At Flagship Financial, we believe in empowering the business owners we work with to succeed in every area of their life, not just their retirement planning.
The last few articles focused on self-care and creating a healthier you – to create a healthier business. You can find those articles here: Health You, Healthy Business Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
These next two articles will focus on helping you become a better negotiator, an essential part of owning a business. These tips have been curated from an article written by Ed Brodow, a negotiation expert, author, and speaker. You can find the original here: Ten Tips for Negotiating in 2018
The First 5 Tips for Negotiating..
-
- Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For What You Want – Everything is negotiable. Everything. Successful negotiators know how to ask for what they want and challenge everything. Be assertive. This does not mean being aggressive, but it does mean taking care of your own interests while still maintaining respect for the interests of others. “Challenge everything” simply means think for yourself and don’t take everything at face value. You cannot negotiate unless you are willing to challenge the validity of the opposing position.
- Shut Up and Listen – Good negotiators are detectives. They ask probing questions and then get quiet. They listen to the other negotiator and wait for them to tell them everything they need to know. Many of us have lost the skill of listening, but good negotiators are great listeners.
- Do Your Homework – Good negotiators are detectives. Gather as much pertinent information as possible before the negotiation. What are the other parties’ needs? What pressures do they feel? What options do they have? The more information you have about the people you are negotiating with, the stronger your negotiation will be.
- Always Be Willing to Walk Away – Never negotiate without options. If you depend too much on the positive outcome of your negotiation, you lose your ability to say “no”. Always be willing to walk away.
- Don’t Be In a Hurry – Americans generally aren’t very good at being patient. We just want to get it over with. But in a negotiation, whoever is more flexible with time has the upper hand – because you show that you aren’t desperate to make the negotiation happen.
In the next article, we’ll cover numbers 6-10 of Ed Brodow’s successful negotiation tips
Warmly,
AC Brian.
