"Successful Negotiation: Master Your Negotiating Skills" from Udemy - Review

"Successful Negotiation: Master Your Negotiating Skills" from Chris Croft, is all about successful negotiation strategies and tactics. In real life, we negotiate at all times whether that be in business or in our day-to-day incidents. Unknowingly, we already use many of the negotiation skills and techniques described in this course. But going through this course will help us organize our negotiating thoughts, help us understand the type of negotiation skills that we naturally use. This disciplined format will make our earlier scattered negotiations much more precise, powerful and result oriented.

Successful negotiation approaches mean a compromise to your benefit. One may not get all that he wished, but he may  save substantially or get something in return, that would have been zero in case of non-negotiation.

"Successful Negotiation: Master Your Negotiating Skills" from Udemy - Buy Now

The introductory video, logically, answers as to why we should negotiate. Wouldn’t it have been better to sell the product at a higher price or buy at a lower cost? When selling at a higher price, one has to spend additional on capex to make a superior product that would receive a premium. Similarly, production at lower input costs translates into additional investment in superior tools, lower raw material and lower manpower expenses. However in both of the  above cases, we find that considerable physical money and labour is needed from the start. Compared to such physical means, negotiation is a soft-power mental tool, which can save thousands even before one starts production or even before selling a product. 

Hence, understanding negotiation skills process is very important and this Udemy negotiation skills course, sometimes available at deep discounts, is an absolute read for anybody who wants a smarter deal, always.

Chris, in almost all video chapters,  offers real life funny anecdotes. These funny incidents not only emphasize one particular negotiating skills and the savings earned through it, but also leave a mark in viewer's mind. As a result the next time we are in the same situation, we recall that incident and it guides us toward better negotiation.

The program offers a preliminary but far reaching advice : structure the whole negotiation process. By structured negotiation, Chris means that the whole negotiation must be broken into predefined modules like planning, selecting the open offer price, the range of acceptable deviation, tradable, owns strong and weak points and the target price. A random logic may win occasional argument, but a well pre-planned structured negotiation wins brownie points consistently. We totally agree to this point, one must concede.

The first operational video after the introduction is aptly named "Deciding to do it". It tries to remove the mental block that restrains us from even thinking of negotiation. We can be lazy, shy, suffer from an inferiority complex or fear opposite party's overbearing persona. People also have self-pride that makes negotiation skills and techniques appear like a low stooping art but losing a couple of thousand dollars a more prestigious thing. This video tries to remove such mental blocks to negotiation, logically and humorously.

An honest but curt no or sticking to one's thought and decision during negotiation normally ends in communication breakdown. At other times, one reluctantly agrees to something inevitable,  but does it grudgingly. In such case he earns no goodwill, even if he completes the task. A better alternative can be negotiating for some benefits in return for that job. These benefits will make that job less tedious. It may even motivate the unwilling to do the job for those benefits. 

In the next video, Chris explains this gentle bargaining process effectively with day to day funny examples. He terms it as Win-Win tactics.

The next session deals with creating the structured negotiation. This chapter details breaking into and deciding the negotiation’s opening price, the factors that should determine this price, how to tackle the counteroffers that might come, target price and the level of deviation which one should tolerate.

Chris then zooms on four important negotiation strategies and tactics. One includes the tactics of keeping up a constant little pressure to bring the argument more nearer to your favor. Another technique is Salami, where instead of bargaining on the whole, small separate issues are taken on. Chris also lays open the strategy to force the other disclose their opening price. Countermeasures, it these strategies are applied on the reader, are also shown.

The last tactics discussed by Croft is on how to entice reluctant turkeys to buy or sell your services.

After Chris has done with tactical part, he zooms into all important trade part of discussion. In this trade phase, the ball is continually lobbed into others court to offer something. 

The ball of discussion has to be kept rolling: for this Chris advocates taking up and solving small steps.

Thereafter, we enter the final videos section. Chris discusses the importance of properly closing of negotiation to viewers benefit and the technique in deciding the final price, that is acceptable to both sides.

These negotiating hacks are scattered on the net. Chris does well to compile the most important ones in a single video compilation. He also quotes funny anecdotes from day to day life that simply but forcefully emphasizes the point through humour. This approach make a deep impression on viewers mind. The contents of the videos are easy to comprehend, fully readable, understandable. At a deep discounted price, this successful negotiation approaches course is a steal and should be a part of our lives.