The document outlines strategic negotiation techniques, emphasizing the importance of understanding the context, relationships, and emotions involved. It provides a series of steps on assessing the negotiating situation, defining goals, and choosing negotiation styles while also advising on how to gather data and anchor the deal effectively. Key pitfalls to avoid include failing to know the players, their priorities, and the significance of relationships in achieving successful outcomes.

1. Strategic Negotiation
Created By: Kelby L. Schwender
Business Administration student, Penn State

2. Bottom-Line Insight
Do not burn bridges or break relationships/partnerships over your wants and
needs.

3. Assess the Situation- Defining the context
● The first step in any negotiating process is defining and understanding the context
you’re operating in.
○ You have to understand the strategic environment of the negotiation in order to be successful.
There are several steps in defining the context
1. Who is the decision maker?
2. Define your goals.
3. What are the outcomes that are in play? What’s at stake?
a. When you look at the final negotiation, what are those possible end states. What do you risk losing?
What do you risk gaining?
4. Define the other options you’re considering.

4. Assess the Situation- Understanding relationships
● As you look at the negotiations you are entering within, understand:
○ Who the players are.
○ What the relationship dynamic is.
■ Once you are understanding of your relationship, adjust your negotiating approach appropriately.
● Relationships in any negotiation are critical; you have to step back and look at the
players and really appreciate how important the relationship is to you, how valuable
the relationship is to your opponent.
○ If the relationship long-term or short-term?

5. Assess the Situation- Choosing a style
● When entering into a negotiation think through the importance of the relationship and
the importance of the outcome.
● It is encouraged that you should be deliberate when you enter a negotiation in
choosing a specific style of negotiating.
○ This could have huge implications for how much value you get out of that particular situation, as well
as how important, and how strong, those future relationships are going to be.
■ First look at choosing a style of negotiating, understand the importance of the relationship.
■ Look at the importance of the outcome of that specific negotiation.
● Low importance- there’s not a lot of value on the table.
● High importance- there’s a lot of money for your organization.
● High-risk outcome.

6. Assess the Situation- Considering emotions and fairness
● Two things you must understand as you enter any negotiation are the impacts of
emotions and fairness.
○ Do not make the mistake of creating bad emotions and bad feelings, it can lead to bad outcomes in your
negotiation.
● Spend some time in your negotiations and think through, how would I feel if I was on
the other side of this offer? Would I feel good or would I feel bad?
○ Think about how you position your offers to make sure you take advantage of feelings of emotions and
fairness in the deal.

7. Gather Data- Understanding players and positions
● Having a good knowledge of the players and the positions they are going to take in
any negotiation is going to set you up for success.
○ Helps you look at how they’re coming at the deal, and the points you should either push on or be
willing to concede.
There are four things you should consider about your opponent
1. Who’s involved in the negotiation, and who ultimately makes the deal?
2. What are the must-haves, the want to haves and the nice to haves?
3. What’s you desired outcome from their perspective? And what happens if there’s no
deal?
4. What are the alternatives to the deal? (You are not the only option our there).

8. Gather Data- Understanding the deal structure
● Deal struct is going to impact your negotiation approach.
There are several things you should look at as you lay out what the structure is:
1. What are the objective criteria that exist and what are the assumptions you’re making
about the deal structure? Are there financial criteria that you’re going to look at?
2. Understand the barriers to the deal.
3. When does the deal need to be done?
a. Understand the impact on timing. What’s the value of doing a deal now versus waiting?
4. Understand what would expand the pie.
● Understand what could make this a better deal for all parties involved. Understand
additional things that you could bring into the deal.
By understanding the deal structure, you’re going to be able to identify
opportunities to get a better deal as well as make the deal easier.

9. Gather Data- Anchoring the deal
● Anchors are initial points from which you are going to negotiate.
○ They can lock you into a position and unfair anchors can kill a deal.
● When you have to set an anchor, base it in reality with data or assumptions (basis in
fact).
● As you enter into deals, be very aware of what those anchors are and how they can
shape the final outcome of the negotiation.
○ Be deliberate about putting an anchor out there and offering facts and data to support your ingoing
point.
The starting point is going to have a huge effect on the final
negotiation price.

10. Make a Deal- Defining your goals
● Before even entering into conversations with the other party, you have to define your
goals.
● You have to understand what your alternatives are going to be.
○ Know when you have to achieve success and when do you need to stop negotiating.
Consider several things for your side of the negotiation:
1. Who’s involved from your side, and who’s ultimately going to make the decision?
2. Think through your must-haves, want to haves, and nice to haves.
3. Lay out what’s the desired outcome and what happens if there’s no deal.
4. Lay out what are your alternatives to a deal.
By laying out your position, you’re going to be able to go into negotiations knowing
what you want and also understand what’s going to get you approval on your side
of the deal.

11. Make a Deal- Sequencing the deal
● There is a sequence in every deal.
○ The reason sequence matters is you don’t want to give away things too early in the process.
■ When you make a story line that makes your position make sense, and make it seem like the right
thing to do at every step of the way; your odds of being successful in negotiation go up.
○ Understand your counterpart is going to have their own story.
● When you lay out your negotiating strategy, make sure you think through all the
elements you’re trying to negotiate for, and be deliberate in the sequence that you
bring those things up.
○ You can always return on something later.
● Make sure the story line make sense, and go through it sequentially, so you can
ultimately get what’s most important to you.

12. Make a Deal- Negotiating techniques
● Each of these techniques can be very effective but they also hold their downsides. Be deliberate around
picking the technique and understanding the risks that come along with it.
○ Invisible man; where you’re in the heat of a deal dna you don’t want to give your answer right now,
and you don’t like the position that the other party is taking, and you just say, “well, I have to check
with my colleagues before I can give you an answer.”
○ Bogey; act like something you don’t care about at all, is really important to you. And then as you go
through the deal, fight hard for that one point but then you can trade it away later.
○ Nibble; this is done right at the last minute, right before you get a deal, ask for something extra.
○ Future Value; this is where you promise more value tomorrow in exchange for concessions today.
○ Multiple Rounds; every time you think you have a deal done, there’s one more negotiator they didn’t
tell you about, and you have to satisfy their needs.

13. Measure and Adjust- Assessing what happened
● Throughout the negotiation, you should be constantly assessing what’s happening.
○ See what was a plus or a minus versus the last round of negotiation.
● Assessment can help you identify topics that recur and also areas where they’re more
willing to make concessions.
○ Be very aware of prior offers that you make.
○ Be sure to have documentation.
○ Understand what negotiation techniques they are using.
● Make sure you take the time to pause and assess what’s going well, what’s not.
○ What are they pushing on and what are they willing to concede?
○ Think through how what’s going to impact your overall negotiating strategy and the position you take
in subsequent rounds.

14. Measure and Adjust- Changing your approach
● You can change your approach, even during the negotiation; you do not have to
maintain your initial approach or initial position.
○ You might even change your anchor.
● As you are going through your deal process, think through the approach you are
taking now, and if there are changed that you can make, as well as what the impact of
those changes might be.
● Be willing to change approach, but only do so when you fully understand the benefits
and the risks of doing so.

15. Measure and Adjust- Setting up future deals
● You have to realize ‘this’ deal sets up future deals.
○ Every deal sets precedent for the next one.
● Look at the negotiation you’re going through, think through.
○ Will I be happy with the precedent I’m setting now the next time around?
■ If not, think about changing the precedent for next time.
● Think through multiple deals and the sequence of those events can help you drive a
lot more value out of your negotiations.

16. Avoiding common pitfalls
Four most common pitfalls (that you want to avoid):
1. Not knowing the players or the process.
2. Not knowing what’s important to them or to you.
3. Improper anchors.
4. Burning relationships.
REMEMBER, you have to know what’s important to them and to
you.