Your negotiation starts before the first proposal

Dear Negotiation Explorer,

Imagine a food manufacturer buying a packaging line. Production needs it running before the busy season. The buyer starts looking for suppliers. Somewhere else, a salesperson is looking for manufacturers who might need the equipment her company sells.

They have never spoken. Both are already making decisions that will affect their negotiation.

We have finished the twelve weeks of building the NegoAI platform in the open. We started with help for someone who already had a negotiation to prepare: the negotiation expert, the buying or selling expert, and Kahneman, the behavioral expert.

Now we also have Porter, who helps buyers find and assess suppliers, and Moore, who helps sellers find and assess customers. Macneil helps both sides negotiate contract terms, including questions that arise after signing.

Brama, my partner in Claude Code, has done the technical work. Codex has reviewed the work throughout the build. We think through what to build together, and I decide what help I want the platform to give.

A buyer does much more than negotiate with suppliers. A salesperson does much more than negotiate with clients. I want the platform to help with the decisions that affect the deal throughout that work.

The buyer needs a line that can handle the manufacturer's products. But production also needs it installed in time, and the people who will run it need support when something goes wrong.

If the request to suppliers says little about installation or support, those differences may never appear in the quotations. The buyer gets prices that look comparable, then discovers later that they include different things.

A company may sell the right equipment and have no capacity before the busy season. Another may quote less, but leave the manufacturer to arrange the installation.

Porter helps with that work: defining what is needed, searching for suppliers and examining what the available information supports. It helps prepare the request and compare the replies, including costs that do not appear in the equipment price.

A second quotation is useful only if the second supplier is a realistic choice. If nobody has checked that, the buyer may discover too late that walking away would mean missing the production date.

The salesperson finds the food manufacturer. It is in the right industry and appears to use the kind of equipment she sells.

That does not tell her whether it needs a new line. The company might be expanding, replacing unreliable equipment, or simply gathering prices for next year's budget.

Each would mean a different conversation. If the problem is unreliable equipment, she needs to understand what happens when the line stops. If the company is gathering prices for a possible investment, preparing a detailed proposal immediately may achieve very little.

Moore helps her find and assess potential customers, examine the information available and prepare the approach. She still has to ask the customer what she cannot establish from the sources.

If she sends a proposal before understanding why the customer might buy, she may end up defending a price without being able to explain what the customer gets for it.

In this example, reliable installation and support might matter enough to justify a higher price. She needs to establish that with the customer before building her argument around it.

The buyer asks for a lower price. The salesperson has prepared an answer about the equipment's quality.

But the buyer may be more worried about having the line running in time. A discount will not solve a late installation. The salesperson may be able to include more support if the customer agrees to a longer service contract, because that would help her company plan the work.

Neither side knows the other's priorities simply because an AI has written them down.

Kraljic, the buyer expert, examines the purchase and the supplier relationship. Rackham, the selling expert, helps the salesperson understand and defend the reason for choosing her company. Kahneman advises on communicating with the person they will meet.

Deepak, the negotiation expert, uses that work to develop possible explanations of what the other side wants and proposals to explore with them. Each side also needs to know what it can accept if those proposals are refused.

Then they can practice with Von Neumann, who plays the counterpart. An answer that looked convincing in the report may be much harder to give when someone interrupts and asks for a discount again.

Suppose they agree on the equipment, the price and an installation date. The contract arrives.

The buyer reads a payment clause tied to delivery. Production had assumed the final payment would follow successful testing. The seller reads a promise about support and needs to check whether her service team can meet it.

The buyer wants equipment that works as agreed before paying the balance. The seller needs a clear test and a way to finish the job without waiting indefinitely for acceptance.

Macneil helps either side read the terms, understand what they mean for the business and propose wording or a fallback. You decide whether to follow the advice and when to involve legal.

After signing, production may ask for a change. The buyer needs to know whether it was included. The salesperson needs to know what extra work her company is being asked to do and what to request in return. Macneil's work covers those questions too.

Go back to when you first started looking for this customer or supplier. Identify a decision you made then that affects what you can agree to now. Perhaps you approached only one supplier, or sent a quotation before asking why the customer needed the product.

Then look at what still has to be agreed inside your own company. The buyer may need production to define the acceptance test. The salesperson may need service to approve the support she wants to include. Get those answers before making the promise.

In your current deal, which decision made before you began discussing terms has most affected your position?

Just hit reply and tell me. I read and answer every one.

#Negotiation #NegotiationSkills #NegoAI #AI #AIAgents #AugmentedNegotiator