Freelancers, founders, account teams, job seekers, and professionals who need to reach agreements without pressure tactics or improvised conversations.
Course 25 · Work course 05
Learn Sales & Negotiation
Find out who needs your offer, ask useful questions, explain its value, respond to concerns, negotiate terms, and confirm the agreement.
Before you start
Choose one real product, service, proposal, salary discussion, or internal initiative to use throughout the course.
See everything you’ll needWhat you’ll leave with
A complete sales conversation plan, discovery guide, value case, objection library, negotiation sheet, and follow-up sequence.
Start course Start without an account. Sign in to save lesson progress across devices.
Your project
Start with the practice files. Build your project one lesson at a time.
Practice files are free without an account. Sign in to save your project record in My Proof: a description, checklist, and optional work link. Keep the original files in your own app or notebook; saving a project record does not upload them.
- Get your materialsDownload the practice worksheetUse the downloadable worksheet or toolkit alongside the lesson instructions.
- Make your projectView the project checklist Work in your own notebook, document, or software. Use the supplied practice examples when you prefer.
- Keep a private recordSave a project record Sign in to save a description and checklist, then return to update them.
Optional course overview
Watch an introduction.
This overview from Stanford Graduate School of Business introduces ideas you’ll practice in the lessons.
Watch directly on YouTubeStanford Graduate School of BusinessThe Art of NegotiationYouTube
Course handbook
Know the route before you begin.
Here’s what you’ll need and what you’ll make. You can return to this guide during any lesson.
- Choose one real product, service, proposal, salary discussion, or internal initiative to use throughout the course.
- Collect truthful proof such as results, samples, customer language, constraints, costs, and delivery capacity.
- Identify any approval, pricing, contracting, privacy, or compliance boundaries that apply before outreach.
Finish with proof you can use.
Build and rehearse a sales plan. Include how to check whether a buyer is a good fit, questions to understand their needs, an explanation of your offer's value, responses to concerns, a negotiation plan, a written proposal, and a follow-up schedule.
Save a project record in My ProofSee project checklist and review criteria
- An ideal-opportunity card with target roles, problem signals, disqualifiers, and qualification questions.
- Research notes about one possible buyer, three versions of your message, and a follow-up schedule that respects privacy, platform rules, and opt-outs.
- A question guide and completed call notes. Record the buyer's needs in their own words, the problem's effects, limits, people involved, and how a decision will be made.
- A one-page value case with problem evidence, recommendation, proof, assumptions, scope, and success measures.
- Responses to ten realistic buyer concerns. For each, write a clarifying question, a response with evidence, and a question to check whether the concern is resolved.
- A negotiation planner, conditional-trade menu, final term sheet, and dated follow-up sequence.
Three ideas to help you along the way
Three useful ideas
The rules behind the steps.
Diagnose before presenting
A relevant recommendation requires evidence about the other party’s goals, current state, cost of inaction, constraints, and decision process.
Value needs proof
Claims become credible when connected to observed needs, specific outcomes, evidence, and honest limitations.
Trade; do not concede
Every meaningful concession should purchase something in return, such as scope, timing, volume, certainty, or payment terms.
What do these words mean?
Key words
Key terms worth knowing.
- Qualification
- Testing whether a problem, fit, authority, urgency, budget, and workable next step exist.
- Discovery
- A structured conversation used to understand goals, problems, impact, constraints, and decisions.
- BATNA
- The best alternative available if the current negotiation produces no agreement.
- Concession
- A change in your requested terms, ideally exchanged for value rather than given away.
Your route6 lessons.
6 lessons.
One useful project.
Work in order the first time. Each lesson makes something the next lesson can use.
- 1Up next
Define the buyer and outcome
Focus effort on people with a real problem you can solve and a plausible path to action.
- 225 min
Research and earn the conversation
Create relevant outreach that gives the recipient a rational reason to respond.
- 330 min
Run useful discovery
Understand the current state, desired result, consequences, constraints, and decision process before recommending anything.
- 425 min
Present value and proof
Connect a recommendation directly to discovered needs using credible evidence and clear tradeoffs.
- 531 min
Handle objections without pressure
Clarify concerns, test their real cause, respond with evidence, and preserve the option of a respectful no.
- 632 min
Negotiate, close, and follow through
Prepare alternatives, exchange terms deliberately, document agreement, and create a clean handoff.
Use the tools
See all tools Tools to help you practice.
Source transparency
Sources and further study.
Explore the references behind the lessons and take your learning further. Source notes explain access and reuse.
Harvard Program on Negotiation — What Is Negotiation?
Source & access notes · checked 2026-09-10
Read the overview of interests, independent standards, alternatives, options, and communication.
Access: Free public article; other programs or certificates may be paid.
Reuse: All rights reserved. Linked as a reference; original Life Starter scenarios are not a Harvard course or endorsement.
Ready when you are
Start lesson one Start with the first useful move.
You’ll always know what to do, what to make, and where to go next.
Open collaboration ideaHelp keep this complete course free.
Potential collaboration: CRM platforms, sales enablement, business education
Partner with LifeStarter