June 25th, 2009
Several business leaders in the Seattle area met for breakfast on a cold, wet day in mid-April. As each person shared a favorite negotiation war story, I jotted down a pearl of wisdom. What you have here are seven pearls of unconventional wisdom. These bits of advice were learned the hard way: Trial and Error! Because all of the folks at breakfast have hugely successful careers, and because not one of them took a negotiation class, I suggest you take them to heart. These pieces of advice gave them a negotiation advantage, and they’ll do the same for you.
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June 25th, 2009
Have you ever wanted to know how good you really are at the bargaining table? I’ve created a tool that will let you assess your negotiation know how! If you’re interested in improving your negotiation performance, email me for your free negotiation skills assessment. jn@jnyden.com
June 25th, 2009
The most amazing (bad!) thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I negotiated a great alliance on behalf of my client (a vendor) with one of their customers. It is a very collaborative discussion and we talked about all the ways my client would share marketing efforts and win referral fees from the joint marketing efforts with the customer. Then, . . . . I got the contract from the customer’s lawyer!
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April 24th, 2009
Stressed out and stretched thin. That’s today’s business theme. All kinds of businesses are making tough choices. Customers are cutting back. Some are on the brink of disaster, while others are perfectly fine but act like they are on the verge of collapse. All of this economic uncertainty is creating havoc with many long-standing business relationships.
Read the rest of Stand Up and Stop Rolling Over: Negotiation Tips for Tough Times >>
February 17th, 2009
The Sunday, February 15, 2009 Washington Post ran a fascinating article about truth telling and trust. Researches at MIT’s Media Lab found that body language, vocal pattern and pitch are so critical to human trust that the researchers could predict the success of a sales pitch by reading body language alone. They didn’t even have to hear the content of the pitch.
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February 10th, 2009
I have a confession to make – I listened in on someone else’s conversation at a Starbucks. In fact, I listed as two lawyers, who I am guessing worked as in-house counsel for one of the large Seattle based corporations, complained about a particular negotiation. What’s more, I was so happy to listen to them, that I was delighted to get a text message that my colleague was running late. I listened to them with my negotiation coaches’ hat on. Here was the rhythm. #1 Guy started by asking #2 Guy what their next move should be at the bargaining table. #2 Guy complained about the personality of their counterpart. #1 Guy agreed and added a few words. #2 Guy added that their counterpart’s requests were unreasonable. #1 Guy agreed and complained again about their counterpart’s personality. And on it went for 15 minutes. Then they left.
Read the rest of Negotiation Planning is more than a b.s. session at a local Starbucks. >>
February 3rd, 2009
My pet peeve with the negotiation literature is that all too often authors refer to concessions and tradeoffs interchangeably, meaning they talk about tradeoffs but call them concessions or worse, call concessions tradeoffs. Mixing these terms creates confusion in the literature and during the actual back and forth bartering. Unskilled negotiators don’t distinguish between offering something without an expectation of getting something in return, and offering something with the explicit understanding that the only way their counterpart will benefit is to offer something in return. I see many negotiators make concessions believing that they are making tradeoffs just to become disappointed or upset that they did not get anything in return.
Read the rest of Free Negotiation Tip: The Key to Making Effective Tradeoffs — Define your tradeoff >>
May 2nd, 2008
Two men called me last September with a question: “We’ve been approached by a very large company. They want to acquire our company and they want us to set the price. What do you think we should do?”
Read the rest of Make me an offer I cannot refuse! >>
May 2nd, 2008
Have you been caught off guard by people who don’t seem to want to negotiate with you, but you wanted to negotiate with them?
Read the rest of Why Won’t They Negotiate with Me? >>
