. "I'll give the owner a call and see what he thinks. Of course, as you know,

Improve your Employees' Negotiation Skill Outcomes
If your company is like the majority of companies today, you are looking at the bottom line seeking for ways to improve results. The negotiating skills of your employees control revenues, and have a direct and significant bearing on financial performance. Employees are negotiating regularly, with customers and suppliers to buy and sell goods and services. In fact, most every relationship a company has must be negotiated or re-negotiated at some point. Most employees entrusted

Public Leverage in Negotiation Outcomes
Seldom does a day go by that I don't read in a newspaper about a high-profile negotiation. Perhaps it is a union picketing when talks break down, or a board of directors attempting to ward off an unwanted merger. It might even entail the possible settlement of a litigation lawsuit between prominent companies. When I read about these, I often think about why the negotiation has "gone public." My first thought always is to assess who initiated the public coverage of the negotiation.

Gender Differences in Negotiations
In their book, Women Don’t Ask (2003), Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever state that 57% of male Carnegie Mellon graduate business students negotiate their starting salaries. However, only 7% of women negotiate salaries. This difference results in men's starting salaries that are 7.6% higher than women's. Why don’t women attempt to negotiate as often as men? If women did negotiate, is there any reason to think women would not do as well? When men and women negotiate with

Dealing With Your Emotions in Negotiations
Many negotiations, due to their nature, can create and foster strong negative emotions. Where individuals meet to primarily promote their self-interests or where the past histories of the parties involved have been coloured by acrimony, it is not surprising that often emotions are more powerful than the facts in shaping the course and outcome of the negotiations. However without emotions it would be impossible for people to reconcile important conflicts. Emotions motivate

Dispelling Negotiation Myths
After Gerard L. Nierenberg authored The Art of Negotiating in 1968. Since then, many books on negotiating followed including the ones I authored or co-authored, Winning the Negotiation, Negotiate the Deal You Want, and The Human Side of Negotiating. However, the message in a lot of the other works was that negotiating was viewed as some sort of a game instead of a process. In fact, one book was entitled The Negotiating Game. Negotiating is a game Let's compare negotiation as a

A New ICON for Negotiation Advice
Finding Agreement in a Negotiation Two decades after the original publication of Getting to YES, by Roger Fisher and William Ury, the conflict resolution classic is still unrivaled in providing a distinct prescriptive framework for turning rivals into collaborators (Fisher and Ury). Their method of principled negotiation remains one of the most powerful influences on the study and practice of negotiation within academia, government, civil society, and the business

What are the Positive & Negative Effects of Negotiation Influencing?
Negotiation can be considered as a skill that assists individuals or teams to obtain an agreement based on their interests. Ultimately, however, what we do when we negotiate is to attempt to influence others to accept our way. Sometimes we succeed; sometimes we don't. Negotiation literature is full of training tactics and strategies that describe ways of achieving this goal. Two Kinds of Influences There are two kinds of influences: positive and negative. If we want to change

Limited Authority Negotiation Tactic
Negotiation tactics are perhaps one of the most significant tools we use in the negotiating process. However, tactics don't often leap out shouting, "Here I am, look at me." If they did, the other side would see right through them. They wouldn't be effective. More often than not, tactics are subtle, hard to identify, and used for many purposes. A good example is the limited authority, or authority limit, tactic. The essence of authority limit is that the negotiator lacks the authority