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How To Exercise Control To Win More Negotiations

What form of control do you exercise in your negotiations? What is control in a negotiation, how does one go about getting and maintaining control, and when is it beneficial to relinquish control in a negotiation? During a negotiation to what degree does it behoove you to exercise aspects of control? The factors detailing such can be daunting. Since they have such a profound impact on the flow and outcome of a negotiation, it behooves you to understand the variances in order win more negotiations.

This article addresses those questions and details how to increase your negotiation win rate.

Negotiation Tip: Like most aspects in life, control is perceptional. That’s to say, if you think you have it, you do. Of course the person with whom you’re negotiating with has a lot to say about the amount of control you do or do not have in a negotiation, but still, it’s perceptional.

Exercising Control in a Negotiation:

Exercising control in a negotiation is the fine balance of knowing when to lead, when to be led, and when to maintain a steadfast position. It also entails controlling your emotions and those of the other negotiator.

Getting Control in a Negotiation:

In reality, the only way you can get control in a negotiation is by having the other negotiator follow your lead. The stimuli used to do so can be from several perspectives. You can cajole, be stern, be condescending, be conciliatory and/or employ a number of other strategies. The one you employ is dependent on the type of negotiator she is (hard nose, easy going, soft), but you need to match your style to one that’s suited to her demeanor, based on what’s being negotiated for at the time. By using the appropriate approach, you enhance your abilities to control the negotiation.

Maintaining Control of a Negotiation:

Maintaining control during a negotiation entails the fine balance of leading and giving the impression of being led. You give the impression of leading when you express offers as being beneficial to the other negotiator’s needs for the negotiation. You give the impression of being led by adopting a position of accepting her offer/perspective, etc. In either case, make sure those goals are also aligned with yours, less you’re not really exercising control at all.

Relinquishing Control in a Negotiation:

Giving the appearance of relinquishing control promotes the perception of being controlled by the other negotiator. By doing so, you endear yourself to her. She feels empowered, because she’s taking the lead, which means she’s in control. During such times allow your body language to be in alignment with the persona you project (e.g. softer tone of voice, open body gestures, smaller physical appearance, etc.). If your words and body language are aligned, your relinquishing of control will be more believable and accepted as such, even more so at a subliminal level by her, which gives you an additional advantage.

As you can see, the perception and exercise of control during a negotiation has a great impact on the flow and outcome of the negotiation. In your next negotiation, adopt the points mentioned above and observe its flow. In particular take note of how exercising the different forms of control influences the outcome of the negotiation. Continue to improve on your ability to exercise control by focusing on the aspects of control in your negotiations. As you get better at implementing the facets of control, your negotiation win rate will increase… and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

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How To Close Your Presentation Confidently

To close your presentation confidently is not as hard as one would think, remember in my last post we talked about dealing with objections, so if you have dealt effectively with these your close should not be that hard, we really do not want a hard sell situation, in fact if we have prepared the way with our own story, the prospect will be ready to close themselves.

A few things we can say to motivate them to make their decision as we finish our presentation: “And that’s it”. This phrase leaves the next bit up to them, if you felt that they needed a bit more prompting you could finish with “and the rest is up to you” this will put the ball into their court and move them towards a decision, another good phrase to finish on would be “Well, what do you think?”, or for a slightly harder finish, we could put all three phrases together as in, “And that’s it, the rest is up to you, what do you think”. By now your prospect has all the information needed, another test close we could try would be,” In your opinion would this (solve your cash flow situation)(allow you to spend more time at home with your family)etc. Sounds to me like you are ready to join.

Another great question to ask is, “If you were to join now, what would be the best benefit to you?” remember even at this stage you may get objections, always try to turn objections into a question, never be defensive, we could say something like, “I am sure you have a reason for saying that, what is it?” If we get objections about the cost of joining, we could turn the situation around by saying “let me ask you a question, Isn’t it possible for you to get more benefit from this business than your initial investment?”

Your prospect may have been in network marketing before and will come up with, “tried this type of business before, it doesn’t work”, our reply can be along the lines of – “It looks to me that in the past you experienced that it didn’t work for you because you didn’t have your why in place, or financially you were in your comfort zone, would that be right?” We need to dig for their need their why, there must be one otherwise they would not be here, address that need for them.

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Email Etiquette For Business: 5 Tips To Help You Present Yourself As A Professional

As the world becomes more and more hurried, it seems that email etiquette for business is falling by the wayside. However, keeping the rules of business letter writing alive and applying them to your email communications is a great way to present yourself in the most professional light possible and to make your clients and associates feel respected.

Here are 5 tips to help you write better, more professional, and polite email business letters.

1) Greetings and Salutations

Remember when you were in school and learned how to write a letter? The first thing you learned was the salutation – the “Dear so and so.” While “Dear sir,” isn’t likely to be the greeting you use in an email, you do still want to include a salutation. Common salutations, if you are communicating with this person for the first time include:

Dear,
Hello,
Thank you,

Proper email etiquette for business will include a comma after the salutation or a period at the end depending on the greeting. For example, “Dear Anne,” or “Thank you, Anne.”

2) Use Complete Words and Full Phrases

While it’s common to use acronyms or text speak like LOL and TTFN, just don’t do it. This is appropriate for friends and family, not for business associates. Even if you become friends with your customers, in general, keep the use of acronyms to a minimum and even then use them only after your customer or associate has.

3) Check Spelling and Punctuation

It takes five seconds to hit the spell check button on your email toolbar. If you have frequent misspellings and poor grammar you’re making an indelible impression on your associate or client that you may not be able to remove. Do your best to put your best foot forward in your email communications. A quick spell check and grammar check just tells your client you take the time to communicate effectively and correctly, you’re a professional and your communication with them is important to you.

4) Get To the Point

Respect the time of your business associates and clients. That doesn’t mean you jump right into the meat of your email though. Make sure you still include a friendly sentence or two to inquire about how the person is doing or to introduce yourself. This is courteous and expected of you. However, it’s also important to get to the point of your email as quickly as possible.

Time is our most precious and valuable commodity because we cannot get it back once it is gone. Show your associates you understand that.

5) Closing Remarks

Finally, once you’ve wrapped up what you have to say, it’s time for the good old-fashioned closing. Sincerely is considered a bit too old-fashioned in this day and age, but the following are quite acceptable:

Regards
Best
Best regards
Warm regards
Thank you

When writing an email to a client, prospect, or business associate, it is important to make sure you present yourself in the best light possible. That means spending a little extra time on your communications and following a few simple email etiquette for business rules.

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