From the course: When Negotiation's about More than Money: How to Negotiate (Almost) Anything

Seven opportunities to negotiate

From the course: When Negotiation's about More than Money: How to Negotiate (Almost) Anything

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Seven opportunities to negotiate

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- I think there are seven particular situations when a buyer should definitely negotiate. The first one is when you've got a good plan B. If you've got another supplier also offering you something similar or even perhaps cheaper, then you absolutely should negotiate. But if you've got somebody who's offering you the same thing but cheaper, why not just buy it from them? Well, I'm thinking that you should at least give them a chance to come down and equal or perhaps improve on that price, 'cause you never know, you might get it even cheaper. And if it's an existing supplier, I think you should at least give them a chance to negotiate. So that's my first one. If you've got a good plan B, you should absolutely negotiate with person A. Second situation is if you're not desperate to have it. Maybe you're thinking of having an office refurbishment but you're not too bothered. Or perhaps it's going into a not very profitable product, so then you're not that keen to even do the job. So then you're in a strong negotiating position. My third situation is if you've got plenty of time. So if there's ages before you need to buy it then you've got a bit of time to negotiate and you absolutely should give it a try. Next is if you can't really afford something don't just walk away but negotiate anyway. So for example, if there's a really top-quality supplier who you'd like to buy from but you can't really justify buying from them why not give them a chance to quote anyway and then why not ring them up and say "We got your quote, we like it, but it's unfortunately slightly out of our league just a bit. But if you could come down a bit we could buy from you and we would love that. So can you come down a bit in price?" So rather than just walk away and think I can't afford it, give it a go. The next situation where I think your negotiating light should really switch on is if it seems like a bargain already. So even if it seems like a total bargain you should still negotiate. And in fact, one of the questions is why is it a bargain? Because they're probably keen to sell it for some reason so therefore they're probably up for a negotiation already. In fact if something's reduced that should absolutely switch on your negotiating light. So just because it's a bargain doesn't mean you should pay the full price. Maybe you can get it even more cheaply. Next is my little thing of instead of yes or no. So instead of "Yes, okay I'll pay even though the price is a bit high" or "No, I can't afford that," you've always got the third option of negotiating. And then finally, when you have a complaint. Suppose that last time they supplied the product it arrived late or the quality wasn't brilliant or the packaging or the paperwork wasn't right or suppose that their specification isn't perfect for what you want, then why not use that as a chance to negotiate? Or maybe you're giving a new supplier a chance, you've got a good existing supplier, it's a chance to say to them "Well, we're going to give you a chance but you're going to have to make it a really attractive price or we're not going to do it." And complaint can mean all sorts of things. It doesn't have to mean that they're bad. So for example, suppose they're not local to you and you'd rather have a local supplier who you could go and see every now and then if you had to, then what you can do is you can say to them "We'd like to buy from you but unfortunately you're not based near us and that is an issue for us, but if the price was good enough, then we'd be interested." So anything about them that's not perfect should give you grounds to start a negotiation.

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