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Standards Can Be A Negotiator's Best Friend

Magical mind control powers. That’s what every sales negotiator would like to have. The ability to bend the other side of the table’s mind to your way of thinking would be the set of negotiation styles or negotiating techniques that would make life so much easier. Sadly, I don’t believe that such powers exist. However, there is something that comes pretty close – standards.

What Standards Are And Where You Can Find Them

So right off the bat I guess we should tackle the big question: just what the heck is a “standard”? Standards are documented ways of going about doing something that were created by someone else. Note that I didn’t say that a standard is recognized as an official source by anyone in particular nor did I say that it was created by a person who is well regarded in a particular field. Don’t worry, using standards is still a part of conducting a principled negotiation!

A standard is simply that: documentation about something. The important thing from your point of view is that during a negotiation when you introduce a standard into the discussion that both sides start to treat the standard as the ultimate source of information. Using standards should almost be considered part of the negotiation definition.

If you are preparing for a negotiation and you find that there is no existing standard that will support your position, then it may be time for you to create your own standard. Even if you don’t create the standard, you can at least have someone within your company create it for you. Remember that who creates a standard doesn’t really matter, it’s just the simple fact that the standard exists that gives it its power.

How To Use Standards To Get Your Way In A Negotiation

Once you have the standards that you’re going to need in order to conduct a successful negotiation, you need to understand how to use them as part of the negotiation process. The real power from a standard comes from the fact that it now equips you with legitimacy.

During the negotiations you can refer to the standards and say things like “I’ve got to stay within these standards, that’s what my management has told me to do.” The other side of the table might not like this, but what can they do?

Just by having a standard, you can make it easier for the other side to agree to go along with the proposals that you are making. The standards provide you with an air of legitimacy and they help to guide the other side to reaching the decision that you really want them to make.

What All Of This Means For You

As a negotiator you are always looking for new ways to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the other side of the table. You really want to find ways to make your way of seeing the world their way too so that a negotiated deal is that much easier to reach.

Standards that you bring to the table can provide you with the support that you are looking for. These standards don’t have to be fancy internationally recognized standards. Standards that have been developed by your company (perhaps just for this negotiation!) often have as much weight. Simply by having a standard, you can reduce the amount of push-back that the other side will give to your proposals.

Take the time to plan your next negotiation. Look for ways to boost your position by the introduction of one or more standards. When the time is right, bring them to the table and defer to them. You may be amazed at just how powerful the right standard at the right time can be!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: What do you have to do to make an internal standard be accepted as legitimate by the other side?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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Authority To Negotiate Differs Depending On Where You Are

When you sit down to conduct a sales negotiation, you need to be assured that the people sitting on the other side of the table have been granted the authority by their company or organization to reach a deal with you. Under normal circumstances this can hard enough to do; however, when the other side is from another country, this gets even harder to determine.

The Difference Between The United States And Everywhere Else

Negotiating between parties that come from the United States and those who come from other parts of the globe can quickly become complicated. One of the reasons for these complications is because different cultures permit their negotiating representatives to have different amounts of negotiating authority.

An example of one style of negotiating authority comes in the form of representatives from the United States. For a wide variety of reasons based on both business structure and social norms, U.S. negotiators are often given a great deal of authority to negotiate and close deals. They don’t have to appeal to a higher authority to get approval for the deal and they are permitted to close deals by themselves.

This allows sales negotiations to move very quickly. Assuming that you can convince a U.S. negotiator to agree to a deal, you have the chance to walk away from the table with a signed deal that you can have confidence will be executed.

How It’s Done In Other Countries

When you start to invite representatives from other countries to the sales negotiating table, things can change quickly. I need to be clear here: not every negotiator from each country behaves exactly the same way. These observations are designed to paint a broad picture of what you can generally expect to encounter.

Based on where the other side of the table is from, here’s what you may encounter when you are conducting a sales negotiation with them:

• French: when French negotiators are sitting on the other side of the table, don’t expect them to have been given a great deal of authority. Instead, they’ll have to take any deal that you reach back to a central authority for approval.
• British: British negotiators are often given the same amount of authority as U.S. negotiators and no approval from a higher authority is required.
• German: once again, German business is fairly well distributed and so German sales negotiators are permitted to close most deals.
• Chinese: Chinese negotiators have very little authority. To make things worse, they will often put on an appearance of having a great deal of authority; however, in the end they will always have to go back to a higher authority in order to get approval for even the smallest of deals.
• Japanese: once again, Japanese negotiators have very little authority. The Japanese culture is built on reaching internal agreement and so you should expect the other side to have to go back to their management in order to get internal agreement on the deal that you have reached.

What All Of This Means For You

Successful negotiators have the ability to be aware of their surroundings at all times. It turns out that this needs to include understanding where the other side of the table comes from and how their culture approaches deal making.

The U.S. style of negotiating pushes most of the authority for closing a deal down to the negotiator who is sitting at the table. The British and German cultures operate in much the same way. However, the French, Chinese, and Japanese cultures give very little authority to their negotiating representatives and require all deals to be taken to higher powers in order to get approval.

Negotiators who are aware of how much authority the other side of the table brings with them will always be better prepared. Knowing what will happen after a deal is reached makes reaching that deal that much easier to do.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: Do you think that it would ever be a good idea to insist that a real decision maker be a the table during an international negotiation?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

One of the great myths of sales negotiating is that you always have to know everything about everything. It turns out that even the great negotiators can’t do this. There are a whole bunch of reasons why, but the important fact is that it’s not possible to always be on top of everything. It’s what you do when you find yourself in this situation that will distinguish you from other negotiators.

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When Negotiating, Sometimes You Have To Look Behind The Curtain…

What’s your most valuable resource? You might have said money, but I’m willing to bet that it’s really something else – time. You can always earn more money, but once you spend time on some task, it’s gone, gone, gone. That’s why when you are negotiating with someone it is critical that you quickly get an answer to the most important question: how much authority do they really have?

Why Authority Matters

The whole purpose of spending time negotiating with someone is so that you can reach a deal with them. So what is a deal? It’s a two-sided agreement: you promise to do something for the other side of the table and they promise to do something for you. Sounds simple enough, right?

However, as with all such things in life the reality is a bit trickier. That deal may require the other side to give up something or spend money or time doing something. This is all well and fine if the other side has the authority within their company to make this happen. You’ll run into problems if after the deal has been reached that you then find out that the other side does not have the internal authority to carry out their side of the deal.

Often times you’ll encounter this “lack of authority” problem when you are negotiating with salespeople. They may talk a good line, but when it comes down to it, deals can only be done by people who are higher up in their company.

In order to make the best use of your time, you are going to want to be able find a way to spot these folks who don’t have the authority to execute a deal that you’d reach with them. Your goal should be to bypass them and to try to deal only with people who can do what they promise during a negotiation.

5 Ways To Determine How Much Authority The Other Side Has

In a perfect world, every person that you started to negotiate with would be required to carry an “authority card” that they could show you in order to prove that yes, they had the authority to carry out any deal that was reached with you. We don’t live in a perfect world so we’re going to have to come up with a different approach.

Although there is no “silver bullet” technique that will allow you to instantly determine if the other side has the authority to reach a deal with you, there are 5 techniques that can help you uncover situations in which the other side is not going to be able to carry out their side of the deal:

1. No Vacations: A very common way of delaying a deal because the other side didn’t have the authority to strike it is to say that the senior management that needs to approve it is on vacation. Confirm that they aren’t before you start negotiating in order to eliminate this ruse.
2. Get All Paperwork: As much as we may hate them, the world runs by having the correct forms filled out. Make sure that all required paperwork has been collected and is available before the negotiations start so that there are no delays.
3. Be A Man Of Mystery: Or a woman of mystery for that matter. There’s no need to tip your hand to the other side if you don’t have to. Don’t brag to them about the limits of your authority unless they ask.
4. Update the home team: It’s critical that you keep your team updated on how the negotiations are going. This will eliminate unneeded pressure being placed on you during the negotiations.
5. Complain: Go to a higher authority at the other side’s company and tell them that you won’t negotiate with whomever they sent because they didn’t have enough authority. This is a sure fire way to ensure whomever finally gets sent will have enough authority to strike a deal with you.

What All Of This Means For You

As sales negotiators we all have an obligation to ourselves to make the best use of our limited time. One of the most effective ways to do this is to take the time to ensure that the person that we’re negotiating with has the authority to do a deal.

The other side of the table will often be coy about the amount of actual authority that they have. This means that you’re going to have to take action to find out. This may include asking them directly, researching their reputation, talking with the other side’s boss, or finding out how the other side makes decisions.

The time that you invest in determining just how much of a commitment the other side can make to you will go a long way in making the most of your time. It will also mean that when you reach a deal with the other side of the table, you’ll know that they’ll be able to honor their side of the deal…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: What should you do if you find out that the other side does not have enough authority to do a deal with you?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When you sit down to conduct a sales negotiation, you need to be assured that the people sitting on the other side of the table have been granted the authority by their company or organization to reach a deal with you. Under normal circumstances this can hard enough to do; however, when the other side is from another country, this gets even harder to determine.

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways To Determine How Much Authority The Other Side Really Has What’s your most valuable resource? You might have said money,...
2. How Would You Negotiate If You Had No Authority…? When we talk about what it takes to be successful...
3. 4 Ways That Less Is More In A Sales Negotiation Power, power, power – sales negotiations are all about who...

Image Credit

When Negotiating, Sometimes You Have To Look Behind The Curtain…

What’s your most valuable resource? You might have said money, but I’m willing to bet that it’s really something else – time. You can always earn more money, but once you spend time on some task, it’s gone, gone, gone. That’s why when you are negotiating with someone it is critical that you quickly get an answer to the most important question: how much authority do they really have?

Why Authority Matters

The whole purpose of spending time negotiating with someone is so that you can reach a deal with them. So what is a deal? It’s a two-sided agreement: you promise to do something for the other side of the table and they promise to do something for you. Sounds simple enough, right?

However, as with all such things in life the reality is a bit trickier. That deal may require the other side to give up something or spend money or time doing something. This is all well and fine if the other side has the authority within their company to make this happen. You’ll run into problems if after the deal has been reached that you then find out that the other side does not have the internal authority to carry out their side of the deal.

Often times you’ll encounter this “lack of authority” problem when you are negotiating with salespeople. They may talk a good line, but when it comes down to it, deals can only be done by people who are higher up in their company.

In order to make the best use of your time, you are going to want to be able find a way to spot these folks who don’t have the authority to execute a deal that you’d reach with them. Your goal should be to bypass them and to try to deal only with people who can do what they promise during a negotiation.

5 Ways To Determine How Much Authority The Other Side Has

In a perfect world, every person that you started to negotiate with would be required to carry an “authority card” that they could show you in order to prove that yes, they had the authority to carry out any deal that was reached with you. We don’t live in a perfect world so we’re going to have to come up with a different approach.

Although there is no “silver bullet” technique that will allow you to instantly determine if the other side has the authority to reach a deal with you, there are 5 techniques that can help you uncover situations in which the other side is not going to be able to carry out their side of the deal:

Ask: Although it sounds too simple, asking the other side if they have the authority to execute a deal is often the best way to determine their status. When you ask this question you need to carefully listen to their answer: are they vague or evasive? If so, ask more questions and find out just how much authority they have.

Do Your Homework: The world in which we negotiate is actually very small. The person or persons that you are negotiating with have negotiated with others before. This means that you can find out how much real authority that they have simply by asking around. If they’ve over promised and under delivered in the past, then I’m sure that your peers will be more than willing to tell you about it.

Take An X-Ray: During a negotiation it’s always important to remember that you’re not just negotiating with the person who is sitting on the other side of the table. Instead, you’re really negotiating with that person’s entire management structure. If you want to know how much authority they have, then you need to understand what this structure looks like and where they fit in it.

Go Over Their Head: Instead of trusting the other side to tell you how much authority they really have, take the initiative and ask their boss how much authority they have been given. Often times their boss will be more direct with you – they’ve got nothing to hide and no face to save.

Get A Map: Just what does it take for the other side of the table to get a deal approved within their organization? The more authority that they have, the shorter the post-deal approval time should be. If it appears as though a large number of people or a great deal of time will be involved in getting final approval for the deal that you reach, then you’re going to have to assume that whom you are getting ready to talk with doesn’t have very much authority.

What All Of This Means For You

As sales negotiators we all have an obligation to ourselves to make the best use of our limited time. One of the most effective ways to do this is to take the time to ensure that the person that we’re negotiating with has the authority to do a deal.

The other side of the table will often be coy about the amount of actual authority that they have. This means that you’re going to have to take action to find out. This may include asking them directly, researching their reputation, talking with the other side’s boss, or finding out how the other side makes decisions.

The time that you invest in determining just how much of a commitment the other side can make to you will go a long way in making the most of your time. It will also mean that when you reach a deal with the other side of the table, you’ll know that they’ll be able to honor their side of the deal…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: What should you do if you find out that the other side does not have enough authority to do a deal with you?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Negotiator Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

Related posts:

1. How Would You Negotiate If You Had No Authority…? When we talk about what it takes to be successful...
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Sometimes The Half-Empty Glass Is Fuller Than You Might Think

Power, power, power – sales negotiations are all about who has the most power, right? Well, no – sometimes it’s about who doesn’t have the power. A case in point is when you find yourself in a situation where you have limited authority – your hands are tied. It turns out that that there are four ways that you can both be limited in your authority while at the same time gaining more power in the negotiations. I’m going to tell you how to do this…

Organizational Limits

Organization limits are the most common type of limits that people encounter in a sales negotiation. How many times have you heard “I will have to talk to my boss” while working on a deal? This kind of limit can be a great way for you to get more time to consider the offer that is on the table before you.

Structural Limits

Structural limits have to do with restrictions on your negotiation power that have been placed on you by virtue of the job that you have, the company that you work for, or other type of limits that come with your job. The power of these types of limits is that the other side of the table rarely questions them. Once you say that your hands are tied due to a structural limit, the other side will almost immediately start to find other issues that can be worked without probing to find out why you have this limit.

Financial Limits

Financial limits rarely require much explanation – they just are. When you state that your ability to deal with the other side’s offer is limited due to financial restrictions, then your statement is given instant credibility. If the other side of the table knows that you have a financial limit, then you’ll be amazed at how often they are able to present you with a deal that comes in just under that limit in order to get you to approve it on the spot!

Legal Limits

One of the most powerful limits that you can bring to the table is a government restriction. Master negotiators often suggest that if it is possible that you bring a printed copy of the government regulations to the table just as a show of force. The other side will quickly accept that this is a limit that can’t be moved and will shift to negotiating on other topics.

What All Of This Means For You

When your ability to agree to proposals that the other side of the table is making is limited, you would think that you’d be limited in what you could accomplish during a sales negotiation. However, limits on your authority can sometimes result in you actually having more power in a sales negotiation.

We’ve discussed four different ways to limit your authority: organizational limits, structural limits, financial limits, and legal limits. Every sales negotiating situation will require that you carefully study the situation and decide which approach best meets your needs.

By placing limits on your authority during a negotiating session, you equip yourself with a way to say “no” to the other side of the table. Additionally, you provide yourself with a way to explore just how far the other side is willing to go in order to create a deal. It turns out that sometimes limits can be a good thing!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: Under what circumstances do you think it would be a good idea to enter a negotiation with your authority limited?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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Sometimes Having No Authority Is The Most Powerful Position

When we talk about what it takes to be successful in your next sales negotiation, we often talk about how much authority you can bring to your side of the table. Your basic goal needs to be to show up to the negotiation with as much authority as you can bring – you are “the man” as they say. You can make decisions, cut deals, and even make concessions. You can do whatever it takes to make a deal happen. It turns out that we may have gotten this all wrong – maybe what we should be doing is showing up with no authority…

Why Having No Authority Is A Good Thing (Sometimes)

I can’t tell you how refreshing it can be to have absolutely no authority whatsoever when you are involved in a negotiation. This is often a good situation to be in when you are negotiating on the behalf of others.

If you had authority, then the other side of the table would reasonably be able to expect you to negotiate with them. Part of this would involve you giving in to some of their demands. Since you have no authority, you really can’t do this.

We encounter negotiators who have no authority all the time. Think of the last time you went to the supermarket. If you decided that US$3.00 was too much to pay for bananas, then could you corner a supermarket employee and try to bargain with them? No way – they don’t have the authority to lower the price of bananas.

How To Use Your Lack Of Authority

Instead of thinking about your lack of authority as being a handicap, try to view it as what it is: a powerful negotiating tool. What’s going on here is that when you have no authority, you get to play a different role in the negotiation.

I would argue that most car salesmen play the “no authority” role. They are able to present you with the car and they can even add and remove standard option packages in order to help you configure the car of your dreams.

However, when it comes time to talk price, they are pretty much helpless. They can ask you all sorts of questions about why you don’t think that the stated price is a fair price for the car. They can work with you to understand how much you can pay for a car. However, what they can’t do is agree to lower the price of the car.

The only person who can do that is the car dealership manager. The car salesman who has no authority over the car’s price simply acts as a conduit to the manager. He’ll take your price request up the line and come back and tell you what the decision was.

By not having full authority to make decisions, the car salesman is able to collect the information that is needed by the car dealership. Although it may seem as though he doesn’t have any negotiating power, he might actually have all the power that he needs!

What All Of This Means For You

All too often, when we think about how we want to prepare for our next negotiation, we attempt to gather as much authority for ourselves as possible. However, sometimes showing up with no authority can work in your favor.

When you or someone that you send negotiates from a position of no authority, they can’t give in. When they can’t make concessions, then all they can do is provide information to the other side of the table. Additionally, they can act as information gatherers for you so that you’ll know what the other side is trying to get out of the negotiations.

Realizing that sometimes less is more means that you have a new negotiating tool. Every negotiation needs to be evaluated before you start discussions and if the situation calls for it, feel free to show up empty handed.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Negotiating Skills™

Question For You: How long do you think that you should spend negotiating when you don’t have any authority?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Negotiator Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Power, power, power – sales negotiations are all about who has the most power, right? Well, no – sometimes it’s about who doesn’t have the power. A case in point is when you find yourself in a situation where you have limited authority – your hands are tied. It turns out that that there are four ways that you can both be limited in your authority while at the same time gaining more power in the negotiations. I’m going to tell you how to do this…

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Lacking Authority Can Leave Sales Professionals Feeling Naked In A Negotiation

Sales professionals really don’t like to enter into a negotiation naked. When you don’t have any authority to make concessions, you basically feel pretty naked.  Likewise, if you have full authority, then you’ve got a whole other set of problems.

Back to the poor sales negotiator who has no authority. Hold on a minute, they actually do have a lot of authority. Here’s what they have:

• the authority to collect information and represent the other side of the table back within his organization.
• the authority to attempt to create a “both win” type of negotiation.
• the authority to establish both support and commitment with the other side of the table.
• the authority to deal with different members of his organization in the role of a specialist.
• the authority to try to reach a deal on a personal level.

The sales professional is really only prevented from giving in to any of the other side’s demands. Since he / she still has the ability to negotiate, it’s worth the effort because there is the possibility that the other side will make concessions and a deal can be struck, or at least valuable information about the other side will be collected.

If you’ve ever been in a no authority sales negotiation situation, then you’ve probably dreamed of having the ability of being in a sales negotiation where you had full authority. Careful what you wish for – this isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

The reason that full authority is not necessarily what you either want or need is because the name is actually misleading. Full authority simply means that whatever you agree to is what your  side of the table will end up having to do. This can lead to disaster. Here are some reasons why you might not want to have full authority when you enter a negotiation:

1. Both sides of the table may not have equal authority.
2. Both sides of the table may differ in stamina or physical qualities.
3. Either side may not be properly prepared.
4. Either side may be role playing.
5. A side may be more secure than the other.
6. A side may be busier than the other.
7. A side might be more wealthy than the other.
8. A side might be more emotionally involved than the other.
9. Either side may have better support staff.

Should you find yourself in a sales negotiation with full authority, all is not lost. There are several ways that you can get out of this predicament. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Say that you are not familiar with how things operate.
• Indicate that you will need to check with the board of directors.
• State that there is a legal problem.
• State that you need to check with a government agency.
• Say that this may involve anti-trust issues.
• Indicate that this deal actually depends on another deal that is currently being negotiated separately.
• State that you have to tell your coworker / partner.

If none of these “escape” techniques work for you, you can always fall back on the old reliable – “I don’t know”. You may feel foolish for saying it, but at least you won’t end up negotiating a bad deal.

Have you ever entered into a negotiation with no ability to make concessions? How did you feel? How did that negotiation turn out? Have you ever had full authority in a negotiation? How did that turn out? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Don't Look Now, But You're Negotiating With More People Than You Think You Are

So there you are, sitting across the the table from the other side starting a negotiation. If only you are able to use your considerable negotiating talents to convince them that what you want is best for them, then you’re sure to get what you want – right? Nope, it turns out that although you might think that it’s just you and the other side talking, it turns out that room is actually crowded with negotiating ghosts that you’re going to have to learn to talk to…

The other side of the table rarely represents just themselves. No matter if you are trying to buy a car from them or sell them a house, you are really talking with someone who is really part of a larger organization. This can be a whole company, a spouse, kids, a banker, etc.

What this means to you as a negotiator is that the other side is going to have to satisfy the demands of their extended team (upper management, sales, the union, the spouse, etc.). They are going to have make sure that everyone on their side has their needs met before they can reach an agreement with you.

Although there can be quite a mix of people whispering into the other side’s ear, there are four common characteristics that all of these impacted parties will share:

1. Not All Will Agree: This means that there will be conflict among members of the same team. If they can’t agree, then this will impact the other side’s ability to agree to your proposals.
2. Nobody Is The Same: All of the different individuals that the other side is representing have different needs and different priorities. This may be why the other side seems to be changing their direction so often.
3. Not All Are Equal: Although there may be multiple parties whispering into the other side’s ear, not all of them have an equal role to play when it comes to making a final decision.
4. Not All Benefit The Same: Just as all are not equal, so too not all will benefit the same amount from whatever deal you are negotiating.

All of these Ghost Whisperer issues lead you, my dear negotiator, to one simple conclusion: you need to come up with a way to deal with all of these “negotiation ghosts”. Here are four tips for doing so:

1. You need to find out who is really making the decision on each issue in the negotiation. Keep in mind that it might be a different person for each issue.
2. Make sure that you get commitments from the people behind the other side when it comes to the value of the thing that you are offering and the validity of your offer.
3. Have the fundamental realization that the other side will be unable to give you the “yes” that you are looking for until his people allow him to give it. This means that your job is really to help him to get them to give him permission.
4. Oh yeah, you’ve got the same issues – you are really negotiating on the behalf of many different parties. You need to be a good enough negotiator that you are able to get your people to approve your ability to reach an agreement with the other side.

When you negotiate, whom do you have whispering in your ear? Have you even negotiated with the other side when you didn’t know who they needed to please? How did you handle this? Has a deal ever been agreed to and then nixed because some outside party’s approval was not given? Leave me a comment and let  me know what you are thinking.

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© Dr. Jim Anderson for The Accidental Negotiator, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agreement, buy-in, deal, negotiate, negotiator, parties, satisify, team

You wouldn’t show up for a job interview naked (well, let’s say that you wouldn’t show up naked for MOST job interviews). You wouldn’t sit down to gamble in Las Vegas unless you knew the rules of the game. You wouldn’t start to run a marathon while wearing snow boots. So why would you ever even dream about starting a negotiation with a bunch of wrong assumptions?

You would be amazed at how many people actually do this. Somehow we have all talked ourselves into believing a lot of stuff about how negotiating is done and just who has the negotiating power that are flat out wrong. We seem to get ourselves offtrack even before we start to negotiate. How about if we spend some time now and identify these Seven Deadly Sins so that we can stop doing them!

1. We assume that the other party is all-powerful and is holding all the cards.
   Fact: In truth, the other side rarely, if ever, is , or does. Instead at the start of a negotiation, power is shared by both sides. Perhaps not equally, but you always do have some power.

2. The other side has a clear idea of exactly he wants.
   Fact: Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t, no matter how detailed he may have been in describing what he is looking for before the negotiations begin. Often times, the other side has a lot of details about something that won’t fix their problems. It’s your job as a part of the negotiation process to listen and discover their true issues.
3. The other side is only concerned about price.
   Fact: price is the most overrated word in negotiation. It is an important part of the whole negotiation; however, it’s not nearly as big of a deal as most people make it out to be. There are lots of other issues that need to be discussed and these issues will diminish the importance of price in the final agreement.
4. There are other people / companies / products that have a better solution to offer the other side than you do.
   Fact: This is almost always never the case. Of course there are other options for the other side no matter if you are talking about going on a date or buying an airplane. However, every single other option has an up side and a down side associated with it. What you bring the table has an up side and a down side also. Now the only thing to negotiate about is how valuable your up side it to the other side.
5. You’d be in a better position to negotiate if only you had more authority.
   Fact: In most negotiations, you’d be better off with less authority. Less authority means that you can build better relationships with the other side because you are NOT the decision maker, instead you are both in this together trying to come up with an agreement that “they” will accept.
6. Your only real weapon is the ability to ask for less.
   Fact: Asking for less is only one of the literally dozens of negotiation tools at your command, and, oh by the way, many are much more effective than asking for less.
7. You treat negotiating like just another meeting.
   Fact: failing to get enough sleep, do your homework, or wear comfortable clothing all provide the other side with power over you. Why would you ever put yourself at a disadvantage just because you didn’t take the time to prepare?

There you go — now you know the 7 deadly sins that can diminish your negotiating power even before you start to negotiate. Overcoming these 7 can be challenging; however, learning to do so will start paying you back right off the bat.

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© Dr. Jim Anderson for The Accidental Negotiator, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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