Goal Setting As A Negotiation Strategy

In this article we will be looking at the importance of goal setting as a negotiation strategy, and why if you want to be a successful negotiator you must learn to set yourself goals.

Having Good Negotiation Skills Involves Setting Goals

In order to achieve anything meaningful in life you need to set yourself goals. If you don’t set goals then you won’t know exactly what it is you are trying to achieve. In terms of negotiating with someone, this is a big mistake.

All negotiations should therefore have clearly defined goals. These goals are what you will use to negotiate with, and what will guide you through the negotiation process.

Having goals will also prevent you from getting less than you bargained for, especially when dealing with a skilled negotiator.

Goal Setting For Negotiations

One of the simplest ways to set goals for negotiations is to brainstorm ideas on a sheet of paper.

From these ideas you should then select whatever is most important and relevant to the person you are trying to negotiate with. These will be your negotiation goals.

Knowing what you want beforehand will allow your negotiation to stay focused and on track, and prevent you from ending up with something you didn’t want.

Generally speaking, the person with the strongest and clearest vision will tend to be the best negotiator. So make sure that person is you, by setting yourself clearly defined and specific goals.

If you find yourself in a position where you are unable to decide upon these goals before starting to negotiate, simply ask yourself “what do I want to achieve by negotiating with this person?”

Although this won’t give you as clear a picture, it will help you to stay focused and also to choose the best negotiation technique for the person you are in negotiations with.

All Good Negotiators Set Limits

Setting yourself a goal is not the only thing that needs to be done when preparing to negotiate, because all goals should have limits. These limits are the absolute minimum you will accept.

For example, if you are negotiating your salary and set yourself a limit of x amount of money, then you would try to negotiate for that amount and no lower.

If the other person can only offer you less that your limit you should refuse, and be prepared to walk away.

Setting yourself limits is a very important negotiating strategy, because if you don’t have limits you could put yourself in a position where you end up getting get far less than you originally intended.

This is because when you are in negotiations with someone the idea is to get as much as possible of what you want, which often means giving the other person as little as possible of what they want.

If you start to negotiate with someone and haven’t set any limits on your goals, then the other negotiator will continue to take and take from you until you have nothing left.

Limits will prevent this from happening, and act as your safety net during negotiations.

Summary

Effective negotiating involves knowing exactly what you want to achieve, and what you are willing to accept if things don’t turn out as planned.

This is done by setting yourself goals, and then using those goals to guide you as you negotiate with another person.