Negotiation is a business skill as well as a life skill. It is a complex skill involving multiple sub-skills and the use of various techniques, tactics, and approaches depending on the situation at hand. It is now taught at virtually every major business and/or law school in the country. Programs and courses vary in length (and cost) from a one-day topical course (e.g. “Dealing with Difficult People”) to full degree programs (e.g. U. of Notre Dame, Creighton). Net, it is a skill that requires ongoing training and practice to increase competency, which leads to better results.
In the corporate world, those tasked with handling important negotiations typically attend multiple negotiation training sessions over an extended period of time to gain expertise. When I worked at Procter & Gamble, I attended various negotiation training sessions at different companies and universities to broaden my knowledge. The combination of those sessions resulted in a more thorough knowledge of negotiation and led to significantly better results for my company. At the Real Estate Negotiation Institute, we have developed a real estate specific series of courses that will equip real estate professionals with advanced negotiation knowledge to better protect clients while helping them to achieve better results. As managing brokers well know, this will also help agents and brokers achieve better results (e.g. higher profit, greater retention, better recruiting).
Our 2-day CNE course is, we believe, an excellent start to understanding negotiation skills and applying them to real estate negotiation situations. Our two advanced courses (one for listing agents and one for buyer’s agents) introduce new concepts and tools not taught in the CNE course while expanding on some of the areas introduced in the CNE® course. For example, we introduce the concepts of ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement) and Anchoring along with new Offer / Counter Offer Worksheets to help buyers and sellers develop more credible and defensible negotiation positions. We also greatly expand on the concept of Power in a negotiation and discuss 11 sources of Power and how to use them judiciously in a negotiation. Our “Mastering Email Negotiations in Real Estate” course is designed to address the most difficult way to negotiate – in writing – and how to manage the increased hostility inherent in this negotiation medium. In addition, our shorter (3 hours) classes on “Negotiating Across Generations in Real Estate” and “Cultural Factors in Real Estate Negotiations” are designed to round out our program for real estate professionals in two areas that can often make or break negotiations if not properly addressed.
New to all of our courses in the MCNE program is our “ACCE” Negotiation Methodology that supplements the CNE Model. The ACCE Negotiation Methodology provides a simple yet powerful process for negotiation that can be used in any negotiation situation. Additionally, we are now incorporating more “accelerated learning” techniques into our training. These techniques – such as group discussions, case studies, skill practice, and “teach backs” – help increase comprehension and retention of the material being taught.
Our MCNE program is designed to take negotiation skills in the real estate industry to a new level. As with the CNE course, the real estate professionals who continue to advance their negotiation skills will be able to out-perform other agents in the important areas of gaining more clients, achieving better results for clients, and achieving better results for themselves.
Tom Hayman
CEO and Co-Founder of the Real Estate Negotiation Institute
