Start With No - The Secret Strategies To Successful Negotiation

During every deal, we enter a phase of negotiation, where we fight over everything from the sale and purchase agreement to the shareholders agreement. The last thing you want is for the deal to drag on. The longer the negotiation takes, the greater the chances of it falling apart. It wastes your time and energy. So when I came across contrarian expert negotiator Jim Camp. A light bulb switched on. Here is a guy who is dead against win-win negotiations, and for a valid reason.

Need Vs. Want

The start of all your problems in life is when you can't differentiate between 'need' and 'want'. Buddha talked about this in another way, what people call "Samudaya", that suffering arises from desire. Desire can be closely connected with 'want'. You need food, water, air. But you want that car or holiday. Substitute the word 'desire' for want and you'll get the drift.

When you want something, you give yourself over to emotions. Top negotiators understand this weakness and take advantage of it. Yes, the very same win-win negotiators are out there to whip your rear-end when they know that you're looking for a win-win situation as you've been taught to compromise. Next time you negotiate, try to show that you're not needy but want to do the deal - let me know how it went.

Power of "No"

The moment you say "no" to something, you open up new doors. Not "yes" or "maybe" but "no" ('maybe' is the worst position to be in, it's negotiation limbo). No shows that you're not "needy". But get this straight, a negotiation by definition is the agreement between two or more parties, wherein all parties have the right to say "no" or veto.

"No" is just the start

Inviting others to say NO is just the start. When Jim started coaching me on negotiation, things changed. Big time! He pointed out some of my flaws and how I was losing out. Within two months of adopting his system, I managed to negotiate not just a promotion, but a 25% raise during the most tiring recession in this decade. Can you beat that?

Get started at Jim Camp's Negotiation Institute and remember to check out the free negotiation tools. If you're signing up for his coaching, please feel free to reference me.