
In this lecture you make the decision that shapes most negotiations before anyone speaks: do you name the number first, or do you let the other side name it.
This course is built from five disciplines: sales technique, persuasive writing, critical thinking, international culture and personality types.
The map of the course
A simple dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as negotiation work
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the First Offer Decision Sheet and fill it in for your own case.
The stages of a negotiated sale
AIDA: attention, interest, desire, action
SPIN: situation, problem, implication, need-payoff
FAB, the expectations list and the value proposition canvas
Building trust through mirroring and references
Channels for reaching people, online and offline
Researching the counterpart and building an avatar
Cold outreach and BANT qualification: budget, authority, need, timing
The five touches method, social selling and the elevator pitch
The ladder of persuasion, step by step
Active listening and open questions to find the real need
Presenting through storytelling rather than features
Handling objections with LAER and Feel-Felt-Found
Closing: alternative choice and the direct approach
Planning a day around the conversations that matter
Pomodoro and GTD applied to a pipeline of negotiations
SMART goals and the Eisenhower matrix for prioritising
Time blocking, automation and avoiding burnout
An overview of current technology, including chatbots and AI
CRM systems and why you need one earlier than you think
Automation and data analysis inside a CRM
Cases of successful rollouts, and where the field is heading
Defining and measuring the right indicators
Funnel analysis and finding where conversations die
The Deming cycle: plan, do, check, act
Collecting feedback through surveys, interviews and NPS
Auditing the whole system rather than the last conversation
The key indicators worth tracking
What a journey map shows you
What the funnel itself is telling you
How to analyse a funnel properly
Applying FAB, AIDA and SPIN to attraction
Finding the bottleneck in yours
Turning a funnel into a flywheel that keeps running
The power of copywriting in a negotiation you have not started yet
Writing text that attracts rather than informs
Writing to people who are not looking
Using emotion honestly, and why people stop replying
Building a dialogue rather than an exchange of statements
Why giving feedback keeps the relationship alive
Going through every phase of contact and finding where persuasion is missing
A strategy when your offer is objectively worse
A strategy when nobody has heard of you
Handling public negativity and bad reviews
What to do when the people you need are not available at all
Your personal brand doing the work before you write
How many messages to send before giving up, with the actual number
Which messages to send, and automating the tracking
Writing in messengers, and what to do when someone tells you to go away
What critical thinking is and why negotiations are lost without it
How it differs from logical and creative thinking
Its role in business conversations
Objectivity, rationality and evidence-based reasoning
Deduction, induction and abduction
What separates a strong argument from a weak one
Building a case that survives the other side's questions
Recognising errors in reasoning, including in your own position
What cognitive biases are
Anchoring, which decides more negotiations than any technique
Confirmation bias and framing
Practical ways to reduce their effect on your preparation
Telling a fact from an opinion delivered with confidence
Verifying what the other side has told you
Primary and secondary sources
Fact-checking and media literacy
Decision models: OODA, Cynefin, cost-benefit
Using analysis and argument to decide rather than to justify
Managing risk and uncertainty
Cases from business
Applying it directly in negotiation
Critical thinking in communication generally
Its connection with creativity
A personal development plan for the skill
Why culture stops being optional the moment you negotiate abroad
What changes when several cultures sit at one table
How the cultures of the world are divided
The map of cultural differences as a working instrument
High-context and low-context communication
Small talk: where it is required and where it looks like stalling
What to do when you are talking to someone from another culture
What actually improves understanding
Giving feedback inside an international culture
Understanding feedback you receive from another culture
Radical Candor, and the cultures where it reads as an attack
How negotiation itself is conducted differently
Building an argument that works in the other culture
How to disagree effectively rather than politely
Power distance and what it does to who can say yes
Types of leadership across cultures
Hierarchical levels and dealing with management
The role of respect
Consensus cultures against authority cultures
Making decisions in a culturally sensitive way
Building trust and relationships before the substance
How to argue properly across a cultural line
The role of emotion and how differently it is read
Managing healthy conflict rather than avoiding it
What a time planning scale is and why deadlines mean different things
Running meetings across time cultures
Attitudes to queuing and waiting
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Almost every negotiation is decided before anyone sits down. The person who prepared has already chosen the frame, the opening number and the question the conversation will turn on.
Everyone else is improvising and calling it instinct.
What improvising actually looks like
You go in knowing what you want and not what they want, so the whole conversation is you making offers and them reacting. The first number mentioned sets the range for everything that follows, and it was not yours. An objection arrives and you argue with it, which has never once changed anybody’s mind. You get a maybe and treat it as progress. And with a counterpart from another country, you read their politeness as agreement and their silence as consideration, and both readings are wrong.
None of that is a confidence problem. It is a preparation problem, and preparation can be taught.
What the course covers
Thirty-two lessons in four parts. Technique first: AIDA and SPIN for structuring the conversation, FAB and the value proposition canvas for framing what you offer, the ladder of persuasion, active listening, and objection handling through LAER and Feel-Felt-Found. Then closing, with the alternative choice and the direct approach, and when each one is appropriate.
Then persuasion in writing, which is where most negotiations now begin. Copywriting that gets a reply, storytelling, building dialogue rather than exchanging statements, handling the situation where your offer is objectively worse, and reaching someone who has stopped answering — including how many messages to send before stopping, with the actual number.
Preparation and the person opposite
Then critical thinking, which is the preparation half. Deduction and induction, strong against weak arguments, and the biases that decide negotiations: anchoring above all, then confirmation bias and framing. Plus decision models for genuine uncertainty, and how to check what the other side has told you.
And finally the two things that change how the same technique lands. Culture — high and low context communication, power distance and who is actually allowed to say yes, consensus cultures against authority cultures, disagreement, and the fact that a deadline means something different in different places. Then personality: DISC, PAEI, Belbin, Hogan and Big Five, used for one purpose, which is recognising the type across the table and adjusting instead of repeating your own style louder.
Who is teaching this
Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals. My students are in 185 countries, and the cross-cultural section exists because of the number of times I got that part wrong.
What is included
Lifetime access to all course materials
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
Udemy Certificate of Completion
Practical assignments and real business cases
A section with additional courses, tools and resources
One habit to build
Before the next negotiation you have, write down what the other side wants, in their words, not yours. If you cannot fill a paragraph, you are not ready, and the course will show you what to do about it. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.