5 steps to help you navigate negotiations effectively and regain control. The post Negotiations falling short? 5 Steps to Get Your Negotiation Power Back to Leverage AI in Your Next Negotiation appeared first on Positive - Procurement transformation, expert training for improved purchasing and procurement ..read more

Join our webinar on 3 December on how to leverage procurement tech for negotiation success. The post WEBINAR | Negotiating in the digital age: how to leverage procurement tech for negotiation success appeared first on Positive - Procurement transformation, expert training for improved purchasing and procurement ..read more

Expert negotiator Jonathan O’Brien shares how to interpret body language in your next negotiation. The post Every Body’s Talking: Learning to Interpret Body Language appeared first on Positive - Procurement transformation, expert training for improved purchasing and procurement ..read more

Jonathan O’Brien considers employing the decoy, one of a range of negotiation tactics at your disposal. The post Negotiation tactics: How having a decoy in your repertoire can get you the result you want. appeared first on Positive - Procurement transformation, expert training for improved purchasing and procurement ..read more

Marcus Evans has been advising us for over ten years and is also a senior instructor on our Red Sheet® advanced negotiation course. Before this, he spent 30 years in advertising, running agencies for Ogilvy, BBDO and TBWA, where he spent a good proportion of his time selling to enterprise clients. He makes no secret of the fact that he has never enjoyed his negotiations and interactions with his client’s procurement teams, so we thought – as he has now “come over to the Dark Side” as he puts it – we’d take the opportunity to find out why.   Long Ago and Far Away I think there are broadly ..read more

The Fact Is We All Negotiate Whether it’s with our partner, our parents, children, friends, suppliers, customers or even our colleagues, when we want somebody to do something, we may well need to persuade them. And this is very much what negotiation is – persuading somebody else to either see something our way, or to do something that we want. It is also true that some of us are better negotiators than others. The good news is that everyone can learn to become a better negotiator and one area that we can certainly improve is learning to read the other party.   Our Subconscious Mind Can Gi ..read more

Be yourself and play to your strengths, advises global negotiation master Jonathan O’Brien, and it is OK to bluff – provided you don’t get caught! Jonathan shares some tried and tested tactics guaranteed to make you a more accomplished negotiator. Negotiation is a game – a performance if you like. You can be completely honest and open, or you can choose to bluff (bend the truth). You can be hard-nosed and stubborn or friendly and accommodating. There is no “one size fits all approach” – the right approach is the one that suits your personality. Nice or nasty is too simplistic, it is more; ass ..read more

Jonathan O’Brien, CEO of Positive Purchasing, explores the concept of repertoire in negotiation and use of the decoy tactic. A negotiation is a performance of sorts. Unsurprising then that, along with process and personality, repertoire is often referred to as a fundamental component of effective negotiation. Usually associated with comedians or other performers, a repertoire is the entire range of material that can be delivered. Where a performer’s repertoire might include jokes and songs, a negotiator’s repertoire contains skills and behaviours. Effective negotiators build a strong repertoi ..read more

Positive CEO Jonathan O’Brien, considers the importance of language during a negotiation, and how tone of voice and phraseology can be used to help drive things in the direction you want. He explores the subtle nuances we use everyday, and considers ways in which we can proactively embrace these to gain competitive advantage. You might think that negotiation is about understanding our power, doing our homework, using good tactics and managing concessions. And you would be right…it’s all of those things. But there are other crucial components of negotiating well, including body language, what w ..read more

Antony Fisher of spend intelligence specialists, Mintec, explains how cost modelling can generate real advantage for procurement professionals. In a world of fake news, it’s easy for procurement people to make assumptions and take things for granted. But imagine if we knew exactly what it costs our suppliers to manufacture something or provide a service. Negotiation would be simple as we would understand exactly where to aim. If we also knew how prices would change over time we could work out when to buy or sell. Some people have spent lifetimes trying to figure this out. Imagine if we could d ..read more