Are you constantly looking for ways to predict your buyer’s next move and calibrate your own strategy to maximize your negotiation outcome. By War Gaming your upcoming negotiation you can do just that.

A Negotiation War Game has 3 main steps:

• Intelligence
• Simulation
• Debriefing

Intelligence

1. Organize your team into two teams- One “Home Team”, and one “Away Team”.

2. Collect some basic information on the actual people you will be meeting. Google your counterpart’s two most important people, have a look at their Facebook page etc. Look for information that tells you “who” they are. Please note: a War Game is an analytical way of using less data and more inferences.

The collected info. is the Away Team’s briefing material. Don’t bother collecting info. on the Home Team as this is your own people – they already know who they are.

3. Decide how many simulations you feel like doing and how long they should be. Rule of thumb – in a Sales-negotiation I would do several short simulations in rapid succession (each simulation interrupted by a strategy break). Strategy breaks are used to evaluate the progress (Teams are kept apart).

4. Get the physical lay-out right. Once the teams are set, the briefing material is done and the simulations are structured, it is important to structure your War Game.

To do a proper War Game you need access to 3 separate rooms:

Room no. 1: Have one large room in which a pre-simulation briefing will be held (briefing material will be handed out). This room will also be used for the negotiation simulation. Last but not least, this room will be used to debrief the participants.

Room no. 2: Have a smaller room in which the Home Team can prepare and evaluate proceedings in peace.

Room no. 3: Have another small room in which the Away Team can prepare and evaluate proceedings in peace.

Simulation

5. Run the simulations

As the simulations get going the Home Team will get a sense of how well their strategy is working against this specific counterpart. In the strategy breaks, the Home Team will re-group, calibrate their strategy and come back to the negotiation table.

Think about adding a feedback system if needed.

Debriefing

6. Gather your team and collect Lessons Learned, when the simulation, or rather the series of simulations are done.

At this point, you and your team will know what your actual counterpart will most likely do when confronted by your original and subsequent (increasingly calibrated) strategies – and better yet, you will have developed a tailor-made negotiation strategy.

Please note that the above mentioned method does not, in advance, prescribe to any particular strategy or tactic. A Negotiation War Game is simply an incredibly accurate, risk-free environment, in which any strategy or tactic can be tested.

So if you are doing anything before your next big Sales negotiation – it better be war gaming!