How Is Your Negotiating Skills?

Are you an adamant person? Simply said, some who refuses to be persuaded or having their mind changed. In some sense, I will say it is someone who forcefully wanting to do things without the sense to check the consequences.

There are pros and cons to an adamant behavior. If you have Positive Attitude, you will know the reasons why you are being positively adamant and will stay firm not to be persuaded unreasonably. You will provide your justified explanations so that the other party will take a reference to your reasonings. This is a harnessed skill. It takes a lot of experience in doing this.

For example, a salesman is insisting that you should purchase the car now as it is going for a very special one day offer. Unless and when you are sure the offer price is a good deal, you will disagree and will provide a counter proposal. Its negotiation skill applied here. You know that you will be having a good bargaining power, when you have done your research. You have compared prices a few dealers.

You also informed the salesperson that you do not want the add-on accessories for the car and inflated insurance package. You know that to install the same outside of the dealership, you will save up to 65% for accessories and up to 35% for insurance. A set of waterproof floor mat for the car can cost be quoted around four-hundred dollars whilst you can buy the same at less than one hundred. So yes, if you did your homework right, negotiations can be much more interesting and also to your advantage.

Let me bring up this funny story from Robert H. Sculler’s book, “ Success Is Never Ending, Failure is Never Final ”. A captain saw lights approaching his yacht, as soon as he stepped on the bridge. He commanded the signal master, “Tell them to alter their course”. The signal went out immediately and in return they received, “You alter your course”. Annoyed, the captain replied,” We signaled first. You alter your course”. The stranger’s light signaled, “Cannot comply, you must alter your course.”

The signal master sent out the next message on Captain’s instruction, “This is Captain John Smith. This is Her Majesty’s private yacht. This is a royal directive. You will alter your course.” After a brief moment, there was darkness. The lights reappeared and signaled, “This is Fred Smith. I have been in-charge if this lighthouse for twenty years.”

Learn anything from this story? Instead of asking who is in the opposite direction, the captain was adamant and wanted the right of passage without clarity. Similarly, in a planned negotiation, you must take reference of your adversary. They can come hard on you, giving out all the facts and reasons that the agreement should remain as per their original proposal. Of course, you should have had the copy of the agreement much ahead of time to review and prepare yourself with your rebuttals.

An agreement in principle means that both parties find a
reasonable mid-path to a fair and equitable outcome.
Maximus @ MaximusPrimo.com

In reality, this is not the case. It is not the easiest to achieve, agreements can seem lopsided, and may not be advantageous to you. Many of the times, in negotiation meetings, I address the overall goal of the meeting with its core objective; profits for both parties. You cannot under undertake a project with losses and justify to your management that it will show good for your company’s business profile. I have heard that frequently. It is detrimental. Really, it is!

Business is to make profit, without it you are a charity house. If your business is doing well, you can also do charity services as part of your Corporate Social Responsibilities. If you run negative account in your business management, make more borrowings but do not have the foresight of calculated risks, then you are doomed.

Some companies will desperately take more orders to show an inflated order book, but when the account is balanced, you seem to have easily more that 30% overall losses. Are you a profitable company or a company that is claiming profit? Are you negotiating yourself out of business?

You must have a bottom-line profit margin to which the negotiations will be worthwhile to take place. Know your numbers well otherwise, you will find financial drainage that becomes hard to overcome throughout poorly negotiated projects.