Identifying and Using Your Currencies
Since deft use of currencies is fundamental to effective negotiation, knowing how to identify and use currencies is also fundamental.Currencies are benefits that the other party believes and values. To identify your currencies in a particular negotiation, ask yourself:
What are the reasons this particular person (or organization) would be favorable toward my offering?
For example, if you are trying to come to terms with a local store on a contract for a year's worth of advertising in your newspaper, your currencies would include the households receiving the paper who would consider shopping at the store, positioning of ads, and knowledge of the local market, including the store's competitors.
To get the most from your currencies, you need to build belief and value.
- Belief — You need to convince the other party that your currencies are for real. In the newspaper example, that means convincing the customer that your circulation data are accurate, that you'll follow through on ad positioning commitments, that the information you're sharing about the local market is up-to-date, etc. Obviously, earning the other person's trust is vital.
- Value — Present each currency in a way that makes it abundantly clear what the currency means to this particular person. I.e., explain in detail why the currency is valuable to the person; don't explain just part of the currency. For example, in discussing a newspaper's readership, it's important to explain vividly, citing credible evidence, how interested readers are in both the news and the ads, how readers actually use ads in the paper to plan their shopping, how they tear out and save ads that interest them, etc.
The classic guide to effective negotiation is Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William Ury.
Labels: Negotiation
posted by Karen Nelson @ 9:19 PM
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