How to increase your bargaining chip?

The essence of negotiation is the exchange of bargaining chips. That is to say, you have what your negotiating opponent wants, and others have what you want, and the two sides exchange”things”(bargaining chips)during the negotiation process. Therefore, grasping the bargaining chip is an important condition for winning the negotiation.

Before negotiating, you need to check the chips of both parties and classify these chips.

What is Must, you must do it yourself;

Which ones are Want, if you want them or not, we use them in exchange for other people’s things;

Which ones are Gives and can be sent out as favors.

After sorting, go to the negotiating table to exchange chips with the negotiating opponent. Therefore, before negotiating, you must examine yourself: What bargaining chip do you have? Which chips can attract each other? Which bargaining chips can make the other party give in?

First of all, we must clarify the negotiation, probably for two reasons: one is that the cost of non-negotiation is too high. The other is that the benefits of negotiation are large enough. The high cost of non-negotiation is the thrust, which pushes us to the negotiating table; the high benefit of negotiation is the pull, which pulls us to the negotiating table.

Between this push and pull,conditions for negotiation are created. To increase your bargaining chips and make the other party willing to negotiate with you, you must seek strength between this push and pull. In any case, when our strength is still small, we must have a proactive attitude, looking for possibilities in the seemingly impossible, and feasibility in the seemingly infeasible, and we must never give up on ourselves and have victims. Psychologically, trying to avoid responsibility. On the contrary, we must have a responsible bearer’s mentality and be 100%responsible for ourselves. Only in this way can we strive for more at the negotiating table.

Normally, it is very unlikely that two parties with too great power disparity will sit down and negotiate. They don’t even have a basis for equal dialogue. Superpowers will not negotiate with small countries. Super political parties will not negotiate with small parties or factions because the power gap is too great, and A can defeat B. Why does A need to negotiate with B?

But classic cases have repeatedly shown us that disparity in power can also be negotiated, and the weaker party successfully negotiates and gains more.”Historical Records” records that Su Qin in the Warring States period was a commoner who used his own power to promote the integration of the six kingdoms of Shandong so that Qiang Qin did not dare to go out of Hanguguan for fifteen years. When Su Qin was impoverished, he had nothing, but he was able to negotiate with the kings of the six kingdoms and facilitated the king of the six kingdoms to form an alliance against Qin. All smart negotiators have a proactive, self-confident and responsible attitude towards life without exception. Without such qualities, negotiation is powerless.

From the above examples, it can be seen that the two parties with the disparity in power can sit down and negotiate, and the result of the negotiation can be fulfilled. The key is that we need to know under what circumstances can both parties sit down and negotiate? Just like my student, how can he negotiate with powerful customers and achieve satisfactory results? Let me share with you some strategies to increase bargaining chips:

Adequate preparations should be made before negotiations.

The road to success in negotiations is”prepare, prepare, and prepare again.”It is essential to understand cultural differences before the negotiation.

Negotiation preparations include negotiation background, assessment of people and situation, facts that need to be verified during the negotiation process, agenda, best alternatives, and concession strategies.

All these preparations must consider possible cultural differences. For example, cultural differences in venue layout may have a negative impact on cooperation. If the room is arranged improperly and casually in a culture with a heavier hierarchy, it may cause the other party to be uneasy or even angry.

Cultural differences must be handled correctly in negotiations. In the choice and use of negotiation language, we must adopt an outward-looking communication method for Western countries and try to express our thoughts in a simple, clear, and frank manner.

For example, Americans have a soft spot for argument, their language is confrontational, and their tone is decided. They believe that argument is the right to express personal opinions and conducive to solving problems.

In Eastern culture, in order to preserve the face of both parties, the face of the group or the face of others, ambiguous and indirect language is often used. Even if they do not agree with the other party’s opinions, they rarely directly reject or refute them and instead state their opinions in a circuitous manner.

In terms of negotiation methods, taking China and the United States as an example, because the Oriental thinking model is a holistic orientation, the method they adopt in the negotiation is from the whole to the part, from large to small, from general to specific. However, because their analytical thinking mode influences Westerners, they pay the most attention to the logical relationship between things and emphasize the concrete over the whole, and they are eager to discuss specific terms at the beginning of the negotiation.

Get as much information as possible. Now is the era of information explosion. Whoever has the information has more bargaining chips in his hands. Headquarters personnel in an enterprise have a lot of information, such as information about special product promotions, information about company support policies, and personnel arrangements.

Therefore, every time the branch manager returns to the headquarters for a meeting, he must establish a good relationship with the headquarters personnel. The most important purpose is to get relevant information in advance at any time and make preparations. However, information is time-sensitive, and it must be exchanged in a timely manner to be valuable. If it is not exchanged, there will be no way to create value. In many cases, production personnel and R&D personnel who have not been trained in a negotiation often become the breakthrough point for each other’s temptation, because the production and R&D colleagues often speak without shielding and say what they have to say. The true information will be revealed to the other party, which is often bad.

1. Try to make others like you

As long as you think about it seriously, people who like to say”what is wrong with others” are like”what is wrong with others”.Why would you say so? Because people have subjective judgments, it is impossible to do the right things and wrong people. Whether it is a person or a person, it is a person’s thing in the final analysis, so when a person evaluates an event or another person, he is actually judging the person who is related to the event.

Therefore, the phrase”right to the matter and not to the person” is inherently biased. Because everyone was not born yesterday, they have their own subjective judgments and emotions in the process of getting along with others. I have also told some of my private students saying that”it’s not the right thing to the person” is to lie to myself. If the”right to the matter and not to the person” is correct, then the”first impression” cannot be mentioned, at least it will not become so important.

So you have to make others willing to negotiate with you and increase your bargaining chips. The first point is to try to make others like you. The two words” like”will play a very important role. If I can give it to you or him, I will give it to you if I like it. That is to say, under the same conditions,” like”It played a key role. This is the emotional orientation of people. Although we don’t admit it, we think so in our hearts.

So I often warn my colleagues in my company to pay attention to their dress and etiquette, because this directly affects the impression you give to customers. The impression you give to others can completely form part of your bargaining chip with others, but this part of the bargaining chip is What is hidden and not visible is intangible, but it does not mean that it does not exist. If you can’t make the other party like you, at least don’t let the other party hate you. If the other party hates you once, then the negotiation will never go on.

2. Build momentum.

Building momentum is not something mysterious and mysterious, it is a psychological layout that uses the priority of the person’s psychological acceptance of the object. Building momentum is accompanied by the aura. Every time I hold a negotiation course, I will regard the selection and layout of the venue as an important task, because when the students enter the class, I not only make them feel comfortable and happy, but also Let them see a lot of elements related to the negotiation in it, the purpose is to get the other party to participate, and only by participating can there be approval.

One of my trainees is the general manager of a small company. He once complained to me that the company’s corporate culture and rules and regulations have little effect on employees. I asked him how these corporate culture and rules and regulations were formulated. He said that it took him a week to figure it out, and other colleagues did not participate in the process. Later I told him that if employees did not participate in this process, there would be no approval, and without approval, there would be no implementation. You may wish to seek their opinions and appropriately modify the company’s corporate culture and rules and regulations. Later, he did what I told him. As a result, the enthusiasm and execution ability of the employees were greatly improved.

The most important point in building momentum is how to turn your concerns into issues that both you and the other party care about. Only in this way, the other party will participate and negotiate with you. If you only care about your problem, you will Go home and cry silently.

3. Hold the Unity League.

When your strength is small, and you want to negotiate with an opponent who is stronger than you, you can consider finding other people to work together to form a solidarity alliance.

By cooperating with others, you can become stronger so that you can increase your bargaining chips.

You can find a strong cooperation platform to link with. Many current”group buying” models operate in this way. Put your products on the”group buying” platform and you can negotiate with consumers.

In addition, if you can’t influence the other party’s decision-making in the negotiation, there must be another person who will influence his decision-making. You only need to find him, cooperate with him and you can do whatever you want. Years of negotiating experience tells me that it is not difficult to use strength to increase the bargaining chips, hold the trump card tightly, and use strength and build momentum are essential.

In short, a bargaining chip usually refers to who is asking for whom. At the negotiating table, you have to figure out your position in the negotiation and then wrestle with the other party.To make yourself more advantageous and powerful at the negotiating table, you must increase your bargaining chips.