When you’re an
entrepreneur, almost everything is a negotiation. You negotiate with everyone
from clients to partners and even employees sometimes. Negotiation is a
fundamental part of the entrepreneurial experience. Unfortunately, many
entrepreneurs fall victim to mistakes that make them incredibly poor
negotiators.
Over my
past five years as the CEO of BodeTree, I’ve
not only witnessed these mistakes play out; I’ve made a number of them myself.
Fortunately, it’s never too late to identify these mistakes and change
direction. Here are the top three reasons you’re failing as a negotiator, and
how to overcome them.
You’re greedy
Nothing
can derail a negotiation more quickly than greed. If one party pushes for too
much or is too aggressive, the relationships between those involved grows sour,
and the negotiation can go south. I’m a firm believer that there’s no such
thing as “not personal, strictly business.” All business is personal, and
emotions run high. It’s only natural for people to overestimate the value of
their product, position, or contribution in a negotiation. It takes a special
skill to recognize greedy behavior and stop it before it gets out of control.
This style of
negotiation can be difficult to master, because no matter how hard you try, emotions
inevitably influence your actions. The temptation to squeeze a partner for a
better deal, or emerge “victorious” in the negotiation can be strong, and it
takes a solid sense of self-awareness and humility to resist.
You don’t
understand the type of negotiation you’re conducting.
There
are two types of negotiations that leaders encounter on a frequent basis. The
first is what I
describe as the asset negotiation, which is generally a one-time event
resulting in clear winners and losers. A good example of this type of
negotiation is the sale of an asset like a piece of equipment. In this
situation, the seller wants to maximize the price paid at all costs and doesn’t really
care about the long-term implications of the deal. After all, once the deal is
done you
generally won’t have to work with the buyer again. The negotiators are
incentivized to view the situation as a zero-sum game where someone wins and
someone loses, which naturally leads to a more aggressive exchange.
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