Negotiation involves coming to an agreement regarding a particular matter and one of the critical skills in this context is the ability to persuade or convince another.
Persuasion skills are a key ingredient to a successful negotiation. You need to be able to persuade your counterpart to understand and accept your position. Through learning key negotiation skills, you can learn the art of effective persuasion to influence your counterpart.
Why Persuasion is Critical in Negotiating?
Persuasion is an important skill that you need to learn to negotiate successfully. You should know how to convince others to accept your views. Also, you should know how to effectively persuade others to change their views. Persuasion and other aspects of negotiation are considered as talents by some, however; they are skills that can be practised between friends or colleagues, taught by expert negotiation firms, or even learned online with tutorials.
Learning the skill of persuasion will allow you to handle any disputes during a negotiation. The skill is not just restricted to business negotiations. It can also help in resolving political disputes and even street fights.
Persuasion has been defined as employing tactics to change the beliefs, attitudes or mindset of another, and endorse your views. Knowing the art of effective persuasion by taking part in a negotiating training course will allow you to get the best outcome when dealing with customers and suppliers.
Common Types of Persuasion
You can employ two styles of persuasion in negotiation — the pull style or the push style.
Pull Style — This style consists of getting information about the counterparty, understanding their position, and developing a mutually beneficial agreement. This style is generally recommended when both parties aim to enter into a long-term relationship with the opposing party.
Push Style — This type of persuasion involves giving information to the other party and making them understand your views. It is suitable when the other party is more powerful and less interested in the partnership.
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There is a third type of persuasion known as the punch or aggressive style, but it’s not recommended during a negotiation. Aggressive tactics involving coercion, threat, and manipulation rarely result in a successful negotiation. It may persuade the other party to accept the terms, however, the relationship will not stand for long.
Now that you know the importance of persuasion during the negotiation stage and also the different types of persuasion styles, let’s now turn our focus onto how you can apply these persuasion skills to positively influence the outcome of a negotiation.
1. Develop Self-Confidence
In order to convene others to accept your viewpoint, you first need to believe in yourself. You can develop self-confidence by practicing this skill. These skills can be developed through either trial and error or better by attending a negotiating training course.
When you are self-confident and motivated, you will be better able to convince the counterparty. You will be able to think things through properly and carefully evaluate what decision is in your best interest. By collecting and evaluating facts, you will understand your position and be able to effectively persuade the opposing party to accept your views.
2. Learn to Proactively Counter Criticisms
The biggest mistake during a negotiation is to assume that everything will go smoothly without any objection from the other party. But this is rarely the case. You should expect to receive criticism from your counterparty. This is normal in a negotiation.
If you anticipate criticism from the opposing party, then you cannot be caught off guard. Being prepared will allow you to quickly understand and answer any queries from the other party. This way, you will turn objections into strengths that will pave the way to a successful negotiation.
3. Highlight the Benefits
In order to persuade others, you must also highlight the benefits of the proposal to the other party. You must answer the simple question in the mind of the counterpart, “What’s in it for me?” Answering this question will help align the proposal with the interests of the opposite party.
In conclusion, you should learn the simple yet highly important and effective skill of persuasion whilst also understanding the crucial steps to improving your negotiation skills. Learning these skills will help you to convince the other party to accept your views resulting in a successful deal.