
Negotiating is a part of everyday life—from ordering lunch to buying a car—but in business the ability to navigate negotiations with your vendors and suppliers can make the difference between success and failure. Like many business situations, the key to successful negotiation is that the more prepared you are, the more confident and effective you’ll be.
This course will provide you with the practical approach, tools, knowledge and confidence you need to direct negotiations to your advantage. You will be introduced to a logical, step-by-step process that will ensure you have the best plan in place to achieve the desired objective with your negotiation, including:
- Risks: How to minimize or avoid them
- Preparation and pre-negotiation strategies
- Tactics to reduce stress, mistakes, risks and achieve your goal
- How to leverage request tools, such as request for quote or proposal, for optimal outcomes
- Reviewing and selecting the best proposal
Examples of best practices, actual experiences, “Good to Knows” and viable options will be shared throughout the course. Even though every negotiation is a unique event, this course is to provide you the practical blueprint for achieving successful agreements.
Intro Video Transcript
Hello everyone and thank you for joining us. We welcome you to Illumeo course “Key to a Successful Negotiation. My name is Richard Rafdahl and I have been procurement and supply chain field for over 25 years, as Vice-President of procurement for several large organizations. More recently I founded my own procurement consultant group cost reduction specialists and we assist various organizations manufacturing, distributer and non-profits; eliminate unnecessary cost and optimize profit by negotiating highly competitive agreement of various products and services that are purchased. During my career I have negotiated hundreds of different contracts and programs. Most of been successful but there been a few the final result have fallen a short. What about I share with you today a bit of knowledge I have gain from my own trails, years of experiences as well as from the greatest advice and knowledge I have received over the years from excellent procurement professionals who had the good fortune of work with. Today I will share with you the key steps that will lead to a successful negotiation. This is probably fair to say that most of us particularly comfortable with negotiations and the stress can be generated with the activity. This is an especially true this is an activity that we are rarely engaging. The reality is that it can be a form of conflict for some great intention when anticipating in an upcoming negotiation. Particularly if you are well prepared or not sure what to do. For some, it is not a fun experience. The fact is that some negotiation can have tense moments and face to face conflict do occur which can be very unsettling. But I believe the more prepared and more informed you are, the less stress that will be. Also part of dilemma is that you need to less do it once to pass all the initial anxiety comes something new and certain but once you reach the milestone, it will become much easier. In an elegy I have and I think what all can be relay to may the first time we decide we want to jump of the high dive. We know when we are in the pool, we can swim to the edge with no problem. The fear of jumping from the height that we have not achieved before, fells a little overwarming, particularly for the first time. There are tremendous modern interpretation, fear and doubt. At first we look down to the friends and schoolmates below, we don’t want to look foolish, we don’t want to make mistake, we don’t want to make bally flop. But when we take the first slip of the high dive, it no longer feels like overwarming. The same can be said for negotiation. My objective today to provide you the tools to be more comfortable and confident and achieving your objective when a negotiation is required. What I will share with you today will not only provide you a blueprint on how to have a more successful negotiation but to also make it less uncomfortable and excise experience. Most of these all experience negotiation or have been some version negotiation are regular basis. Negotiation are happening every day in our life but simply we are not aware of it. For example, when we order a meal in a local restaurant, something of the menu substituted or different. Isn’t this a negotiation? This is obviously a small time negotiation, and less of course you have a different and inflexible, that’s a different story. Most of you are likely be or already been engages some fairly, significant negotiation during your life that are common to all of us such as to purchase a car or a home, and more prepared and inform you are, the better your chances to securing the best deal possible or at least not be taken an advantage of. By investing the time to research the market, the competitive price that exists, available options and what absolutely necessity you and what’s just nice to have, you will have the information and knowledge what work to advantage and will like to secure yourself a great deal. Isn’t that the ultimate goal to get the best deal? Again these are common life experiences with proper preparations and negotiations can help you out financially. Obviously in the business world, the stakes are much higher. The variables to consider more complex and the saving opportunities more significant. But you invest the time and play the same investigator process through preparation and responsible logic, you often achieve your objective. The primary topics will be covering today will be initial considerations. For example, is that timing right to proceed with the negotiation. We will discuss this in the other four key considerations. Risk. What are they and how best to avoid and minimize them? Objective. And again the actual goal is the combination of several micro objectives which we will go more detail throughout the presentation. Preparation. As you might expect, this is the most labor and tense portion of the process. Time and effort must be invested in the all-important due diligent to ensure you have them critical information and appropriate knowledge to develop the optimal plan. RFx Tools. Someone call them request for quotation, request for proposal and request for information. How these tools can contribute more trowel and most effective negotiation event regarding the information you want to compline. Pre-Negotiation Strategy. What are the best strategies to you to increase your chances to success? We will review those and some of the tactics. What are the tools and tactics that can be used minimize mistakes, reduce risk and achieve your goal. Review final results. What to consider in the proposal that you receive and what is important? And finally, selecting the best proposal. Again this may not be what you think. This is not about the lowest price, but more about the optimum value.
Learning Objectives
- Ascertain the importance of a clear and complete objective.
- Review the critical preparation steps.
- Discuss a comprehensive Request for Quotation (RFQ) or Request of Proposal (RFP).
- Acquire effective negotiation strategies and tactics.
- Discover what to consider when making the final decision and supplier selection.
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Prerequisites
Prerequisite: Exposure to procurement
Advanced Preparation: None