Top Tips: Bridging the Gap in International and Digital Negotiations Highlight Reel

Hello my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations and we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership and lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

It's a great question and you are quite right. Before we can think about negotiating with our third parties externally, we've got to negotiate with our internal colleagues and all the business stakeholders who influence the buy in so many ways, as you say, and sustainability is one element of that, and I think a great way to do it is to use the information that our suppliers are giving us. The reason why we've chosen to use suppliers instead of just doing the work ourselves is because we believe they are experts, they know the market and they know the products and services better than we can and they give us access to advantage that we can't do by ourselves. So why not access their knowledge about their own supply chains, about what they are doing to support small and medium sized businesses or to engage with overseas communities? Because they're a massive wealth of information and data. Back to the listening. Right, you said it. You listen, you learn along the way. So making use of the supplier information really helps to form that business case internally. And I don't see those internal conversations in any way as barriers or any sort of area of conflict. Quite the opposite. The more opportunities we have to negotiate internally, the more chance we have to build those relationships, to establish rapport and to find a way of working that. Ultimately, when we negotiate and we've got to hand over that deal to our colleagues internally to manage on a day to day basis, they totally get it, they're bought into it, they know the right behaviors to use that match the relationship that we're looking for. And if that does include things like conflict resolution and problem solving, let's make sure they've got those skills early. And the best way to get those skills out into the community is through negotiation. That's exactly what negotiation is all about. Even with our colleagues, same process of creativity and finding out needs and testing and questioning and through those discussions, ensuring that our colleagues know the facts about the choices that we're making and how that impacts the sustainability choice, but also that they're aware that we have to present a united front as an organization in negotiation. And we can't be having those discussions where you're nudging, nudging the person next to you saying stop it, stop talking, don't do, don't say that. You know, we've got to come together before the external negotiation and agree a team approach. Because when we condition effectively and we can, you know, hand over to our colleagues and say, hey, you know, my colleague has a perspective about that too. And you're completely saying the same narrative, that same stories coming through about your needs, it's powerful. So to me, those conversations about sustainability are a wonderful vehicle and a gateway to engage the supply market and get their expertise and to engage our internal colleagues. So I see it as an absolute benefit for everybody.

Oh, this is great. I feel like our whole episode could be on that. So I think that might be the next time you come back we'll go deeper into this. That's fantastic. And so when we talk about, and shifting into the second point here, when we talk about international negotiations versus our standard domestic negotiations, what are some of the key differences that we need to keep in mind between those two types of negotiation?

Yeah, it's a great point. Getting into cross cultural negotiation. And when we're speaking people who maybe don't share the same first language as us and have different cultural references and perhaps slightly different accounting systems, all of these things impact the negotiation. And I think for all of our negotiators, again, something like the compassioning listening, compassionate listening framework is a great starting point to ensure that the listening ears are on that we're striving to listen more than we are to talk so that we fully understand and give our cross cultural counterparts an opportunity to really explore and explain so we can get to the bottom of some of the root causes behind their positions or their needs or their goals. But also I think to take a bit of a step back when we're thinking about the need, explore and expand on emotion because I think cross culturally emotion may have a slightly different role to play. It may well be that our colleagues from other cultures see talking about emotion as an irrelevance. They may see it as something a little threatening, they may think that it's soft in some way and that it's taking away from the business of negotiation. And so I think we need to approach it, you know, perhaps obliquely, you know, from a slightly different perspective, because the reality is everybody still has these emotions as human beings. We all feel the fear of rejection, the anxiety, the pressures from our boss, as you say, to secure the deal. This is true regardless of the country or the culture we're negotiating with. And the importance, I think, of allowing people to save face, to not feel pushed, insulted.

You know, I don't think that that's usually very advantageous.

So for somebody who is faced with that, how would you start the conversation when you're saying, hey, these standard terms, I'm using air quotes, as I say standard, provided me with in this docusign, they don't work for me. What would be the first step in having those negotiations?

Right. So I would actually go back to the first topic that we had, which is framing that interaction. So when I ask for a proposal, I don't want just what your costs are. I would ask for them to provide me any and all documents that I would be required to adhere to. And so I'm not saying sign because maybe a frontline sales rep doesn't hear that a EULA is a signature, though it carries the same weight and force of law. I want to know, inclusive of your privacy agreements, your click throughs, any of those types of things, what is included that I need to be reviewing so I can get a whole picture of the deal.

I like that. No, that's, that's a really great way to start. And then that essentially lets them know exactly what's going to happen next. Right. Because the only reason that you would ask for that is if they're, if it's going to be reviewed to some level. And so I think that's a really great way to open the conversation.

And you know, to some degree, not all of those. If you're, if you're talking about 50 bucks, you might just waive it. Right? But if you're talking 10,000 or more, these are things that you want to probably consider.

Exactly. No, I really like that. I really like that. And then I know we spent so much time on number one that I wish we could go into number two in more depth. But I want to make sure we still have time for number three. But before we do, I think this is a really great sign that means you're probably going to have to be a repeat guest. So that's good news.

Well, this is my favorite topic. I could talk about it all the time and loving. I absolutely love people who want to hear about it.

Fantastic. Well, this is the place for you. Perfect. Okay, so number three, how has the use of technologies changed how we conduct negotiations, including expectations related to speed and honesty? And we started to talk about this a lot in, in number one. But I really want to get deeper into the honesty side because whenever I talk about getting information from the other side in my workshops, inevitably somebody asks, what about dishonesty? What if I'm getting information, but it's not true information? So in these conversations digitally, what can we do to try to bet the information that we're getting?

Well, I was going to say the first thing that I try to take take inventory of is the information that I'm actually putting out. So does my email sound angry? Does it sound more forceful or disconnected than what I would normally sound like if I was speaking? And so for me, I want to start with reading those back to myself, both in my normal voice, like, oh, you know, dear so and so, hope you're having a nice day. And then, you know, go into those next places. And then I also want to do it with my, like, really nasty, naughty voice. Right. That's like, hey, how are you? Because we are going to assume, number one, that anything that we were that's received is probably going to be read in the worst version of ourselves. So even one thing, when we're detecting dishonesty, we're going to assume it more likely when we're encountering a digital space. I would ask that if you're trying to. When you're getting these types of things in writing, people discussing their state of being needs to be a timeout opportunity. If somebody's saying, like, I'm very angry, I'm very frustrated. I want to see these kinds of modifications to our price, yada, yada, yada. Right. I would say, great, I hear what you're saying. I want to take a time out and step back because you're expressing a lot of frustration. And I want to make sure that we've addressed that before we move on to anything else. I think it's like an opportunity for a ceasefire. But I would mirror that back to them and say, I'm receiving a lot of what appears to be conflicting information, or I'm receiving what seems to be like, extremely what I consider exaggerated or hyperbolic. But I think that this is an opportunity for us to level set and maybe start fresh because you're going to get people who are fairly meek or fairly quiet, but respond when they're doing an email like, this is a final notice. This is my absolute, you know, I am livid kind of stuff that they would never actually approach.

Happens a lot that you'll get an in to a specific function, whether it's it, whether it's marketing, whether it's, you know, someone in sales or research and development. And procurement is not brought in until they are well down the path and have already decided. And as a salesperson, ask for procurement to be brought in. If they're not brought in to some of those early discussions, ask for them to be brought in because they can be your advocate. And especially if it's not a one time sale and you're continuing to upsell or there are future bid opportunities, you want to build that bridge as early as possible. Because procurement is becoming more and more of a gatekeeper in these organizations. The cfo, the coo, they're looking to procurement to control who the company is doing business with. They're looking to control operations. And when you build that relationship early, they'll say, hey, they really wanted to work with us, we'll include them in these future opportunities. But if you are on the other end and you say, oh well, we just need to get the paperwork signed, procurement will remember that too and say, you're not a strategic partner here. You just wanted to close that deal. So you may have gotten that half million dollar deal, but it could have been $5 million or it could have been $10 million. So don't make that fatal mistake. Even if your chief revenue officer is saying, get the deal done, go around procurement. I coach my clients all the time. That is the worst thing you can do. And my clients can attest to the approach that I take and what I've taught them. Some of my clients, they have never had more business in the last nine months. And it's, you know, part of it is the coaching and the training that I've provided. But a lot of it is just working with procurement, right. And understanding how to speak their language and not treating them like they're tactical. Procurement is very strategic. They see across the value chain. So give them the credit that they deserve.

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