Soft Skills You Need to Perfect Before Negotiating | Calibr
Soft skills are the kind of personal and interpersonal skills that help one negotiate through tricky situations. Therefore, try winning half the battle before it even starts
Negotiations for a job offer, an appraisal, or for a promotion could be a double-edged sword. You can do your best but you can never really be sure. There are factors beyond your reach which may affect the decision and a lot may depend on the context. But that does not mean that one goes unprepared into the battle.
Soft skills are the kind of personal and interpersonal skills that help one negotiate through tricky situations. These skills have less to do with your performance and efficiency but more to do with the way you handle a situation or express yourself. These skills and their mastery goes a long way in projecting you as an individual and in reflecting your personal worth to a company.
So, what does one need to do?
Listen and observe
Listening and observing are skills which will hold you in good stead no matter where you are or what you do. They are the secret weapons of the great as consuming information and processing them silently is what matters when you need an edge over someone else. Listening to the person and observing the behaviour of the negotiator would help you adapt to a situation and you may then act accordingly. This helps in shifting the negotiation in your favor.
Articulate your thoughts
The most important thing in a negotiation is for you to present yourself in the best way possible. Remember that you are not begging but pitching yourself and hence, your confidence matters. Articulating your thoughts and expectations in a simple and precise manner helps in creating clarity and bringing the other person on the same page. A good articulator usually ends up as a good negotiator.
Be ready to reject or for rejection
The mental preparedness for any eventuality is the hallmark of great minds. People who have succeeded would tell you that they have often prepared themselves for the worst. The fact is that when you are ready to reject an offer or are ready to accept a rejection, you are already prepared for the worst of it. It frees you to negotiate clearly and takes the pressure of a ‘no’ away.
Be ready with a counter-offer
There are multiple ways of reaching the same target and anyone in any industry would tell you that there are different ways of achieving the same things. So, when you have set yourself to a particular valuation, try exploring various means of getting the same. If the company rejects a basic salary hike, look for more variables. Simply speaking, be ready with an alternative to propose. Chances are they would not be able to say no twice.
Do not undervalue yourself
The most important thing in any negotiation is that you do not walk away with less than what you have. Know your worth, understand your exact value for the company, and if possible, try assessing yourself from the negotiator’s point of view. A realistic self-evaluation would help you understand your own worth and also the extent to which you can bargain.
Finally, once you have reached the negotiation table, just sit back, relax and have a conversation. The situation isn’t a debate nor is it a place to be hostile. Your cool and composed manner would help turn the tides even when you find yourself in a storm.
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Originally published at Calibr.
