Nego Part I: Preparation Is Your Strongest Negotiation Tactic

Your negotiation doesn't start at the table. It starts months earlier, when you're still shaping your internal plans. The better your plan, the stronger your hand when you sit down with your customer.

Yet most commercial teams still treat "negotiation prep" as a stand-alone step that kicks in right before sending the tariff letter. They focus on the price increase, not the plan behind it. The result? Reactive conversations, missed opportunities, and little real alignment.

Negotiation should go well beyond price. The goal is not just to get your increase accepted, but to land a total plan that creates value for both sides. The stronger your business plan, the easier it becomes to turn that value into mutual growth.

Start with your internal plan

In our first article "How to Unlock Value Early On," we talked about the importance of a target framework: knowing the role each customer plays in reaching your overall business ambition. You can't design a credible negotiation strategy if that role isn't clear.

If a customer needs to deliver a profit reset, your plan should focus on pricing, mix, and promotion efficiency — not on listing another wave of SKUs. If another customer needs to drive volume growth, your mix of investments, promo depth, and activation will look entirely different.

That's the first rule: create differentiated plans by customers to maximise total value.

Your first step is to capture every growth driver and risk in your business planning tool or P&L simulation. Too many companies only model the upside. Include the negatives too: category decline, delistings, cost increases, or retailer investment requests.

Engage early

Strong negotiation prep means listening early. We advise suppliers to sit down with retailers during the summer months, well before commercial season starts.

Ask open questions: How do they see category dynamics next year? What are their priorities or pain points? What does a "good partnership" look like to them?

It's not a negotiation. It's reconnaissance. These early talks are your best chance to understand the retailer's view and to share first ideas about where collaboration could grow. You'll often uncover signals of what's feasible, what's not, and what will require trade-offs later on.

From Business Plan to Joint Business Plan

When you draft your JBP, strip out anything purely internal: cost savings, factory efficiencies, tax effects — and tailor what remains. The plan should speak the customer's language.

The most important step is translating everything into numbers that matter to them: consumer sales value and retailer margin. A great plan drives both your P&L and theirs. That's what makes it credible.

How retailers assess you

Just as you evaluate your customers, retailers do the same for their suppliers. They compare, benchmark, and rank. Understanding how they view you is critical to understand your negotiation power later on.

Pricing & Margin

They'll assess how big your price increase is, how it compares to peers, how retail margin has evolved, and your margin contribution to their overall P&L. If the retailer's margin is under pressure and you're pushing another increase, expect friction. You'll need data, not emotion, to defend your case.

Category Contribution

Retailers reward suppliers who drive category growth, not just brand growth. The strongest suppliers combine breakthrough launches with solid in-store fundamentals: promo effectiveness, visibility, distribution. Show you can do both.

Strategic Importance

They'll assess whether you're active in destination categories, if your brand equity is strong enough to pull traffic, and whether you're differentiated or easily replaceable.

Sell before you negotiate

Before negotiation season, you'll usually host a Business Review meeting. It's your chance to position yourself as next year's winning supplier. Show that you're a stronger, more reliable partner than competitors, that your plan supports their business agenda, and that their margin is one of your key priorities.

The more you score on these dimensions, the fewer battles you'll face during the tariff discussion. Negotiations go smoother when both sides believe in the plan. But balance what you share: show ambition but keep a few cards for later.

What comes next

You've now convinced the retailer that you're worth partnering with next year. The stage is set. But belief alone doesn't close a deal.

In Part II of this series, we move from selling to negotiating, translating ambition into action: defining your negotiation variables and principles and building a financial framework and trading model that keeps your targets intact while creating room for collaboration.

Negotiations should never be an improvisation. The groundwork you do now determines how strong you'll stand when it matters most.