More than ever, it is imperative that learning and development professionals maximize the return-on-investment on every dollar spent on training. As the lagging economy presses organizations to cut budgets, professional development managers are faced with a growing need to negotiate the most favorable terms possible with their vendors. Perhaps the biggest mistake negotiators can make is to confuse their negotiation "position" with their underlying "interests. To be a truly effective negotiator, one must proactively identify as many alternatives as possible. A huge error committed by many negotiators is that they fail to explore all of their options.