Negotiations Stages. The language

1 Opening the Negotiations

Welcoming: 

On behalf of ... I would like to welcomeyou to...

It's my pleasure to welcome you to...

Welcome to...

Suggesting a procedure:

I would like now to begin by suggestingthe following procedure (agenda).

To start with, I think we should establish the overall procedure.

As our first order of business, can we agree on a procedure?

Checking for agreement:

Does that fit in with your objectives?

Is that compatible with what you would like to see?

Does that seem acceptable to you?

Is there anything you'd like to change?

Is this okay with you?

Giving the discussion leadership to a colleague:

I will now hand you over to Mr. Brown___, who is...

I will now hand the floor over to Mr. Adams, who is ...

Now let me hand the meeting over to my colleague, Ms. Jones, who...

General outline of a proposal:

May I ask, please, what your proposal is in connection with our company?

What in general terms are you looking for here?

Dealing with digressions:

May we leave that till later and first look 3at...  

Can we deal with ... first?   

2 Clarifying Proposals

Reviewing the previous session:

At our last meeting, we discussed...

Perhaps you will recall that during our last discussion, we decided that...

Moving on to the next point:

Could we now move on to the next subject, which is ...

Let's go on to the next subject, shall we?

Putting forward future possibilities:

We foresee ...

We envisage ...

We see ...

Seeking clarification:

Could you clarify one point for me?

I'm not sure I fully understand yourpoint.

What exactly do you mean by ... ?

Could you be more specific?

Defining a proposal more specifically:

It involves ...

It covers ...

It includes ...

It leaves out ...

Reassuring:

Let me reassure you that ...

I can promise you that ...

Have no doubts that we will ...

Going Beyond Positions to the Underlying Interests

Asking why:

Why would you want to ...?

What would you do with ...?

What is the reason for wanting to ...?

Asking why not:

Why couldn't you ...?

What would be wrong with doing this?

Why would you object to ...?

3 Exploring the Zone of Bargaining and Options

Summarizing positions up to this point:

Can we summarize your position up tothis point?

Would you care to summarize your position up this point?

Confirming a negotiating position:

Is that an accurate summary of whereyou stand?

Would you say that is a fair representation of your position?

Probing / Looking for options:

Just for the sake of argument, what if ...

Can I ask a hypothetical question?  Suppose that ...

4 Bargaining

Signaling the start of bargaining:

We've looked at what you have proposed, and we are ready to respond.

After serious consideration, we are prepared to respond to your proposal.

Responding to a proposal:

Regarding your proposal, our position is ...

Our basic position is ...

As far as your proposal is concerned, we think that ...

Making and qualifying concessions:

We would be willing to ..., provided, ofcourse, that ...

We'd be prepared to .... However, there would be one condition.

Making counter proposals:

May we offer an alternative? Weproposethat ...

We'd like to make an alternative proposal. We propose that ...

From where we stand, a better solution might be ...