Good research starts on both sides of the negotiation

Good research connects the customer’s situation with your offer. Understanding relevant changes, interests and room for decisions before a meeting helps you ask focused questions and prepare suitable options. Both perspectives matter: what might be important to the customer, and what can you actually deliver, promise and justify commercially? Company websites, annual reports and job advertisements provide clues. Preparation turns them into informed starting points for a conversation.

Clarify your own starting point

Begin with a short assessment. What problem does your offer solve? Which capabilities are available today? What conditions apply to implementation, resources and price? Record your objective, internal responsibilities and your alternative if no agreement is reached. The Harvard Program on Negotiation recommends considering your alternatives alongside both parties’ interests and limits.

Clarifying these conditions early helps sales teams combine suitable services and align commitments with delivery. An earlier start might require a smaller initial scope. A longer contract might provide more planning certainty. Involve the people who will be responsible for resources and commitments. This creates concrete options for the conversation and makes it easier to prepare the internal decisions each option requires.

Turn information into testable statements

Now consider the target customer. Public company sources can show which markets, products or investments the business describes. You may infer that your offer could be relevant. A specific budget, purchasing intention or priority of your contact usually requires further confirmation.

Consider a fictional example. A machinery manufacturer announces an additional site. The announcement supports the claim that an expansion is planned. The idea that this will create training needs is an interpretation. Whether that need exists, and who owns it, remains a question. A useful opening might be: “You have announced the expansion. What requirements does that create for onboarding new teams?” This leaves room for the customer to correct your interpretation.

Start with four fields

Keep your research in a compact structure:

• Statement: What does the source actually say?
• Evidence: Where, when and in what context was it published?
• Interpretation: What could it mean for the conversation?
• Open question: What would confirm or challenge that interpretation?

Open the source yourself and inspect the relevant passage. AI-generated citations particularly need this check; NIST explicitly recommends verifying sources and citations in its generative AI risk profile. Three copies of the same announcement are not three independent perspectives. If sources conflict, retain both versions and their dates in your preparation.

Translate research into better conversations

AI can help organise material and draft questions. Ask it to look for contrary evidence and missing information as well. A useful instruction is: “Separate supported statements, plausible interpretations and open questions. Do not infer a person’s motivation from a company profile.” Then check the output against the original sources.

Stop preparing when your next questions are clear and additional research is unlikely to change an important decision. You need a reliable starting point for an open conversation, without knowing every answer in advance. After the meeting, replace assumptions with confirmed statements or discard them. Research becomes a learning process that can also help with smaller, regularly recurring deals.