Creative bargaining for creating value

Key Fact: Skilled negotiators explore an average of 5 options for every issue under discussion.

• Skilled people are more likely to look for creative options to help them reach agreement and to add greater value to the deal for both parties.

Key Fact: Skilled negotiators trade concessions for things they want. Average negotiators are more likely to just make concessions to win the business.

• Skilled people identify the areas where they can make concessions, which have low cost to them, but have high value to the other party. They then trade these for the issues of high value to themselves. As a consequence they are more likely to win the business on better terms than their average rivals.

Key Fact: Skilled negotiators don't leave the most difficult issues until last.

• There is a real risk that if the most difficult issue is left until last, all the lesser issues, that could have been traded, will have been agreed. Having nothing to trade, to create movement on the difficult issue, makes it more likely the negotiation will end in deadlock, or that concessions will be made damaging the value of the agreement.

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