Want to negotiate better?

Negotiation lessons from my recent Women in leadership 2-day program

Whether you want a promotion, to headhunt a senior member for your team, or buy or sell a house... negotiation skills are key to your success in business.

If you are going into a negotiation with a peer, or a senior leader-things you need to be aware of:

Notice the body language of your teammate

Are you hogging the conversation, or do you also give them a chance to give their input? See if they sit forward, open their mouth, or even raise their hand in a video call. If you ignore your teammate in a negotiation, they might disengage from the conversation altogether.

Notice the body language of the opposing party, client/supplier

When I studied NLP we learned about going "soft eyes". That is when you sit back and look at a person with peripheral vision. Thus seeing their overall picture, you could see their moments, their breathing, and micro-expressions on their face.

When the other party starts breathing fast / shallowly, goes red in their face, or expressions changes, this is usually an indicator of how the negotiations are going.

Be intentional with your own state and body language

If you show up with a friendly face and smile, this is what will be mirrored back to you.

But what often happens when people negotiate is they go into "attack mode". They become highly assertive and switch off their listening ears, and no compromises are given.

If you want to get the most out of a negotiation:

• stop assuming
• plan well
• write down the questions you want to ask
• ask yourself what could be beneficial to the other party
• see what leverage you have, that you can use to influence the other party
• have a team member with you, that has different strengths than yours so that you can be stronger together.

Over the last 2 weeks, I ran 2-day Women in Leadership program, and I reflected in a YouTube video on the Negotiation skills module.

Watch it here (2.29min)

I always get asked...

What are the benefits of online training in an international program? (2.5 min)

Do you offer this as an in-house program?

Yes. You can book a call in my diary here to finalize a date for your team for the first two weeks of December, or January 2023.

What are all the elements that you cover in this course?

Read the course details here

Or do you prefer watching videos? (4.17 min)

What did some of the women say that attended the course?

April Francisco-Castrodes, Senior Manager - Investment Planning at Dubai Airports

"I signed up for the Women in Leadership Masterclass to understand what it takes for women to thrive in leadership positions.

The 2-day session facilitated by Yoke van Dam provided us with various frameworks on team dynamics, coaching, negotiation, power, and influence complemented with practical exercises, which allowed us to reflect and apply our learnings. I was also able to learn from the experiences of other women leaders in the session from across the globe. My key takeaway is that active listening is one of, if not the most, important skill in leadership - and one that is not gender specific.

I would recommend this course to women who are seeking to break down barriers in the workplace to inspire and empower others. "

Vineetha Menon?-Architect and director at TAHPI - Total Alliance Health Partners International

"It was exuberating to be part of a 30-member international women leaders group who attended the leadership development program called “Woman in Leadership” conducted by Yoke van Dam, a passionate leadership and team expert from Johannesburg. The insights that she shared were truly inspiring and motivating."

Dajana Soja, ?Manager - Business Continuity Planning?| Corporate Resilience, Dubai Airports

"Dear Yoke,

Firstly, I would like to thank you for delivering a fabulous training course that truly empowered me to be a better leader. I enjoyed the last two days and have learned so much about different leadership topics (I thought I knew a lot already!). I have shared my feedback with Danish but also wanted to thank you personally. I’m glad we connected on LinkedIn, and I look forward to seeing your continued success and learning from you!

Kindest regards,

Dajana Soja " ?Manager - Business Continuity Planning?| Corporate Resilience, Dubai Airports

Ivy Mbwelera -Service Center Manager at National Bank of Malawi

This course, Women in leadership meant a lot to me, as this is the first time to attend such a course.

First of all, I felt honored to be selected by our Human Capital Division through our leadership center to attend the course.

Through this course, I have learned that most of the issues, and challenges that affect me as a female leader, also affect other women in other organizations. We shared our experiences and we got some of the workarounds to these challenges. So, it was worth attending this course."

What other events are there?

Last week I had a phone call with an entrepreneur who asked me if social media will directly increase her cash flow...

And after a few phone calls, I gave her some insights from my strategic selling course and realized that so many people avoid sales, stick their heads in the sand, and have a hope strategy for their business.

So when Shane from Hirsch's asked me to speak at Meadowdale I decided to focus on the customer journey and strategic ways of selling to your customer.

When you understand how your positioning and your sales strategy meet with your client's consumer journey that is when deals start to happen.

Alan Weiss and Lisa Larter's book on Masterful marketing has been challenging me a lot lately, to realize, that no I'm not only in:

??leadership and team development

??changing behavior and cultures

??negotiation + influence work

??empower teams to present confidently and win tenders

but actually in the world of marketing and I believe in sales.

Because If you drop those balls and just want to focus on doing the "actual work", you might as well do something else, like wash your hair.

If you are in South Africa, Gauteng, join us at Hirsch Meadowdale and email [email protected]

Want to discuss your team & leader’s needs for a date in December -February 2023, book a call in my diary here to finalize a date for your team for the first two weeks of December, or January, or February 2023.