Telephone negotiations can be extremely stressful for anyone in business, but they are especially difficult in a foreign language. Here are four tips for feeling more confident in telephone negotiations in English:
1. Brush up on conditionals
If you are negotiating, you don’t want to be pressured into making any promises you are not ready to make. The second conditional, stating “possibilities” rather than “promises” is going to be particularly useful.
The rule: simple past + would
Examples:
- If I were rich, I would travel the world.
- If you ordered 10 units, we wouldlikely be able to offer a lower price.
- If you weren’t able to deliver by then, we would have to go to another supplier.
2. Hedging: using cautious, tentative, or vague language
Practice using a few phrases that make your statements less firm and more cautious. It helps me to write down a few words on a notepad in preparation for my conversation, just in case I get nervous.
Examples:
- We could probably come close to that number.
- We might be able to work with that.
- I would say the cost would be roughly 5-10% higher.
- Sales are down probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 10%.
3. Getting verbal confirmation
When we are speaking to someone in person, we rely a lot on non-verbal signals to confirm that the person has heard and understood us. On the telephone we no longer have those cues. Native English speakers will often use questions and question tags to get verbal confirmation.
Questions:
- How does that sound?
- Is that ok?
- Do you agree?
Question Tags
- You said you could meet Friday, didn’t you?
- You will still be in the market for a new vehicle, won’t you?
4. Interrupting politely
It can be very uncomfortable to interrupt someone, especially in a different language when we are nervous about coming across rude. Here are a few appropriately polite phrases for interrupting someone.
- Yes, (Sure, Sorry, Of course) BUT…
- Could I just add (clarify) something here?
- May I interrupt you for a moment?
- Could I stop you there?
One of the hardest parts of learning any language is feeling self-conscious and “stupid” in the other language because we can not express ourselves as fluently as we can in our own language. A little extra practice before important conversations helps a lot in gaining the extra confidence needed.
Cheers,
Shawn Marie Wolff