tisiuta.info

Whether you are making a presentation, to an audience of one, twenty, fifty, one hundred, or thousands, wouldn’t you want to give the best, possible ones, in order to articulate your message, effectively, and in the most inspiring, motivating manner? Every day, whether we recognize and realize it, or not, we are presenting ourselves, in some meaningful way. This article, therefore, will attempt to, briefly, consider, examine, review, and discuss, the six stages of giving the best possible presentation, in order, to better, make our central points, while inspiring and motivating others, to care more, about, whatever we are presenting.

1. Open/ welcome: You will only get one chance to make a first impression. If your audience isn’t welcomed, and you don’t entice them, interest them, and show, immediately, you will benefit them, from listening and paying attention, your possibilities for giving a meaningful presentation, may be lost, before you, really, even, begin! Be welcoming, friendly, and show, your objective, is to make, your time, spent together, valuable and meaningful! Let them know, what you, will be discussing, and how it might benefit them.

2. Let them know what to expect!: Using some sort of audio – visual, and/ or presentation tool, present your agenda, and, the rules/ guidelines (or what many refer to, as the housekeeping matters). Indicate, approximately, when you will have breaks, and the general topics, for each component of this event.

3. Interactive: The more, the presenter, gets his audience involved, the better, the event will go! Interactive presenting means, truly, involving audience members, for many reasons. Doing so, makes others, pay more attention, connected, and, studies prove, learn the materials, involved! It’s, obviously, far more challenging, for an attendee, to become disengaged, when, you use this approach!

4. Organized/ focus: Learn, as much as possible, about your audience, so you can make your talk, more appealing, and relevant, to them! Proceed, in a clear – cut, focused, organized manner, so, it is easier for others, to pay keen attention, and, thus, learn more effectively, and thoroughly.

5. Crux of matter/ points: From the onset, provide an over – view, so others, know and understand, the crux of the matter, and, proceed, in a point – by – point manner, so, they become more capable of knowing, the difference between the most meaningful information, and lesser items. Clearly demonstrate, how much, you appreciate and cherish/ value, their time!

6. Grand finale: Always, leave them, wanting more, while feeling, their time, was well spent! Sum up, the main points, and, answer questions, address concerns, and hopefully, you will have given a great presentation.

True leaders develop the skills, abilities, aptitude, and attitude, which makes them better, and more effective. How one presents his message, is an important aspect of quality leadership!

Negotiation is a fact of life. In a very real sense, we are all negotiators. Inevitably, our own needs and concerns bump up against the needs and concerns of those around us and we bargain in order to reconcile our needs/concerns with those of others.

That said, some people are clearly better at negotiating than others. Some people just seem to have a special talent for knowing just what to say at just the right moment in order to resolve a conflict or close a deal. Such negotiators become the stuff of legends, or at least, Hollywood movies. Steven Spielberg’s recent movie, Bridge of Spies, immortalizes a gifted negotiator by the name of James Donovan, portrayed in the movie by Tom Hanks.

The rest of us, however, are compelled to resort to our own more modest talents when we engage in bargaining endeavors. The good news, however, is that all of us can adopt some relatively simple techniques employed by successful negotiators, and enhance the odds of success in our face-to-face encounters. Here are a few simple techniques you can try in your next adventure in bargaining:

1. Avoid using ‘irritators’ in your conversation. By ‘irritators’, I mean those innocuous words and phrases (example: “this is a generous offer”) that have zero persuasive value and are more apt to irritate the party with whom you are negotiating. When you tell your counterpart that your own proposal is ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’ you imply that she would be unfair or unreasonable to reject it. So, refrain from attempts to attach positive value judgments to your own proposals, particularly when those judgments will communicate negative implications about the other side.

2. Limit your counterproposals. If the other party presents you with a proposal, avoid the temptation to immediately respond with a counterproposal of your own. When you routinely respond to the other side’s proposals with counterproposals, your responses are apt to be interpreted as blocking mechanisms rather than as proposals in their own right. In addition, counterproposals have a way of muddying the waters as they tend to add issues to the discussion rather than promoting clarity and bringing focus to the issue in question. While counterproposals do have their place in negotiation behavior, use them sparingly. Judicious use will increase their effectiveness and reduce the chance of your antagonizing the other side.

3. Give the other side a “heads up” on what you are about to say. This particular technique, referred to as ‘behavior labeling,’ is quite simple to use, but can be very effective. Suppose, for example, you are negotiating to sell your car, and the other party’s purchase offer is below Kelley Blue Book. Instead of asking, “Why are you offering me less than Kelley Blue Book?”, consider asking, “Can I ask you a question: Why is your offer less than Kelley Blue Book?” Similarly, if you intend to offer a proposal of your own, begin by saying, “If I can make a suggestion, what if we… ” This behavior labeling draws the attention of the other party to what you are about to say and tends to draw them in to making a direct response to what you have just posed to them. This technique also serves to reduce the back and forth volleys between the parties and may enhance a more deliberative approach to the negotiation.

4. Test your understanding of the other party’s position by reflecting back what they just told you. This is another simple concept to implement. For example, returning to the car selling scenario, consider saying, “So if I understand what you are telling me, you don’t think my car is worth the Kelley Blue Book price because… ” This can be an easy way to prompt the other side to reveal more of its own thinking on the subject, without you having given away any more of yours. And, by summarizing aloud what the other party is telling you, you clarify what might otherwise have been uncertain. Your summary also communicates to the other party that you are listening to what she tells you, thereby eliciting further disclosure from her. This can help develop an attitude of mutual respect between the parties.

5. Ask questions to obtain more information as to the other party’s thinking, its goals and interests. Questions are usually more acceptable to the other party than direct disagreement and are more likely to communicate respect for the other side. Consider using what is referred to as the ‘funnel approach’ to questioning. Begin with broad, open ended questions (example: “So why is it that you are looking to purchase a car at this time?”) and proceed to narrow the questions’ scope (“What is it that you like about my car?”) until you reach the key issue (“What do you think is a fair price for this car?”).

6. Limit the reasons you cite in support of your bargaining position. Most of us tend to assume that the quality of our argument in support of a position is enhanced by the quantity of reasons we offer in support of it. In fact, successful negotiators typically offer fewer points to support their position in order to avoid diluting their impact. The downside to tossing out multiple arguments is that, invariably, one or more of the arguments will be significantly weaker than the others. The other side is then in a position to focus its rejoinder on refuting the weaker arguments and then reject your position altogether. So, when advancing a proposal or a particular position, limit yourself to just a select few points in support of it. In this instance at least, less is definitely more.

These simple techniques can be employed in almost any bargaining situation you may encounter. Make them a routine part of your negotiating repertoire, and see if you too can improve your negotiating effectiveness.

© 2/16/2016 Hunt & Associates, P.C. All rights reserved.

There is no doubt about it, negotiating effectively is a skill and one that needs to be mastered if you are going to be successful in business.  It is also a very good skill to have under your belt in daily life as well.  According to some negotiating experts, you could save as much as 10% on your household bills and shopping if you are willing to negotiate.  So it is worth investigating how you too can become an effective negotiator.  This article isn’t going to teach you everything about negotiating, in fact in won’t teach you much more than the basics but what it will do is show you how you can apply Mind Mapping to your Business Negotiations.  So this article is for you if you have some experience of negotiating and want to get a better handle on what you are already doing.

The process of negotiation can be divided into three broad areas: preparation, negotiation and follow up.  Each of these can be enhanced using Mind Mapping so I will take each in turn and explain how you could use the Mind Map.

1.        Preparation

This is probably where the success or failure of a negotiation is decided.  Preparation is such a key stage and the clichés like “Fail to plan then plan to fail” and “Preparation prevents poor performance” hold true in effective negotiation as well.

During your preparations you will need to gather all of the relevant information to support you in your negotiation and of course using a Mind Map is a great tool to use for this.  These days it is likely that you will have multiple sources of information across different media types and by hyper-linking to those documents you can access them from one place.  This is one of the most useful features of great Mind Map software.

The other thing that Mind Mapping is extremely useful for once you have gathered all of your supporting information, is to review and consider your current position, the place you want to be at the end of the negotiations, your opponent’s position and where they are likely to want to be end.  Whilst you can never fully know where your opposite number stands and where they really want to be, thinking about that ahead of time will allow you to consider the various options and alternative stances you may need to take.

When you lay these various options out and explore them using a Mind Map you will start to see themes and connections and potential win-win positions that you may not have seen before.  I am aware of no other thinking tool that can handle multiple what-if scenarios and “if they say then I’ll say” options so well without you becoming overwhelmed or lost.

2.        The Negotiation Itself

During the negotiation itself, a Mind Map can be applied in a number of different ways.  It can be used for the meeting agenda to set things up.  You can use it to personally keep track of the twists and turns of the talks or you can create a shared Mind Map that everyone can see evolve and is used to capture what has been agreed.  Much of the groundwork for the negotiation will have been done in the preparation stage and so you may need to refer to the Mind Maps you put together before the meeting.  In more proactive and dynamic negotiations Mind Mapping can be used to present your position, consider alternatives and even generate new ideas and solve problems.  It is such a powerful tool that it only enhances the thought process you apply it to.

3.        The Follow Up

After a negotiation has taken place, it is important to follow up and ensure what has been agreed is actually implemented.  Keeping track using Mind Mapping is one way of doing this.  Sharing the maps generated during the negotiation is a good way of ensuring everyone has the same record of the meeting and the decisions taken.