A Toolkit note
Improving your alternative before you negotiate
If your walk-away is dreadful, the other side can smell it, and no technique covers the smell.
I have sat on both sides of a table where one party held all the cards and knew it. The version I know best is the tender where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and it is not you. You have to be very honest with yourself about what you put into it. Do you put on an excellent show for the sake of it, knowing there will be no return? Do you decline politely? Or do you do enough to look credible without committing resources you know you will never get back?
The honest work in that position is not in the room. It is done before you walk in, and sometimes it means not walking in at all. Ask three questions. What happens if this deal does not happen, in plain terms and with real numbers? What could I do in the next month to make that answer better: a second buyer, a second supplier, a cheaper way to do without, a longer runway? And is the gap between this deal and no deal actually worth the fight, or am I negotiating because the meeting is in the diary?
Do the work on the second question before anything else. One credible alternative changes the room more than any amount of preparation on the deal itself, and the other side will know you have it without being told. If no alternative can be built, say so to yourself, take the best terms you can get, and do not confuse that with negotiating.