It doesn’t matter if you’re bargaining for the best price on a new car or trying to get an increase in your salary, negotiation skills are essential in today’s hyper-communicative world.

To become skilled in negotiating, consider participating in Negotiation Training Course delivered by pdtraining in Brisbane, Sydney, Parramatta and other cities in Australia.

Like most things, understanding the correct way to negotiate, so that you get the results you want, can be learned! Like any challenging task, proper negotiation requires preparation.

Before you begin a negotiation, you need to define what you hope to get out of it, what you will settle for, and what you consider unacceptable. You also need to prepare yourself mentally. The key to personal mental preparation is to approach the negotiation with self-confidence and a positive attitude.

Without this preparation, you will end up giving more than you get from negotiations. It may be unavoidable that you will have to give up more than you would ordinarily be willing to, but finding the balance between acceptable concessions and getting the best deal for yourself or your company relies on you being ready to go into negotiations with the strongest bargaining position you can.

Establishing Your “WATNA” and “BATNA”

If you do not have a clear idea of your WATNA (Worst Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) and BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), you will negotiate poorly based on assumptions about what you can expect without an agreement.

In most negotiations, the parties are influenced by their assumptions about what they think are the alternatives to a negotiated agreement.

Often the parties have an unrealistic idea of what these alternatives are, and they are unwilling to make concessions because they think they can do just as well without negotiating.

Often the parties in a negotiation need to decide how likely a particular outcome will be.  If your WATNA is something that would be difficult for you to accept, but the likelihood of it happening is small, you might not feel compelled to give up much in negotiations.

Realism is essential in this situation.

If you could have the ideal situation, the “blue sky” scenario, negotiations would not be necessary.  In order to focus on the negotiations with a sense of purpose, your WATNA is important. What is often referred to as the “worst case scenario” is something that any sensible person will think about before embarking on any initiative.

What if it goes wrong? How will we deal with that?

How you feel about the WATNA will dictate how flexible you need to be (and therefore will be) in your negotiations.

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Pdtraining delivers 1000’s of professional development courses each year in Brisbane, Sydney, Parramatta, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth, so you can be assured your training will be delivered by a qualified and experienced trainer.

All public Negotiation Training courses include am/pm tea, lunch, printed courseware and a certificate of completion.  Customised courses are available upon request so please contact pdtraining on 1300 121 400 to learn more.