My wife loves telling the story of her kid brother, many years ago, wandering into their kitchen and asking out loud, “What can I want?” For him, the “what” was entirely up for discussion. The “getting” was the most important thing. The thing is, that cheeky little kid is smarter than a lot of negotiators I meet, because that’s exactly the question they should be asking themselves on a regular basis.
Proactive: When it’s you that’s initiating the negotiation, you should have a clear idea of what you’re aiming to achieve, your “primary objectives”. But how much time do you spend thinking about what else you could get? Probably not enough. The narrower a negotiation, the less chance there is to find trades that can add real value for both sides. The broader your scope, the more combinations there will be to achieve your goals. Always go in with more “asks” than you need.
Reactive: It’s even more important when it’s the other party making the demands. In any negotiation, the deal you get will be somewhere between your opening point and theirs. If your only goal is to protect the status quo, you’re almost certainly going to end up giving ground. I recently had one client say of a particularly tricky relationship “I just want them to leave us alone, they’re always coming after us for something”. Within half an hour we’d identified over a dozen high value, low cost things his team could ask in return. Within two weeks, both parties had a better deal, and a better relationship.
Whether they’re opportunist quick-wins, or the building blocks of a longer-term strategy, a few clear objectives combined with a pocketful of smaller asks should be your going-in point for every conversation.