Professional & Business English: Negotiating Vocabulary

Hi. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's video, we're going to look at the

process of negotiating. Now, what does "negotiating" mean? It means having a discussion with someone

and finding a place where you can both agree on something and both sides are happy. Now,

especially we're talking about business situations or if you're buying something. And again,

we're not talking about little things. Like, we're not going to the market and haggling

over the price of a piece of fish, for example. "To haggle" or "to bargain", I think most

people know this word, "to bargain", is to, you know, go back and forth. I'll give you

this much, no, I'll take this much, this much, this much, and you meet somewhere in the middle,

right? We're talking about bigger things. Now, if you're buying a car, a used car, then

yes, you can negotiate a good price or you can negotiate some conditions and terms. But

again, this is mostly for when you negotiate over a contract for work, or to buy a lot

of products from a company, or to do some deal, etc. So, a lot of these words and expressions

you're going to hear quite often in this context, and you're going to use a lot of these words

as well. So, let's start with middle ground. That is ultimately the whole point or the

aim of negotiating. You have one person starting with their price and their conditions. Here,

you have one person starting with their price and conditions, here, and you have to find

that middle ground, that point between the two of you where you're both happy and you're

both satisfied, okay? Now, it could be price, if you're talking about the cost of something,

or it could just be terms and conditions. That's ampersand, but terms and conditions.

Because it's not only about money, usually. Sometimes it's terms, sometimes it could be

about time, about numbers, other than money, etc., okay? So, you're looking for the middle

ground.

Another way to say "middle ground" is "compromise". "To compromise" or "to reach a compromise",

okay? So, you can make it a verb or you can make it a noun. "Reach a compromise" means

find something that works for both people. Everybody has to basically give and take a

little bit, right? So, give and take as a verb, no hyphens. But again, we can use this

expression as a noun, so it involves a bit of give and take by both parties. If you're

using it as a noun, make sure you have two hyphens between each of the words, okay? Give

and take. I'll give you a little bit, but I'll take a little bit from you, and that

way we get to the middle ground, to the compromise.

"Always be receptive to alternatives" means you're not going to... Generally, you have

to understand you're not always going to get what you want, okay? You're going to have

to sometimes accept alternatives, means other options, other choices, and you have to be

receptive to this, you have to be open to it. "Receptive", "receive", right? So, that's

the adjective of "receive". Okay. And you have to show flexibility, you have to show

the person you're negotiating with that you're able to make... Basically, to accept alternatives,

to have... Engage in a little bit of give and take. If you're not flexible, if you're

inflexible, right, then nobody's going to negotiate with you because there's not much

point. If you're not willing to give anything up, why should the other person give anything

up? So, be flexible. At the end of the day, when you're negotiating, the aim is to find

a proper solution or a proper middle ground that has mutual benefits to both parties.

So, I don't need to say "both parties", "mutual benefits". "Mutual" means "to both", okay?

That's what the idea of "mutual" means. So, the negotiations should find mutual benefits.

Now, "reciprocate". "Re-ci-pro-cate". Okay? "Reciprocate". Basically, what this means

is that if someone does something, you should also do something back, right? So, you return

the action. If somebody does something to help your side, you need to do something to

help their side. And groups or people, like if you're thinking about politics, if you

think about certain parts of the world, you have two parties that are always fighting

each other, neither side is willing to reciprocate any sort of actions. Okay? They're not willing

to give and take, so you have a lot of problems. And "all negotiations" inherently means the

whole point of negotiations is to have trade-offs. Trade-offs. I give you something, you give

me something back. So, we are trading, basically, agreements. We are trading... Basically, we're

giving up something, we're taking something back. That's called a "trade-off". So, you'll

notice a lot of these words basically work in the same way, but again, you want to have

a little bit of variety. "Trade-off" verb, "trade-off" with a hyphen, noun.

Now, when it comes to making an offer, okay? So, let's say I'm selling my car. I want to

buy a new car. So, I advertise my car in the newspaper or wherever, and somebody comes

and looks at my car, and then he can offer me a highball offer or a lowball offer. Now,

we can also use these as verbs. Don't highball me, don't lowball me. The more common one

as a verb is "lowball". You're lowballing me. It means you're offering me too little.

So little that there's nothing to negotiate, there's no point. You're so little that to

get to the middle ground, you need to start here. So, if you're starting below that, you're

lowballing me. On the other hand, I shouldn't highball the buyer. For example, if my car

is worth, let's say, 7,000, I shouldn't ask for 12,000 and hope to move down to, like,

eight or nine. If I want seven, I'll start with eight, he'll start with six, we'll go

back and forth and we'll arrive at seven, everybody's happy. Okay?

Now, especially in business, right? Like, let's say you want to conduct business with

a company. You have a company, you want to work with another company, and so you go to

them and you make a proposal. Okay? I will give you this much airtime on my TV channel,

and you pay me this much, or other conditions, whatever they may be. I will let you have

five people on, I will let you be on in prime time, all kinds of things you can talk about

besides price. So, I go with the initial proposal, the first proposal, and then the other person

will give me a counter proposal. "Counter" basically means, like, in opposition, but

when you're negotiating, there's no against, there's no opposition. It's not a fight, it's

not a conflict. It's a discussion aimed to reach a conclusion, right? So, a counter proposal.

Here's this, okay, how about this? Okay, how about this? And then counter proposal, counter

proposal, counter, counter, counter, until we reach the middle ground.

Now, sometimes you can enter negotiations, and by the way, we often enter into or just

enter negotiations, and we, you know, we talk, we talk, and everybody offers something, and

we try to reach a compromise, but finally, we reach a deadlock. A deadlock means I've

come as far as I'm willing to go, the other person's come as far as he or she is willing

to go, and we're not close enough, and neither person is willing to move anymore. That's

called a deadlock. So, basically, negotiations are over, we go away, we rethink, maybe we

come back with a new proposal, maybe we don't, that's the end of the story.

Sometimes, a person or the company or whatever will include something in their demands that

is a deal breaker, okay? So, for example, I want to sell my car, but I need to sell it

by the end of this week. Somebody comes and looks at my car, says, "Yeah, I like it, I'll

give you your price, but I want to pay you next month." So, for me, that's a deal breaker.

I can't wait a month, I need the money today, so I already ordered my new car. So, that

condition is a deal breaker. Deal, broken. There's no deal between us because I can't

meet your conditions, okay?

Now, we also have a few expressions and idioms. "To stand one's ground", so you're standing,

this is your ground, nothing is going to move you. You can't be pushed, you can't pull,

you're standing. You're very stubborn or you're sticking to your demands and you're not going

to make any more compromises. You've gotten to as far as you're going to be flexible,

and that's it. Somebody's trying to push you, but you stand your ground, you won't move,

you won't budge is another good word. "Budge" means move.

Now, whenever you come to a negotiation, you have to bring something to the table. Basically,

it means these are all the things that you can offer the other person or the other team.

If you bring nothing to the table, you have nothing to make a trade with, you have nothing

to negotiate with, you're in a weak position, okay? You often hear this expression in politics,

and they're discussing, like, countries are discussing what punishment they can put on

a country, like sanctions or war or whatever, and they say everything is on the table. It means we

have all the options. We can do anything we want, we need to start negotiating, okay?

Now, generally speaking, when you're negotiating, don't beat around the bush. It means don't start

talking about other things until you finally get to your point. Get to your point. Nobody wants

people to beat around the bush because it's a waste of time. So, beating around the bush

basically means not being direct, okay? Trying to talk other things until you make the other

person tired, and they give you all the extra things you need. Sometimes it works, sometimes

it doesn't. Now, if you go to a negotiation and one side holds all the aces, it means they're in

the stronger position. If you think about poker, the game of poker, if you have aces, you have

four aces in your hand, you have probably the best chance of winning. So, you're willing to

trade an ace, but that other person has to give you, like, two kings back, or a lot more, for

example, in poker. If you're holding all the aces, you have more to offer, you have more strength

in the negotiation. Having said that, when you come to a negotiation, you should always keep

something up your sleeve. Always be ready to pull that last ace out and make more demands,

and that other team will have to give it to you. So, keep something up your sleeve,

have some strength ready to use in case of emergency. Don't offer it right away, save it

until you're almost at the point where you're getting to the middle ground, and then show them

your strength, and then get a little bit more at the end. Now, after negotiations are done,

and you think, okay, you know, not a bad deal, but I have to think about it, so you say to that

person, "I'll get back to you." "I'll get back to you" means let me think about it a little bit,

and I will give you an answer later, tomorrow, next week, whenever. Now, some people don't like

to negotiate. I don't like to negotiate, I don't like the process, I think it's a waste of time.

If I go to somebody and I want to buy a car, and they say, okay, it's $10,000, I say, okay,

let's not waste our time, what's your best offer? What's your best price? What's the best

you can do? It means tell me your bottom price, if I like it, I'll give it to you, if I don't,

I walk away, let's not waste time, okay? So, what's the best? The best means the best offer,

the best price, the best conditions, whatever it is you're negotiating about, okay? Of course,

there are other expressions and words, but these are the general ones that you'll need to know to

get yourself started in the negotiation process, okay? If you have any questions about this,

please go to www.engvid.com and you can ask me in the comment section. There's also a quiz to

make sure you know how to use these words, and I hope you like this video. If you liked it,

please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and come back soon for more great lessons. See you then. Bye.