The Value of Negotiation Skills

It is difficult to overestimate the value of a strong negotiation skill set. When you improve your negotiation skill level, you gain the ability to increase value in numerous aspects (personal or business) of your life simply by increasing the effectiveness of your communication skills. Negotiation training pays for itself many times over within a few weeks.

Negotiation Training: Maximize Your Value

S.A.B. negotiation training is designed to maximize your take-home value. This page briefly describes the value you will gain from negotiation skills training:

Utilize a proven practical negotiation framework;
Create and maximize value in all your negotiations;
Acquire tactics and skills for dealing with difficult negotiators;
Grasp guidelines for negotiating in different situations;
Increase negotiation skills for building and maintaining relationships;
Avoid being cheated;
Gain tools for strengthening negotiating positions;
Negotiate with confidence;
Learn tools for dealing with cross-cultural issues; and
Practice your negotiation skills with realistic exercises

A Proven Practical Negotiation Framework Addresses Both Substantive and Relationship Issues:

Studies show that in 75% of all negotiations, both parties of the negotiation wait to see what the other party will do before they decide what to do themselves. What that means is that a person who has any negotiation framework in mind will gain an enormous advantage in the negotiation. With a proven framework, you will be able to set the agenda, establish the tone of the negotiation and direct how the negotiation proceeds.

The S.A.B. Negotiation Training model is applicable to any form of communication between two or more parties looking to reach agreement on a set of issues. The principals of S.A.B. Negotiation Training have applied the negotiating model to negotiations in a wide range of industries. Participants in our negotiation training have included individuals and companies from six different continents across a wide spectrum of professions, including diplomats, CEO's, high-level executives of Fortune 500 companies, consultants, doctors, lawyers, judges, accountants, and government civil servants.

Create and Maximize the Value from All of your Negotiations:

In over 90% of all negotiations, people think of the value in a negotiation as a piece of pie and work to get as much of the pie as they can. In fact, it is very rarely the case that the size of the pie is rigidly defined. S.A.B. negotiation training teaches you how to get the most out of the existing pie and how to make the pie even bigger, thus, maximizing the value for yourself and your counterparts. After participating in our negotiation training, you will be enriched by opportunities for value creation that you would not have seen without taking one of our negotiation training seminars.

Tactics for Dealing with Difficult Negotiators:

Every one of us has dealt with at least one "nightmare" negotiator. Whether it's the person who won't stop talking, the one who won't talk at all, the stubborn negotiator, or any of a number of other difficult negotiators, S.A.B. negotiation skills training gives participants an opportunity to learn and experiment with different tools and techniques for dealing with difficult negotiators. S.A.B. negotiation training also provides general guidelines and negotiation skill sets for identifying and handling difficult negotiators.

Guidelines for Negotiating in Different Situations:

When most people think of negotiations, they think of situations related to business or, perhaps, the purchase of a home or a car. In reality, negotiation skill can be applied to almost every aspect of your life right down to your personal relationships. Recognizing the varying needs of our participants, S.A.B. Negotiation skills training provides instruction and guidance on how to apply general principles of negotiation to actual situations and circumstances.

Negotiation Skill for Building and Maintaining Relationships:

The negotiation model taught by S.A.B. Negotiation Training debunks the common myth that achieving the best substantive outcome requires sacrificing our relationships with our counterparts. S.A.B. Negotiation Training provides participants with the negotiation skills necessary to improve the substantive outcome they seek by improving their relationship with their counterparts.

Avoid Being Cheated:

You can't control whether or not someone will try to cheat you. What you "can" control is your own level of preparedness to recognize when someone is trying to cheat and what to do when it happens. S.A.B. Negotiation Training will provide you with tools and techniques which will help you identify when someone is trying to cheat you and how to change the game to your advantage.

Tools for Strengthening Negotiating Positions- as Perceived and in Reality:

Expert negotiators know how to strengthen their negotiating position in two ways:

Improving how their position is perceived by their counterpart- regardless of how strong their position actually is; and
Being able to view and adjust their situation and circumstances in such a way as to strengthen their actual negotiating position.

S.A.B. Negotiation Training defines the difference and value between the two methods and provides participants with the negotiation skill and tools to improve their negotiating positions from both points of view.

Negotiate with Confidence:

Good negotiators are aware of the intangibles of negotiation and communication. In particular, perceptions of which party possesses greater power and higher status and how such power and status is achieved can be especially influential in the final outcome. S.A.B. Negotiation Training uses a series of exercises to give participants the negotiation skills and tools to achieve confidence by establishing negotiating power and status in a positive manner.

Tools for Dealing with Cross-Cultural Issues:

The principals of S.A.B. Negotiation Training have developed a unique expertise in the area of cross-cultural negotiation. In today's global marketplace, adjusting our communication patterns and negotiating styles in acknowledgement of the different cultural paradigms of our counterparts can yield vastly improved agreements and relationships. S.A.B. Negotiation Training provides participants with the tools to make the appropriate adjustments for cross-cultural negotiations.

Application of S.A.B.'s Negotiating Model Using Exercises Licensed from the Harvard Negotiation Project:

Negotiating is learned more effectively by actively participating in skill-building exercises than it is taught by instructors. Utilizing teaching exercises licensed from the Harvard Negotiation Project, in addition to customized materials developed in-house, S.A.B. Negotiation Training places a heavy emphasis on giving participants the opportunity to apply negotiating tools through a series of "practice" negotiations based on real scenarios. A majority of our participants have told us that it is the practical component of our seminars which brings the art and skill of negotiation to life. By going through these exercises, participants learn by applying the negotiation skills, strategies, tools, and techniques that we teach in an environment where "mistakes" are largely cost-free.