Corporate negotiation is a process like all other business strategies. In today’s challenging and ever-changing business environment, it is imperative to understand negotiations from the perspective of both the buyer and the seller. In Strategic Negotiation, Dietmeyer and Kaplan use a research-based approach to negotiation that assists sales professionals in reaching their own business goals, while ensuring that their customers meet budget and professional objectives as well-going beyond win-win to achieve true, measurable business value for all parties at the negotiating table.

The authors use their own strategic, four-step negotiation process to teach sales professionals how to attain quantifiable value in their dealings:

1. Estimating the negotiation. What are the actual issues in the negotiation? Sellers determine the effects, both positive and negative, of a lost deal.
2. Validating the estimation. A fact-finding exercise to confirm the accuracy of previously made assessments.
3. Creating value. Sellers structure a series of deals creating measurable value for parties on both sides of the negotiation. Each offer addresses the essentials but goes on to include additional benefits for the buyer.
4. Dividing value. A presentation of "multiple equal offers" is made to buyers, providing more value and choices than they anticipated.

Chapters include worksheets for readers to analyze and evaluate their own negotiations from both a seller’s and buyer’s point of view.