The Art of Negotiating.
You are best positioned to negotiate when the other party respects you, not only as a businessperson, but as a human being. Trust, which is gained through that respect, is the key to successful negotiation.
Here are a few tips:
- * – If you’re a poor negotiator, then set a limit on what you will pay or accept, and on any conditions attached. Do not deviate. Your first thought is your best thought.
- * – Most negotiations are unnecessary. Don’t enter into them.
- * – Do your homework. What you don’t know or haven’t bothered to find out can kill you in any serious type of negotiation.
- * – Get all of the professional help you can trust. Do not surrender control of negotiations or the agenda to such professionals. They are not the one who will have to live with the consequences. You are.
- * – If your advisors are leading you down a path you don’t approve of, call a time-out and tell them privately that if they continue along that route you will get new advisors.
- * – They’re not your friend. They’re your enemy. If you do not understand that real winners and real losers emerge from real negotiations, then you’ll be robbed, whatever the circumstances.
- * – Listen, when engaged in serious negotiations. You are in no hurry. Nobody ever got poor listening. Use silence as a weapon.
- * – Choose a rogue element to your advantage, and bring it into the negotiation at a late stage.
- * – Divide and rule always works.
- * – Permit no such weaknesses in your own camp.
Culled from How to Get Rich – by Felix Dennis
