Negotiation Skills: Contract Negotiation

Course Overview

The art of successful contract negotiation is the very core of commercial success. It is the crucial factor, not just for the 'up-front' negotiator, but also for the support team settling problems that arise after the contract has been agreed.

In today's competitive business world, few things are more important than knowing the basics of commercial law and knowing how to best arrive at a good deal which will yield the best commercial results at minimum risk.

This one-day seminar covers the key elements of contract law, provides an analysis and survey of negotiating methods and skills and will offer a non-threatening environment in which to test your own skills in negotiating in syndicate exercises.

Audience

• Commercial managers
• Contracts and purchasing managers and executives
• Finance managers
• Sales support team members
• Business development managers

... and all those concerned with negotiating the terms of sales and purchase contracts, seeking to get the best deal.

Skills Gained

This seminar will equip you to deal effectively with all aspects of contract negotiation - not just the tactics and techniques for a particular meeting, but all of the prior events as well as the actions that should be taken following the agreement.

During the course of the day you will:

• Learn how to arrive at a good deal which will yield the best commercial results at minimum risk
• Update your knoweldge on the basics of contract law
• Explore the strategy of negotiation
• Participate in some practical negotiating exercises

Designed especially for those negotiating with customers, this seminar will bring you the skills, techniques and knoweldge that you need for success - book a place today!

Course Outline

Professional contract negotiation - an introduction and exercise

• 'The Insurance Claim' - agreeing a sum of money
• Limbering up
• Who stands behind the negotiators?
• When to complete and when to combine
• Weighing up the other side
• Bargaining power
• Dos and don'ts

What is negotiable? - A canter through contract law

• Common Law, Statute and Equity
• How the EU fits in
• Rules for a valid contract
• How contracts can be frustrated
• What happens when things go wrong
• Traps for the unwary
• Who has the authority
• The sale of goods and services
• Recent cases and changes in the law

Negotiation strategy

• This session includes team exercises and the showing of the video
• Negotiation: a life skill
• Principled deals: the Harvard Law school system
• Lasting business relationships need trust
• A liar needs a good memory
• Taming the trickster
• Preparing to negotiate
• Desk research
• Our best interests
• Their best interests
• Knowing our own team and colleagues
• Perceiving the other team and their colleagues
• What to do if we don't get a deal
• Avoiding dangers of the quick deal
• 'In a good deal, everybody benefits'

Team negotiating

• Setting up the team
• Training the team
• Working together
• Playing at home and away
• Back up at home
• Location and timing
• The agenda
• Who leads and when? Passing the ball
• Washing up when the job is done
• Negotiating in groups
• Leaders in groups

The contract variation

• Mastering the brief
• Predicting the other sides' objectives
• Planning the approach
• Maintaining progress
• Carrying out the strategy
• Getting a result

Negotiation

• First steps in negotiation
• Exploring the ground
• Preliminary discussion
• Not getting bowled middle stump
• Detailed bargaining - the 'if' and 'when'
• Summing up the deal
• The post mortem

Tactics and tricks of negotiating

• A survey of the manoeuvrings that can go on around the negotiating table, with some of the antidotes that may be applied
• The emotions - shouting and pleading
• When to drink brandy and when to eat garlic
• The Hard Man and the Soft Man
• The Russian Man
• 'You'll have to do better than that!'
• The Chinese Krunch
• Negotiating by phone, fax and e-mail
• The emotions - when to shout out and when to weep
• When to offer gifts and when to refrain
• Ploys
• Pressure tactics

Negotiation Skills: Contract Negotiation / PD-NSCN