The Expert Podcast

Hi this is Dave again from tele mediator and one of the questions we get a lot is how to do a negotiation now I personally have negotiated over a thousand different types of transactions business deals real estate deals civil litigation mediations many of them in the millions of dollars of transactions and there's a few very common traits that goes into being successful in a negotiation and it's not always about the numbers or the figures or being more powerful or more of a bully it has to do with getting to what is the hot button of the other side and many times people go to a negotiation trying to force the other side to do something or thinking it's a confrontation negotiation and and confrontations are two different things so in this video we're going to talk about three different very successful techniques you can use in a negotiation whether it's a small negotiation maybe with one of your kids to get them to clean their room or a big negotiation on a business deal or somewhere in between that many consumers do every single day like buying a car or maybe an appliance.

The important thing to do in a negotiation is not to think you have to talk more or convince somebody a person is already convinced to do what you want to do you just have to draw that out of them so in many cases the technique you want to start with is by asking questions if you notice if you deal with any person or company that's professional at negotiation for example a car dealership they're going to start out not by starting to show you the car and what's good about the car and the price they're going to ask you questions how you going to use the car how many people in your family how many miles a year do you drive what kind of car do you have now they're going to ask you lots and lots of questions that's part of the negotiation you may not think the negotiation has started yet but in reality that is the negotiation and you can do the same thing.

If you have certain goals you're trying to achieve in a negotiation for example price you want to get to a certain price point maybe it's delivery how fast can you get it uh maybe it's a certain um a certain type of product you want a certain color of a product or a certain package of equipment you first want to find out what is important to the other side before you start talking about what's important to you because if you can find out what's important to the other side you can offer that in exchange there's your negotiation and some of the things that you can exchange aren't something that really cost you money.

In a negotiation a lot of times people will think I'll split the difference you're giving something up if somebody says it cost 10,000 and you want to pay eight you say I'll pay nine you split the difference you just gave away $1,000 that you might not wanted to have to give away and the other side might not be happy either cuz they they might not want to go down to $9,000 without something that's in it for them really so specifically how do you go about doing that.

Well the first thing you do is start asking questions of the person you're dealing with even if you're looking to buy a car at a dealership you can start asking that salesperson that manager um how soon do you want to sell a car when do you have your best deals um what is the car you want to sell the most what do you benefit from this ask them questions about their scenario um just like they're asking you about yours and that way when it comes down to um getting pricing you can say well you mentioned before that you wanted to sell a car by the end of the month if I bought it today what would be the price always ask questions and if you can ask more questions than the other side you'll be in way better shape because you will be controlling the narrative and you don't have to be confrontational right you don't have to say no I don't want to do that or you have to reject it or you don't have to be defensive about what they're offering you can just ask questions and let them tell you how to get the best deal.

Also it will help you know what to offer the other side if you just start randomly throwing out things that you're offering you're every time you offer something you're giving something away that you could keep for yourself and you may have to give away five things to get to the one that really is important to that person the other four things they might not not really need you're just giving it away for free and the one thing they need if you knew what that was and only gave them that one you would still have more things that you're retaining money offerings trades timing everything else and only give them one thing that's important to them so you want to find out what those important things are.

If it's a salesperson you're dealing with uh how many widgets do you sell a month are you the top salesperson in your in your business how many do you have sold for this month oh so I can help you get to your goal what can I do to make that better for you right so ask those questions depending on your environment what if it's a lower level negotiation with maybe a family member or a friend or a colleague you know can you bring me to the airport well I'm really not sure it's a busy day well um what things are important to you that you want to get done maybe I can help you rake the lawn or I can do something else again you don't want to necessarily have to give away something you want to find out what's important to the other person or make it easy for the other person even if it's a ride to the airport maybe they could bring you two hours earlier than you really need to go if it fits their schedule more than having to go at a certain time and that might make it better for you.

Negotiating with your kids clean your room obviously you could just tell the kid hey you got to clean your room or you're grounded but you don't want to create confrontation you'd rather have it be more facilitated how do you do that you ask as them well uh what is the thing you're looking forward to most this week well I really want to go to the park and go skateboarding on Friday great um I think we can definitely make that happen but how about in the meantime that you pick up these four things so you're not necessarily making it a quid pro quo even though it is you're just doing it in a way that is more um consultative where you're working with them.

That's the whole premise of a negotiation or a mediation a mediation is a form of negotiation it's two sides that are this far apart in their head that have to get together on some type of an agreement usually I shouldn't say usually almost all the time when we do a negotiation or mediation the clients are actually already in agreement on 99% of the items it may be one or two sticking points that seems like it makes a big wide gap between what they need to do and they may not even realize how close together they are sometimes it's Pride it's ego it's it's the fact that they've been insulted and they have defensiveness sometimes a third party in between can help but if you don't have that third party because it's not that big of deal and you have to do it yourself take away some of the animosity um maybe they are upset because you insulted them or you did something offensive to them if you steer away from that maybe even offer an apology sometimes you can get back some of the things that you're trying to negotiate from that um counterparty.

Last but not least what if you're down to a negotiation and there's a big sticking point that doesn't seem like you can get past maybe it's a big difference in price right maybe it's you're buying a business for $5 million and they want $6 million and you can only be stuck at five at any given time don't be afraid to do small walkways this is a very effective technique and say well based on where at right now I'm not sure if this is going to be the next thing that I'm going to commit to you're not saying no you're not saying I don't want to do it you're not rejecting them because sometimes if you reject somebody even if they would have a little bit of negotiation if you draw a line in the sand and say no I'm not doing it now sometimes they dig in their heels and they get defensive but if you leave it open-ended to say well I understand you want 6 million makes sense I get I get what you're saying but I don't know that right now if it's at 6 million that this would be the next investment I'm going to make in a business.

So it tells a couple stories first of all it says that you're not saying no because you're incapable of doing it sometimes people will do what's called sour grapes which is an old Aesop's Fable that says if you lose something you say oh the other person couldn't have done it anyway you kind of make up a story that it wasn't you it's them so if you don't if you just say I can't afford it or I'm not paying it the other side can say well they couldn't afford it anyway so I didn't lose anything it saves their own internal Pride but if you say well you know I'm not sure uh if at 6 million this will be the next investment I make let me get back to you let me think about it let me talk to you in a few days and then you can ghost them for more than the time you said you would what that does is it tells the person you're capable of doing it in fact when you say it's not going to be the next thing I do that implies you are going to do things maybe you're going to take another deal maybe they don't want to lose your deal because they're planning on some doing something with the money and they're kind of hung up on that price.

Once you let them stew on it and mull it over in their head a little bit if you're selling a business for $6 million and you have it stuck in your head you're getting six million and all of a sudden that is taken away from you well you know what five million doesn't sound that bad anymore maybe you had plan on you know buying a house or going on vacation or retiring or putting money in the bank and you might say well you know 5 million I could still do this it gives them a few days to reconstruct their future plans for what they were going to get from you whether it's 6 million for a business or 10,000 for a car or $10 for a pair of shoes whatever it is if you take it away from them a little bit what their builtup plans were you're letting them reconstruct their expectations in their head rather than you trying to do it if you try to chop them down now they're going to get defend they're going to fight back against you if you just backpedal from it in a way that says you might lose this deal right I'm willing to work with you but you might lose a deal.

Tell them you'll get back to them in a few days after three days don't be in a rush to call them back let them stew on it if you do want this deal whatever it is and you want to chase it that's fine but wait six days or seven days to say look I'm still kind of have this in my head I'm not sure if it's a thing I want to do have you had any other thoughts about this transaction you're not going to ask them did you come down on price can you sell it for Less do you do the 5,000 or 5 million ask them have you had any other thoughts because the answer is going to be yes you never want to ask a question that the answer is no if you ask them will you sell it for 5 million they're going to say no or they could say no if you ask them can you reduce the price they could say no I'm stuck at 6 million if you ask them have you had any other thoughts thoughts on this transaction of course they had thoughts they've been thinking about it for six days they've been imagining what they're going to spend 6 million on or 5 million or five and a half million they've had many thoughts on it so if you ask them have you had any other thoughts again you're asking a question to get them to start spilling their guts and be transparent about their conscious ideas and that might paint a picture of how you could do the deal.

What they might say is well I was thinking about um that I need all the money right away and the other thing you can ask is what are you going to do with the money if you sell it for 6 million if they say I'm going to put it in the bank you might say well why what if you didn't get all the money right away maybe it could pay over time the money's in the bank of the business there's a lot of things you can do but you can't do that unless you know specifically what it is the other side is thinking so asking that question have you had any thoughts on this what are your thoughts on this fact that will help help get inside their head to know what they're thinking it's almost like be reading the Playbook of the other team and you can use that to your advantage of structuring a transaction whether it's a $6 million business or a $10 pair of shoes or getting your kid to eat their breakfast before they uh go play outside they're all things you can do by asking questions obviously you don't need to overdo it if it's a small thing like getting somebody to do their chores but it's the same Theory the same process and if you get in the habit of doing it all the time when it comes to a larger transaction you can have the skills already built up that make it easier for you to have it be a natural conversation rather than a fight where two people are arguing over the same thing.

If you do need help with any particular transaction a negotiation a mediation you can click the link below we can do a few things we could step in as a thirdparty neutral mediator we can counsel you individually one-on-one to give you suggestions and tips and pointers on exactly how to structure your deal how to ask questions how to even think of creative ways to work with the other side to get what you want and still have them get what they want a lot of people call that win-win I don't believe in win-win I want to win I don't care if the other side wins right especially if it's a one-time transaction if it's a long-term Arrangement yeah you want to do win-win to keep that relationship going but if it's a onetime transaction who cares if the other side doesn't get as much as they wanted to It's All About You in a one-sided transaction of course you want to be nice and courteous and not burn Bridges and not hurt people but you don't want to also be a charity where you're giving something away unless you voluntarily want to do it we're glad to have a chance to talk to you if you do have questions let us know in the link below uh and you can access all of our uh resources and even talk to a certified civil and family court mediator and negotiator directly.

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