Make deals to take your business forward
Overview
This standard is for entrepreneurs who make deals to take their business forward. Making deals is fundamental to all parts of any business. You have to make deals to arrange for supplies, premises or finance whilst setting up a new business or social enterprise, make agreements for new service or product delivery to develop your business or social enterprise and negotiate with suppliers or customers when changing or adapting the products or services you provide. Making deals involves defining your goals, finding innovative solutions for your business, understanding your customers' needs, negotiating the deals, and signing off deals so that they are clear to all parties.
You will need to do this if you want to:
expand your business or take your business in new directions;
work with new business partners or organisations;
get more business;
get the best deal from suppliers.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- make sure your potential deals support your business objectives
- decide what you want to achieve from potential deals and how much variation you can accept in the outcome
- identify the risks involved and develop contingency planning
- identify the outcomes that are expected from making deals with you
- explain the features of the deals you want to make and the benefits
- collate all details of your negotiation deals
- negotiate your deals against the expected outcomes
- clarify the actions to take if the outcomes of the deal change
- find innovative solutions when you need to give ground
- project a personal commitment and business capacity to deliver on deals
- sign off deals so they are clear to all parties
- follow relevant laws and regulations related to making deals
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
Business focus
1. your business objectives and how each deal may affect them
2. how changes in outcomes will affect your business
Finance
3. what your own costs to deliver the deal will be, including your margins and break-even point
4. why it is important to remain aware of the outcomes of the deal
5. when to stop negotiating so you don't jeopardise the deal
Negotiation
6. the terms for negotiations, such as price, delivery costs and times, product and service specification, service level and other extras
7. why it is important to conduct deals in a professional manner
8. how your behaviour will come across during the deals
9. how to listen to what is being said during deal negotiations
10. how to build rapport, empathy and long-lasting relationships
11. how to recalculate and present an offer in a different way to meet developments whilst making a deal
12. how to close a deal
13. how to record the outcome of your deals so it is clear to all parties and legally sound