Negotiating Away From Home

Whilst most people spend a lot of time thinking about their negotiation strategies, very few people actually take into consideration the environment they will be negotiating in.

Of course not every negotiation will be under your control, and sometimes you may have no choice over where the upcoming negotiations will be held.

You can however help to make such environments much more receptive for you to negotiate in, thereby giving you that extra advantage during the negotiation process.

In the sections below we shall have a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of negotiating in different locations, and how you can use them to improve your overall negotiation skills.

Negotiating In Familiar Territory

Negotiating on home turf, such as in your office or your study at home, can provide you with many advantages when you negotiate.

Since you already have all the information, equipment and staff at hand you are likely to feel the most comfortable in this environment.

Therefore it is generally best to try and negotiate on your home turf whenever possible, as you will find that your negotiation skills will be at their best.

However negotiating on your home turf can have its disadvantages, because as a good negotiator you must be able to apply your negotiation skills to any environment.

If you become used to negotiating only from your office, then you are likely to feel uncomfortable in unfamiliar territory and your negotiation skills will suffer as a result.

So whilst it may be preferable to negotiate in a familiar environment, as your negotiation skills improve this should become less of an issue for you.

It is also worth bearing in mind that negotiating in someone else’s office can very often be better for you, especially if your opponent likes to claim that they “forgot” to bring certain documents with them. By meeting in their office, you can neutralise this evasion tactic.

There are also times when it may not be possible to transport large quantities of documents from one location to another, and so it would be far easier for the negotiations to be held where the documents are.

As a result, having good negotiation skills means being a flexible negotiator. One who is able to readily adapt to their environment no matter where they are.

Negotiating In Someone Else’s Office

Whenever you visit someone else’s office you can quickly gain a lot of information about them.

For example, they may have pictures or awards which indicate interests they have, and usually something about their family situation.

These are subjects that could be used to quickly create rapport before you begin to negotiate.

The state of a person’s office can also tell you if they are a messy or neat person, their taste in furnishings, and often, how busy they actually are.

The location of a person’s office can reveal to you their relative importance within that company.

Are they near the higher powered people in that organisation, or is their office further away? Do they have a big office with lots of window space, or a smaller darker office?

All of this information can help you to better understand who you will be negotiating with.

The more you know about them the better you will be able to relate to them, and the better you will be able to decide upon which negotiation tactics you are going to use.

The main disadvantage of carrying out a negotiation in unfamiliar territory is that your resources may be somewhat limited.

Despite your best preparations, there are likely to be times when you need access to information which you don’t have at hand.

Since you are away from home, getting such information is going to be more difficult and will take longer. However an experienced negotiator, who has someone on standby, should be able to deal with such situations in a timely manner.

Overall once your negotiation skills begin to improve, negotiating away from home won’t seem so intimidating as you will become more confident in your ability to perform.

As your away from home negotiation skills improve, you will also find that your at home negotiation skills will improve at an even greater level.