| A Newsletter for the Business Professional, By Bob Gibson In this issue:
As many of you have noticed, we have two newsletters. One is designed for the sales profession, although many outside the sales arena subscribe to and enjoy it. They’ve discovered that the techniques and concepts I teach professional salespeople work equally well with their staff, their management, and their co-workers. As I tell people in seminars, the principles we teach are universal, but the applications are specific. This newsletter is designed for general business. Many of our contacts subscribe to both and enjoy them. I invite you to do the same. Get a deal on Europe Public Seminars How to Negotiate High Profit Sales Negotiating When Relationships Matter Two key understandings on negotiation I teach clients and audiences two key understandings: 1) Negotiation is the key business skill, and 2) Your most important negotiation with anyone is the first one. Let’s begin with the concept that negotiation is the key business skill. Negotiation determines: where you work (and for how much), the size of your staff, the relationship with that staff, your relationship with your manager, the size of your workload, whether or not your new pet project is approved, the budget for that project, perks, travel, and the size of your office. That’s just at work. Negotiation determines: where you live, what you drive, when your kids go to bed, if your kids go to bed, if you marry, if your marriage stays together, and if it doesn’t, if you survive. It determines if you go to the movies, and which one, if you watch TV, and where you go to dinner. Negotiation is so pervasive and has penetrated life to such an extent that most of us don’t even see it. We experience it as a fish experiences water. Let’s look at understanding #2. Your most important negotiation with any person is the first one. That’s because after the first negotiation, many of the others are predetermined. They’re built into the fabric of the relationship. The beginning negotiations set up what I call “the dance”. The dance determines the steps, the relationship that exists between two parties. Let me show you what I mean. Every parent is in a dance with their child. For some, the nature of that dance is that the parent has total authority and the roll of the child is to obey. For others, the dance allows much more freedom for the child, and less authority for the parent. For a few, the dance is that the child is somewhat in charge, and the parent’s job is to make the child happy, or acquiesce to their wishes. We smile at this parallel, but I’ll suggest to you that the relationships we have at work are not different. You and your manager, and you and your staff are in a dance. The steps to that dance were determined early on in the relationship, by negotiation. Those negotiations were extremely critical because they determined “the dance” between parties. Axiom:
Once agreements are set, they are very hard to change because
of expectations. It takes a good negotiator to change the dance once the song has begun. A final observation: If you’re dancing to someone else’s music, life can be tough. In upcoming issues, we’ll focus on techniques and tactics to enable you to get what you want, when you want it. Until then, good negotiations to you. For more articles and information visit our web site at: |
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Bob Gibson Contact Information: 1-800-572-8005 |
