Negotiation Prep Sheet

Prepare a customer, supplier or salary negotiation on one page: what both sides actually need, your alternative if you walk away, the lines you set before you start, your first offer, the concessions you can trade and the questions you will ask.

Interests and BATNA come from Fisher & Ury's principled negotiation, an influential practitioner book; experiments qualify it (mixed research: a weak alternative can anchor you low). The first-offer effect is well supported in experiments, mainly on price-type issues. Target, walk-away line, concession plan and questions are practitioner craft. For acquisitions and complex deal terms, use 5.5 and get professional help.

Use it when:

• You are renewing or pricing a customer contract, or negotiating with a supplier.
• You are agreeing a freelance rate, a job offer or a pay rise (together with 9.4 Promotion & Raise Case).
• A negotiation is a week or more away and you want your lines set before anyone names a number.

Skip it when:

• The deal is an acquisition or has complex terms (earn-outs, equity, guarantees): use 5.5 Deal Structure Sketch and get professional help.
• You do not yet know what your offer costs you or earns you: start with 5.3 Unit Economics Sheet.

Much of a negotiation is settled in preparation. Principled negotiation asks you to argue about interests, the needs behind each side's stated number, and to know your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, your BATNA, so you can tell when no deal beats this one (Fisher & Ury, 1981). Experiments add two corrections. The first number on the table pulls the outcome toward it, and making that first offer tended to pay off across cultures, power levels and multi-issue talks, mainly on price-type issues (Galinsky & Mussweiler, 2001; Gunia et al., 2013). And a poor fallback is not a hidden strength: people who had one anchored on it and asked for less than people with none (Schaerer, Swaab & Galinsky, 2015).

So the sheet asks for your alternative, then has you anchor on your target. When the other side opens first, focusing on your target or their alternatives cancelled their edge in the same experiments (Galinsky & Mussweiler, 2001). In pay talks, the gender gap in outcomes narrowed when people knew the bargaining range (Mazei et al., 2015). Limit: these are lab scenarios, mostly over one number.

Positions are what people ask for. Interests are why they ask. See 5.2 Stakeholders and Incentives for the other side's incentives.

Strong answer: "They need predictable cost and fast fixes in campaign weeks, and they want to avoid a new procurement round." Not: "They want a lower price."

Type of deal (customer, supplier, salary or job offer, freelance rate, other):

Who I negotiate with, and who else decides on their side (by role):

What is on the table besides price (scope, volume, length, payment terms, start date, title, flexibility):

Deadline, and whose deadline it is:

What we both want (a shared interest to open with):

Illustrative example: the person, the client and all numbers are made up.

A freelance web developer in Finland is renewing a one-year retainer with a mid-sized retail client. She charges 85 euros per hour for 40 hours a month.

Section 1: she wants a higher rate, steady hours and payment within 14 days instead of 45. The client wants predictable cost, fast fixes during campaign weeks and no new procurement round.

Section 2: her BATNA is real but weaker: a second client offers 20 hours a month at 90 euros, starting in three months. So she sets her first offer from her target and her research on local freelance rates, not from the fallback. Walk-away: 88 euros with 30-day payment. Target: 98. First offer: 102, with a one-sentence reason.

Section 3: a two-year term in exchange for 14-day payment; a same-day response in campaign weeks in exchange for the rate.

The client's procurement lead opens first at 87. She goes back to her target and their alternative, counters at 100 and asks what else matters besides price. They settle at 96 euros, two years and 14-day payment.

Section 5: next time she will ask earlier who signs off; the final step needed a manager she had never met.