1.

Establishing Your Position

To do that ask the other side specific questions to find out what they need and ask open-ended
questions to check information, or to get more information from the other side.

Very often, negotiations depend on setting conditions. What you can offer depends on what the
other side can do. Let’s see how you can talk about this.
2. Setting Conditions
The easiest way to express conditions is with if-sentences.
For example:
• If we’re ordering around 100,000 units at one time, what kind of per-unit pricing can you offer?
• If we need higher volumes, would you be able to go lower?
• If we commit to a minimum volume over a six-month period, but with a flexible delivery
schedule, could you offer us the same price?
If-sentences can be used in many ways; it’s common to use the modal verbs ‘will’ ‘can’ ‘could’ or
‘would’ on the other side of the sentence. Let’s make some more examples:
• If we commit to a longer contract, can you offer us a better price?
•
• However, there are other ways to talk about conditions.

• Assuming that you need a flexible schedule, we could offer six dollars per unit for tees
and tank tops…
• Supposing you could commit to a minimum monthly volume, we could go down to five-
fifty…
• As long as there were some limitations on the delivery timing, I think that would be
acceptable.
• All of these have the same basic meaning, which is like an if-sentence, although
‘assuming…’ and ‘supposing…’ are used when you want to suggest something which is
more speculative. Using these shows that you’re talking about possibilities, rather than
very firm suggestions which need to be accepted or rejected immediately.

• ‘As long as…’ has the opposite meaning; it sets a very firm condition. If you say, ‘As long
as there were some limitations on the delivery timing, I think that would be acceptable’,
you mean that these limitations are necessary.
If you can reach an agreement, then that’s great! But, what if there’s a sticking point?
3. Disagreements and Setting Boundaries
• This language is direct, but it’s often better to be direct if something is important. You can use this
language in other ways.
For example:
• We won’t be able to finish the work in such a short space of time.
• We can’t sign a contract if you can’t guarantee a delivery date.
• We’re not willing to share this technology for free.

You can also show that you disagree by using phrases like:
• I’ll come right out and say that’s not going to work for us.
• There’s no way around this.
• I’m sorry but I have to draw a line here.

These are general, so you can use them to react to any suggestion which you strongly disagree with. It’s a
good idea when negotiating to keep things calm and avoid direct criticisms. If things get confrontational,
you could give everyone space to cool off by saying: ‘Shall we take a five-minute break?’
Next, let’s see how you can resolve disagreements in a productive way.

4. Reaching Agreement

When you’ve reached an impasse, you need to make suggestions so that you can move forward. To introduce a
new idea, you heard this language from the dialogue:
• I have a proposal which I hope can make this work for everyone.
• Here’s my solution: …
• I’ll make another offer: …

You can also ask the other side to suggest their ideas, like this:
• What’s your idea?
• What would you suggest?
• Then, you need to react to the other side’s ideas. If you agree, you could say something like,
• That’s a good offer.
• I think this should be feasible.
• ‘Feasible’ has a similar meaning to ‘possible’ or ‘practical’. If something is ‘feasible’, it means that you can do
it, and it won’t be difficult or problematic.
Hopefully, at this point you’ve managed to reach an agreement! If so, what else do you need to do?
5. Summarizing and Restating
• nce you’ve reached an agreement, you should summarise what you’ve agreed, and then outline the next steps which you
both need to take. You might also mention points which need to be discussed later. To summarise what you’ve agreed,
you could say,
• Let’s go through the main points: …
• Regarding delivery, …
• You can use ‘regarding’ to introduce a new idea. So, you could say:
• Regarding the pricing…
• Regarding the timetable …
And so on. If there’s something you need to talk about later, you could say,
• We still need to settle the exact details of…
• There’s also the matter of…
• These are flexible phrases, which you can use to talk about many points, like this:
• We still need to settle the exact details of the training programme.
• There’s also the matter of integration with our existing software systems.
Finally, you need to agree on the next steps. You might say something like,
• We’ll put this in writing.
• We’ll send you a provisional agreement.
• We can work on getting a contract drawn up.