The Insider’s Guide to Negotiations

By Passos Dias Aguiar

We do not get what we deserve... we get what we negotiate!

If you are looking to improve your negotiation skills this book is for you. Negotiation skills strongly condition the professional and personal life of any individual. Those skills are the more accurate predictor of a person’s future success. People with better negotiation skills routinely overcome others with superior intellects, more knowledge and experience, and even more grit.

Many people held the erroneous belief that negotiation skills are of interest for only a few individuals who meet in select venues to make deals that do not concern most of us. Nothing could be farther from the truth: the boss negotiates with the worker, the husband negotiates with the wife, the pupil negotiates with the teacher, the seller negotiates with the buyer, and the son negotiates with his mother. People who think that they do not engage in negotiations do so daily, and they win and lose on each one of those interactions.

Unfortunately, very few people had the benefit of receiving negotiation training. This book removes that handicap: it reveals the secrets, tactics and strategies used by the most able and skilled negotiators. Here you will find everything you need to obtain better outcomes on your personal and professional negotiations. An easy read, this is a book you will refer to frequently.

Topics include:

The three crucial elements of any negotiation.
Sources of power in a negotiation.
Negotiation styles.
Opening negotiation tactics.
Middle-of-the-game negotiation tactics
Closing negotiation tactics.
How to deal with aggressive confrontations.
How to negotiate on the phone.
What you must do after the negotiation ends.
This is a must-have book for all the people who negotiate, and who does not?

The author has over 30 years of sales and negotiation experience. A sought-after international sales consultant, the single most important thing that sets him at the top of his profession is his ability to produce measurable results for his clients.

Do yourself a favor and read this book now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: MORBAT LDA
• Release date: Dec 18, 2021

Book preview

1 INTRODUCTION

NEGOTIATE UNTIL THE VERY END

A man convicted to death has his last pardon appeal turned down. He is to be put to death by gassing. As is customary, on the day of his execution he is granted a last wish. The man does not hesitate: he asks for a gas mask!

In this introduction, we are going to analyse the following questions: what is a negotiation, why we need to negotiate, what we can negotiate and when we should negotiate. We are also going to review three crucial elements that are always present in any negotiation: time, information and power.

WHAT IS A NEGOTIATION?

A NEGOTIATIOR IS A REALIST

After a difficult negotiation, a man known for his stinginess offers the other a glass of wine to celebrate the deal they have just concluded.

How is it? he asks.

Not good and not bad.

What do you mean?

Well, if it were better, you would not have given it to me and if it were worse, I would not have drunk it.

What is a negotiation? A negotiation is essentially an interaction with another person, or group of people from a company, organisation or association. We interact with that person or group of people for a simple reason: we want to obtain something they can give us. We talk to them and are willing to give them something, whether it be time, money, items of whatever nature, etc. – because we want to get something in return. Why do we negotiate? We do it because there are things that we cannot obtain by any other non-violent means. Think, for instance, of the three possible means by which any business can boost its profits: 1) Increase sales, which is not always possible but is always a difficult and time-consuming task; 2) Reduce costs, not an easy task either and guaranteed to meet heavy opposition; 3) Negotiate lower purchase prices with the suppliers. Undoubtedly, this last way is the method that can achieve results faster, and is less likely to result in opposition within the organisation, making it the most effective to implement.

What can we negotiate? This is a question with a straightforward answer: everything! We can negotiate absolutely everything. We can negotiate our salary, the price of the car we want to buy, the price of the house we want to sell, where we are going on holiday, where our children are going to study. Everything is negotiable. Does this mean that we have to or should negotiate everything? Not necessarily. First, to be able to negotiate properly we need to be in the right frame of mind. In other words, we must want to negotiate. We must be willing to accept the additional levels of stress and risk brought about by a negotiation. Another important consideration to take into account is whether that particular negotiation contributes to the pursuit of our objectives. If it does and it can help us to come closer to our final objective, then we ought to negotiate. However, we must not negotiate just for the sake of it. At the very least, a negotiation process is a drain on time and energy that we could put to other uses. We should always perform a cost-benefit analysis before starting a negotiation process and ask ourselves if the time and energy we are going to invest in negotiating can really bring us benefits in excess of the costs involved in the negotiation process. Yes, or no? Do we expect to gain more than what we will be forced to spend? Yes, or no?

In summary, a negotiation is an interaction with other people to obtain something we want. Everything is negotiable, but this doesn’t mean that we should negotiate every single thing. To engage in a negotiation, certain conditions have to be met. First, we must be in the right frame of mind. Second, the negotiation should allow us to reach a pre-determined goal. Third, in our judgment, the time and energy that are invested in a negotiation should be outweighed by the result in measurable benefits.

CRUCIAL ELEMENTS IN A NEGOTIATION

WE ARE ALWAYS NEGOTIATING

A lawyer tells a client that he wants a retainer of 5000 euros to represent him. The client pays the money.

Thank you, says the lawyer, this entitles you to ask me two questions.

What? That is quite an unreasonably high rate, don’t you think?

Well, I suppose some people may view it that way. What’s your second question?

In a negotiation, we can often feel that the other party has more time, or is not as worried about time as we are. We may also feel that the other side appears to have more information and to know something that we might have ignored. Somehow, the other party tends to come across as having more power and authority than us, as having the upper hand.

TIME

What can be done at any time is never done at all.

English proverb

A known fact observed time and time again is that in any negotiation, the vast majority of concessions and compromises occur very close to the deadline. In other words, the pressure of a deadline makes people more flexible, more inclined to compromise, more willing to make concessions. The obvious deduction we can make from this observation is that we should never reveal our deadline to the other party. Why? This is because that piece of information can and will be used against us. The other party will wait, will defer, they will try all types of postponement manoeuvres to increase the time pressure on us. Thus, we should never reveal our deadline, because to do so gives a big advantage to the other party.

By the same logic, take your time to negotiate. Don’t be in a hurry to reach an agreement, as this works against you. We have already seen that the closer we are to the deadline, the easier it is to gain concessions from the other party, so be patient. Realize that no matter how relaxed the other party pretends to be, however convincingly they try to show you that they are not the slightest bit concerned about time, they do in fact have a deadline. There is always a deadline for each one of the parties involved in a negotiation.

As regards your attitude toward your own deadline, always ask yourself, What is the worst that can happen to me if I miss this deadline? Will I go to jail? Am I risking death? Always put your situation into perspective. Am I risking a catastrophic loss by missing this deadline? Am I tempting fate, will I arouse the anger of the gods? What am I really risking here?

INFORMATION

My work as a negotiator is to know what I want and what the other party can give me …

Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser and United States Secretary of State

What makes information a crucial element in the negotiation? It’s simple: if we had all of the information about the other party’s limits – about their constraints of time, budget, about what they absolutely need to achieve and what they are prepared to concede – we would have a big advantage. It is for this reason that during a negotiation the other party is always very reluctant to disclose information. This is especially true if we are sitting alongside an astute negotiator. The more experienced the other party is, the less we can get out of them.

One of the reasons for this chronic lack of information is our tendency to view a negotiation as if it were an event: