Negotiation Training

By negotiating on value rather than price. Before discussing anything, work on the client’s needs and on what your offer brings to their business. Price then becomes one element of the exchange, not the only decision criterion.

When a client asks for a discount early in commercial conversations, don’t answer too quickly. First understand the reason for the request, explore the alternatives and work out which trade-off could justify a possible concession.

Then there is the question of how far to go in a negotiation. Preparation lets you define your objective, your room for manoeuvre and your walk-away point before the meeting, so that any agreement stays within those limits. It is the first habit a negotiator builds on this course.

It is designed for people who spend their days negotiating with clients and leading commercial conversations: account managers, business developers, sales engineers and key account managers, whatever their level of experience. Most of them face professional buyers, often led by a procurement director, who are trained negotiators themselves. Someone new to the job gains a method and core skills; a more experienced negotiator tests their approach and habits against the group’s feedback. No prerequisites beyond some first-hand experience of client relationships.

The program’s learning objectives are specific. By the end of the day, you will be able to prepare a negotiation, explore the client’s needs before proposing, defend the value of your proposal when asked for a discount and close deals without last-minute concessions. The aim is a set of skills you will use in your next negotiations, and a method the whole team shares.

Do you need a special talent for this? No. Negotiation is less a gift than a method and an ability to read the situation, and both can be developed. The self-assessment at the start of the day helps everyone identify their strengths and the reflexes to correct. Emotional intelligence plays its part too: staying calm in the face of an objection or outright conflict is something you learn, one role play after another.

The content follows a four-step process: preparation, exploration, argument, closing. Communication techniques are central — open questions, active listening, rephrasing — because you can only negotiate well what you have understood, and asking the right questions early changes how conversations unfold. On top of that come the practical tools of value-creating negotiation: telling position from interest, widening the exchange to several variables, building a strategy and holding your ground when you are not in a position of strength. Each role play puts one of these tools to work.

From the start, the day alternates short inputs and practice. Each negotiation simulation is acted out by part of the group and observed by the others with an observation grid; the trainer then leads the debrief and gives feedback: what moved the negotiation forward, what blocked it, which communication and emotional intelligence levers worked. Participants learn more from repeating a role play than from any lecture: that is how a negotiator’s reflexes form.

The content is adapted to each team: a first call captures the context of your negotiations — the procurement teams you face, your room for manoeuvre, the most frequent objections — so that the examples and case studies can be chosen accordingly. The teaching approach itself does not change, whether your counterpart is a buyer or a procurement director.

Each participant leaves with an individual action plan for a real upcoming negotiation, including the questions to ask, the concessions to trade and the walk-away point: the first application of the skills and tools practised during the day.

Four criteria matter: the share of role play, the time spent on preparation, the trainer’s expertise and how well the course fits the participants’ job and level. Open courses bring together people from different sectors; online courses, including those delivered in a virtual classroom, rely largely on self-study; executive education programs for leadership teams run over several weeks. This day takes a different approach: delivered in person and in-house only, it builds every simulation and debrief on the participants’ real business negotiations and deals with clients.

It also helps to know what you are looking for. Sales training covers needs discovery, argumentation and communication throughout client conversations. The negotiation process often starts where selling stops: the client agrees in principle and discusses the terms — price, lead times, volumes, trade-offs. The two complement each other, but the skills differ: at the negotiating table, closing deals depends on a concession strategy, on handling pressure and on managing conflict without damaging the relationship. It is an expertise in its own right, even for seasoned negotiators.

Then there is the trainer, and his expertise. The day is led by Marc Prager. He started out as a field salesman, then key account manager, at Rank Xerox, where he learned complex selling and contract negotiation, before moving into leadership roles as a sales director. This hands-on experience shapes the feedback he gives: he knows how conversations go when a procurement director demands a discount at the end of a long negotiation.

No. The day takes place in person, in Europe, at a venue agreed with you, because the approach is built on practice. Each role play or simulation relies on observing the negotiator — posture, silences, reactions to an objection — which a video call dilutes: an online session or a virtual classroom would not allow the same quality of debrief.

The most difficult conversations with clients, procurement teams or a finance director, and sometimes conflict, still happen face to face rather than online or in a virtual meeting. That is what the day prepares for.

The day costs €2,500 excl. VAT for the team, up to 24 participants, with no minimum number of attendees. Other arrangements, including date, venue, time frame and tailoring of the content, are agreed in a first call.

The course does not lead to a certification.

For those who want to go further, the program continues at a second level with the two-day complex negotiation training, aimed at experienced negotiators, key account directors and leadership teams: balance of power, conditional concessions, high-stakes deals and crises.