Welcome to Course 3 in our Business Communication Skills Specialization. Our first course, Networking, focused on making professional connections with others through email and by telephone. In the second course, Meetings, students learned how to run a successful meeting. Now in Course 3, we'll be studying all about negotiations and planning. Let's jump into it. Planning and negotiations go hand in hand. By that, I mean that you almost never plan or make arrangements without some negotiating. A lot of people think of negotiating as a formal process, like between governments or companies. But actually, negotiations is simply two or more people coming to an agreement about something.

When people think of negotiating in business, they usually think about agreeing on the price of something or maybe someone's salary. There are actually many things that we negotiate every day in business. And the information we share, the words we choose, and the way we interact with others can affect how successful we are. Negotiating can be stressful, but we hope that through this course, you'll understand the language and strategies you can use in your next negotiation. Okay, so let's start by looking at what we'll focus on in this course. We'll begin in week one as most business interactions start with exchanging information.

Week two includes an overview of negotiating with guidelines and some cultural perspectives. In the third week, you'll learn about handling problems. You'll look at how to identify, describe, and deal professionally with problems. Finally, in week four, you'll focus on planning and announcing events. Our story wouldn't be complete without the views of people who work in businesses. In this course, you'll meet people from Seattle businesses as we learn about negotiating. That's our overview—time to get to work. Ready? Let's go.

Exchanging information is the first step in most business interactions. In this module, we're going to look at ways to give information. We'll also look at how to make comparisons before making a final decision. We'll begin the way a lot of businesses begin—on the telephone. In the first lesson, you'll learn about the guidelines and language for leaving a clear, effective, and professional voicemail message. Next, you'll learn how to describe and compare services by focusing on features of a service. You'll also learn some guidelines and specific vocabulary that will help you do that. Finally, in the last lesson in this module, you'll focus on making a decision and informing a supervisor about that decision. Let's begin with the first lesson.