Negotiation Skills for Professionals

Professionals negotiate every day: with suppliers and customers, with colleagues competing for the same budget, with their managers over deadlines and pay, and with partners across borders and cultures. Yet few have been taught to do it well. Many either give in too quickly to keep the peace, or push so hard that they win the deal and lose the relationship.

This course gives you a practical, structured approach to negotiation based on proven principles: interests rather than positions, a strong walk-away alternative, careful preparation, and disciplined behaviour at the table. It is designed for managers, procurement and sales professionals, project managers, consultants, entrepreneurs and anyone who needs to reach better agreements. Examples come from around the world, with a strong mix of African business settings. The first lesson of each module covers the basics.

What you will learn

• The core concepts: distributive and integrative negotiation, interests and positions, BATNA and ZOPA
• How to prepare: targets, walk-away points, research, and planning trade-offs
• What to do at the table: opening, anchoring, questioning, listening, concessions and handling tactics
• How to manage difficult negotiations: emotions, deadlock, power imbalance, culture, and virtual or email negotiation
• How to apply your skills to salary, supplier, customer and internal negotiations, and how to close and record agreements properly

How the course works

There are five modules, each with four lessons and a short quiz. You need 70% on each quiz to complete the course and earn your certificate.

A note on approach

This course teaches principled, ethical negotiation. You will learn to recognise hard tactics so you can respond to them, not so you can use deception. Always follow your organisation’s delegated authority, procurement rules and anti-corruption policies.