As we learnt at the Perth Conference there is a strong demand to learn more about leadership and management skills. One such skill is negotiation.

Everybody needs to negotiate from time to time; whether at work, at home, as a leader, as a sales person, as a consumer…..as a hygienist.

Negotiation is a process and a skill that can be developed. Negotiation is described as “a process that involves two or more people dealing with each other with the intention of forming an agreement and a commitment to a course of action, where compromise needs to be reached in order to move forward”.

In a sales environment, not every sales situation needs negotiation, however when a compromise needs to be reached negotiation often involves a series of communications between two parties to form an agreement about the various details of a sales solution.

In many cases, it is possible for a proposal to be developed that satisfies the needs of both parties i.e. a win/win. In this approach, both parties go into a negotiation or transaction with the intention that they will give something towards the transaction in order to receive what they want. This is the strategy that seems to have the best formula for success.

However, sometimes one or more parties may have to accept less than they had hoped for when entering the negotiation process i.e. a win/lose.

 

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