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So there I was, wanting to sell something on eBay. None of us could remember my wife’s password so we had to create a new account. And up came… the standard terms to click on. What do you do? You know these terms cannot be negotiated. eBay has millions of users and not enough bandwidth to negotiate standard terms with every individual, even if it wanted to – which of course it doesn’t. It doesn’t force you to sign the standard terms, but if you want to use the service you have no choice. This is an example of the power of having a “standard” on your side in a negotiation.

Standards can come from many different sources, a number of which I talk about in my new book about the modern art of negotiation, “The Yes Book” (out on Random House on 28th March and available for pre-order now on Amazon if you are interested). You may have legal precedent on your side or custom and practice, or, as in the case of eBay, a history of dealings on a standard basis with huge numbers of customers. eBay are not the only institutional supplier to enjoy this benefit – think of Banks and Insurance companies, too.

One good example from my own experience came from dealing with Locog, the administrative body set up to run the Olympic Games in 2012. Locog derived a lot of bargaining power from being the sole custodian of the use of the Olympic logo. Nobody else was able to use that “standard” without their permission.

You will no doubt have read of a number of examples of the power of commanding adherence to this standard. […]

During the writing of my book on negotiation (“the Yes Book” on Random House) a number of people kindly sent in stories of their own experiences. I wasn’t able to use all of them in the book, but they are all too good to waste. Quite a few of the stories were on the subject of preparation – a subject which is all too often neglected in modern negotiation – the participants generally being too busy and stretched to consider ‘wasting’ time by preparing.

However, if you undercook your preparation you will end up with a raw deal. There are any number of topics to consider up-front from the make-up of the teams, to the negotiating atmosphere you want to create, from the type of person you are dealing with on the other side and their motivation, to opening and possible closing positions.

Here are a few of the insights on preparation sent in by contributors. If you have any stories on this or any other negotiating subject which you want to submit please send them via the form on the Contact page of this site, so that we can upload them to the blog.

Here’s Anny talking about negotiating for the attention of her audience as a speaker;

“My advice is – find out who your audience is by doing your research first. Google everything you can, get right down to the nitty gritty. I even look up potential client’s residences on Google maps, I see their Whois registration for their domains, I check Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, BBB, Yelp. I want to know who I am dealing with…”

And here’s one from Tony who learned the hard way about preparation when negotiating […]

I commissioned research by YouGov about how Britain negotiates for my book, “The Yes Book”, out on Random House on March 28th.

YouGov interviewed 1,000 companies up and down the country of all types and sizes. The results were then assessed by the Centre for Economic and Business Research – one of the leading economics agencies in the country. Based on the results, they worked out that UK Plc loses more than £9 million per hour from poor negotiation, such as using antiquated bargaining tactics and not being prepared – equalling £17 billion per year (article here). That’s the equivalent of an extra 650,000 jobs for the UK economy.

You can read all about the research in the book, but here are some interesting additional stats, arising from the fact that the research responses were broken out between small and large companies, by region and between male and female responses.

Negotiating traits of small companies

* 66% of deals for Small companies are “repeat business” with customers or suppliers – meaning that the consequences of something going wrong in a deal are likely to be amplified many times over.

This is a higher percentage than for medium and large sized companies, so, you would think that Small companies have every reason to negotiate effectively. In fact however, across every single measurement of deal preparedness, Small companies seem to negotiate less effectively than larger ones. This covers everything from assigning roles within your own team, knowing what your Plan B is, thinking about the attitude and motivations of the other side, and sorting out basics of the negotiation like agenda, timetable and venue.

* Small companies also seem to be less effective tactically – […]

In my new book on the modern art of negotiating for Random House, “The Yes Book”, I describe a number of social and economic factors which have caused the landscape for negotiating to change. It is now more important than ever to be an effective deal-maker. In the book I promise to keep this blog up dated with new stats on each of these trends, so that readers can see that this is an on-going phenomenon. The imperative to negotiate effectively is only going to intensify.

One reason for this is increasing competition in the global economy. This effects large corporates, small companies and individuals. In an era of ever-increasing competition, we need to be better at closing deals – partnerships with others can help us be more competitive, but on our own we are more vulnerable to the effects of competition for markets, pricing and jobs.

Here are some examples of that;

(A) Large Companies

The Mobile smartphone sector is a good example of how dynamic competition can change markets quickly.

According to IDC, from the first quarter of 2011 until the end of the first quarter of 2012, Samsung’s share of the global smartphone business soared from 11.3% to 29.1%, and the Korean manufacturer now leads the market – largely on the back of the successful Galaxy S II and S III phones. Apple with its iPhone grew from 18.3% to 24.2%. Back in the first quarter of 2011, Apple trailed just one company when it came to smartphone shipments. That company was Nokia. The Finnish firm suffered a free-fall as its share of the world-wide smartphone market plunged from 23.8% to 8.2% by the end of Q1 2012.

This trend continued throughout last year. Seemingly from […]

In my forthcoming book on negotiation (“The Yes Book” out on Random House on March 28th) I talk about social and economic changes which have made “negotiating” even more important than it used to be. One of the changes I identify is that previously we used to be able to rely on big institutions to look after us like Governments and big corporations.

Now we no longer have that reassurance for two reasons:

1) Governments have run out of cash and are increasingly cutting public expenditure.

2) Big companies which used to provide the prospect of stable employment are struggling to adjust to on-going economic uncertainty and the decline in margins brought about by the digital revolution.

So we are increasingly operating on our own as individuals, and we therefore need to be ever-more self-reliant and resourceful. From an economic point of view, being able to look after yourself as a negotiator is a key part of part being able to look after yourself financially.

You can see this shift towards self-reliance in the never-ending announcements of job cuts by big companies – the trend towards down-sizing means those who leave have to negotiate more creatively and skilfully to look after themselves, whether they are seeking new employment or setting up, funding and operating their own business. Those who stay in employment have to become even better at negotiating to look after what they’ve got.
Job cut announcements from big brands since the middle of 2012…

Goldman Sachs – announced it would be looking for further […]

In my upcoming book for Random House, “The Yes Book” I write about how rapid growth in technology is changing the way that we negotiate:

* Technology makes the world go faster – so we need to negotiate with business partners who can help us act more quickly. If we act on our own we may move too slowly and be outflanked by competitors.

* Technology globalises business – so we need to negotiate with business partners who can capture the overseas potential from operating in an increasingly inter-connected world.
Some current stats which illustrate the phenomenal growth in technology…

The World Wide Web was introduced in 1992
By 1995, only 16 million people worldwide, less than a half percent of the world’s population, were online
However, by 2000 that percentage grew to 5% (304 million)
By 2005 the number of users worldwide passed 1 billion, or more than 15% of the population
By 2012 it was over 2.4 billion according to internetworldstats.com
Of these, 167 million were in Africa – representing growth of over 3,000 percent since the turn of the century
Internet usage in the Middle East has risen from 3 million to 90 million in the same period. There are also now over 500 million Internet users in China

The trajectory is equally startling with respect to mobile and other devices…

By 2016 Cisco forecasts there will be 10 billion connected devices worldwide
People are spending more time than ever on their mobile phones. According to smartinsights.com, by 2014, mobile internet should take over desktop internet usage
On average Americans spend 2.7 hrs per day socialising on their mobile device (over twice the amount of time they spend eating and over a third […]

There has been a big negative reaction to the Cyprus bailout deal – but why? Well, there are a number of big problems here from a negotiating perspective;

1) There was no warning before the EU attempted to foist a bank raid on the citizens of Cyprus. If you are going to push someone around in a negotiation then it’s important to give a signal first. If you just spring it on them as a surprise then you create a lot of resentment, as the EU has discovered, because the discomfort is compounded by the fact that it was unexpected.

2) People in a negotiation are always more concerned with potential losses of things they already have, than opportunities to gain more. So, take away their deposits and you can expect howls of protest.

3) If you show you can’t be trusted people will be very wary of dealing with you. This scenario shows that the EU will contemplate forcing ordinary citizens to take the rap for the failings of their Banks. At a time when the EU most needs to build reassurance in its institutions and its currency, It has instead showed that it cannot be trusted with your money.

Investors and ordinary citizens in other countries will take note…

In my forthcoming book on the modern art of negotiating, “The Yes Book” I talk about a number of social trends which are combining to make skilful deal-making more important than ever.

One of these trends is “convergence”, the phenomenon by which technology melts the boundaries between different sectors and different parts of a supply chain so that everybody can compete with everybody else. In the old days there may have been a clear distinction between manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers in different sectors but technology means that is no longer the case. This means that companies have to be able to negotiate more effectively with partners – both to defend their own patch and to take advantage of the cross sector opportunities which convergence opens up.

Consider, for example, the Media sector where the impact of convergence is particularly clear. Here are some examples – notice how the opportunities all revolve around the ability to create deal partnerships which would not have been relevant prior to the current technology revolution. Good negotiation is at the centre of success or failure in responding to convergence.
(A) Advertisers are becoming content owners…

Red Bull is a good example of this.

They endorse a series of ‘extreme’ sportsmen and women and create branded content around that – viral You Tube videos, tv adverts or special one off programmes/stunts.

Whether it’s Robbie Maddison attempting to backflip across London Bridge on a motorbike (in July 2009) or Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner skydiving from the corner of space (24miles up) and freefalling at the speed of sound (in Oct 2012), two things are always present with the associated video content:

1) The equipment […]

In my new book on negotiating, “The Yes Book”, now out on Random House, I describe some social and business trends which are changing the way that we negotiate and making it essential that we up our game as negotiators. I have split the last part of my blog series into three parts – all related to the environment – the first of the trends I will look at is climate change.

Successive climate change conferences have illustrated some stark choices for nations as to whether to collaborate with each other creatively, or negotiate selfishly over the impact of climate change in a more traditional and old fashioned way.

There seems to be little hope that global temperature rises can now be contained below 2 centigrade. The International Energy Agency in its World Energy Outlook predicts that 2017 will be the year when the world is “locked in” to a rise in global temperatures of at least 2 degrees Celsius. For the world to halt warming at that 2-degree level, it would need to ensure that all additional energy infrastructure was zero carbon or begin phasing-out existing infrastructure before the end of its useful economic life. That is not going to happen.

Experts clamour to warn us of the dire consequences of an increase in global temperatures of 4%. A 4 Centigrade rise in the planet’s temperature (currently predicted for around 50 years’ time) would see severe droughts across the world and millions of migrants seeking refuge as their food supplies collapse.

A series of “thresholds” could be crossed, including the permanent absence of summer ice in the Arctic, loss of most of the tropical coral reefs, disappearance of coastal wetlands, melting of the permafrost […]

In the final part of my series on how social changes are making good negotiating skills even more important, I focus on the effect of resource shortages. As I argue in my book on negotiating, “The Yes Book”, now out on Random House, these changes require us to up our game as modern creative negotiators rather than continuing with old fashioned styles of negotiation based purely on brinkmanship and the application of power. Shortages of water, and fossil fuels both illustrate this imperative.

(A) Water

One of the by-products of global warming from climate change is that water is becoming scarcer, with the increases in temperature coinciding with a peak in world population and the extra demand on food and water resources as a result. The gloss is taken off forecasts of greater economic progress for China and India by predictions of water shortage.

China has a strategic water shortfall. It has almost four times the population of the United States but only the equivalent of one-third of America’s water resources. China’s groundwater reserves are already over-exploited, and water tables are dropping. As the racing economy guzzles it faster and faster, the problem worsens. Fifty percent of cities have been left without drinking water that meets acceptable hygienic standards, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

India is worse off. It depends on the monsoons and flows from the Himalayan glaciers, which are retreating. India has to sustain 20 per cent of the world’s population with just 4 per cent of the world’s freshwater. The Ganges is polluted and water volume on the Indus – a river crucial to both India and Pakistan – is down 30 per cent. As India’s middle-class grows rapidly, its food and […]