The Negotiation Guru

Successful negotiation comes from avoiding some of the common traps.

Here are 4 common traps and how you can avoid them to help you be more successful in your negotiation:

1. Holding up of decision

Sometimes when you want to hold a meeting with the other party, they always have some reasons to delay the meeting. They give all sorts of excuses just to avoid having the meeting with you.

“My partner will not be in town this week, I don’t think we can have the meeting.”
“We are waiting for the department head to come back from his holidays.”
“Let me call you back on this, I will have to discuss with my team.”

The other party might be intentionally trying to slow the process now.

Perhaps they are unable to make a decision.
Perhaps they are waiting for new opportunities.
Perhaps they are waiting for a new bid from your competitor.

Solution: Have them agree to an explicit timetable.

“Let’s decide how and when we are going to meet.”

Be firm and assertive.

2. Unrealistic requests

The other party might start to come up with unrealistic request before the deal is done.

“I will agree to closing this deal only if I receive a cut from it.”
“I will not agree to this assignment unless he is taken out from the team.”
“I will not agree unless…”

You might lose the deal if you do not accept his requests.

Solution: Be explicit about the terms and conditions at the beginning of every negotiation

3. Shuffling of key players

You always see new faces when you negotiate. The other party always rotate the people in their team. You get into this cycle of negotiating the same issues but with different outcomes each time.

Issues that were previously negotiated were cast off and override. This can get very frustrating if you are eager to close the deal.

Solution: Call out the tactic. Ask them to decide who has the authority to make decision.

4. Unfounded facts

Sometimes when you are negotiating, the other party might throw in some “facts” just to test how you react to it. They are trying to artificially increase their bargaining power. This is very detrimental to the trust and relationship.

“We were talking to one of our partners, and heard that…”
“According to my sources…”
“I cannot tell you who I heard it from but…”

Solution: Use standards that both parties agree upon.

—————–
Jens Thang
Negotiation Skills for Everyone

Email: jens@thenegotiationguru.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Business Negotiation, Contract Negotiation, Debt Negotiation, Salary Negotiation, Sales Negotiation, Tactics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.