Afraid to negotiate? Ornaith Giblin outlines her top tips to help you overcome your fear and come out on top

If negotiating a 10 percent discount on a store-spoilt item in a shop makes you feel uneasy, negotiating a large, complex business deal, asking for a pay raise or haggling with a vendor is probably your worst nightmare.

Here are five useful strategies to help get what you want in any negotiation.

Define your walkaway point and understand your variables

Preparation is king, not only to become comfortable with your demand, but to fully understand and equip yourself with a self-made negotiation toolkit.

Work out your lowest or highest walkaway point by asking yourself: when would it become financially unviable to continue the conversation?

You should also consider what else you can offer your opposition, perhaps intangible, to get the best deal possible. Is it an introduction to another area of your business? An opportunity to tender for next year’s service agreement?

These are your variables, your secret armour in the negotiation process. Own, command and use them.

Decide what’s at stake

Before going into any negotiation, understand two things: there are people, and then there are problems. Without managing both, you won’t agree to a solution.

To negotiate effectively, it is important to distinguish your counterpart's underlying motivations from superficial bluffs.

For instance, if you find out that their main motivation is to ensure you buy at least 25 laptops because they know they will cut a profitable deal at that volume, you may find that asking for free additional items is the best way forward.

Minimise conflict

How many times have you entered into a negotiation that has become tense or has even disintegrated because of personality conflict?

Negotiation is outside of (nearly) everyone’s comfort zone, which means that, for most, these conversations are approached with mixed emotions.

Add to this, the emotional pressures negotiating may bring to the table (perhaps performance-related), and you have a potential recipe, not just for tension, but also aggression and defensiveness.

It is imperative that you go into a negotiation with your feathers unruffled. Be sure to watch your tone, try to build rapport and always be polite. No one has ever had a successful outcome by being rude.

Don’t let price win or lose you the war

You’re going into a negotiation with a walkaway point based on price, and likewise, your counterpart has come into the conversation from the same viewpoint.

If you are both stuck on this walkaway point, you have to ask yourself what can be brought into the mix. If the price can’t be negotiated, what can you ask for as a compromise?

If you have already identified what’s of value to the other party, and know what is of value to you, you can let that be your bargaining chip. Understanding your variables and theirs is key to optimising a negotiation situation.

Find a win-win solution

A wise person once said to me that a good deal is in your head. If you’ve achieved your objectives within your boundaries, and you are happy you’ve agreed to a good deal, then you could class yourself as a winner.

However, if you’ve done that by derailing your negotiation counterpart, that’s a win-lose. By not finding a middle ground everyone is happy with, you’ve probably ruined your relationship with your vendor (or boss or organisation), leading to other issues down the line.

In business, it’s important to never burn a bridge, and agreeing to a win-win solution is key to building mutually productive partnerships.

Ensuring your solution is well-balanced and meets enough of both parties’ expectations is key to making sure you walk away from a negotiation with an actual good deal.

If you really negotiate rather than barter with your counterpart, your relationship can produce longer-term mutual gains and a situation that can provide lasting returns for both parties.

Ornaith Giblin is a consultant of mid-senior qualified accountants at Barden. You can get more information at Barden.ie