Negotiating is the art of bargaining and coming up with an agreement between two or more individuals, groups, or organizations. It's importance in various areas such as business and commerce can never be overly emphasized. Negotiating is an essential skill needed to get what you want while fostering good relationships with the other negotiating party.

Not everybody can negotiate properly. In fact, this is what probably separates successful businesspersons from the not-so successful ones. In today's competitive world of business, the success of an individual or a group will lie heavily on negotiating skills.

Characteristics of a good negotiator:

He is a good communicator. Negotiating involves the act of communicating your needs and wants. Aside from the need to have open communication between parties involved, a good negotiator must be able to maximize the time spent with the other business partners by being able to communicate his ideas well. Misunderstanding among businesspersons and/or business groups may sometimes arise because of the inability to converse properly.

He is a good listener. The act of communicating ideas in a negotiation does not end with having to inform. Remember that communication is a two-way process and the recipient of the information communicated must be able to understand and interpret the data properly. In order to do so, he must have good listening skills to get the job done.

He is competent and knowledgeable. He follows the simple rule of "You cannot give what you do not have." You cannot negotiate on something that you don't know about. As a businessperson, he must have intensive knowledge and experience about the company, products and services, and projects that are being negotiated with other businesses. Moreover, he must also have a good idea of what the other party wants from the transaction and be able to balance his needs with their needs.

He is able to analyze situations. The art of negotiating is all about analyzing the offers made in a given transaction. In fact, before making an offer, it is a given that he has processed the results that he wants to incur from the business deal. Furthermore, the acceptance or disregard of a counter offer from the opposite side will need analytic skills from his end.

He can make bright decisions quickly. Time is money, and money is what constitutes a business. Thus, arriving at business deals at the least possible time with calculated risks is a vital factor in negotiating in trade.

The steps in negotiating:

1.Planning - involves data gathering and research. This is where the negotiator's knowledge on the deal will stem from.

2.Initiation - is the process of beginning a business deal. This step is concerned with the act of starting the communication between the parties involved.

3.Bartering - the act of making offers and counter offers. This involves analyzing the conditions of the deal.

4.Finalization - the art of closing a deal. Since there are transactions that will have to be settled at the actual place where the negotiating process is taking place, this is where the negotiator's ability to make quick calculated decisions will be used.

If you want to become a good negotiator, it is important for you to realize the steps in negotiating to assess yourself on which aspect you may need to improve. Also, recognizing these phases in the art of negotiating will allow you to strengthen your negotiating skills by being able to direct the flow of the deal. You'll find yourself calling the shots and not being misguided in any transaction.