Always Ask For More In Negotiations
Always Ask For More In Negotiations As the famous Roger Dawson said: This is the golden rule of negotiating! “Always ask for more than you expect to get.” should be tattooed on the inside of your hands so you never forget. These types of simple golden rules are so basic that sometimes we forget about them and take them for granted and often we don’t even think about why it... Read more
Why Your Cold Calls To Procurement Don’t Work
Why Your Cold Calls to Procurement Don't Work Most cold calls to procurement don’t work. Not because they can’t work, but because most salespeople have no idea how to actually cold call procurement. The quality of cold calls that procurement people get on a daily basis are terrible. Sales people fumbling over their opening lines, talking about how golly gee wonderful their products are and ultimately plummeting into the abyss... Read more
Negotiating with the Dark Side: Business Bullies
We've all encountered bullies in our lives. Whether it was on the playground as kids, or later in life at work, they come in all shapes and sizes. Some will confront you head-on and give you the proverbial punch to the face. While others are passive-aggressive, finding a more indirect way to knock you down. Bullies are a pain in the ass, but we must learn to deal with them.... Read more
Business Etiquette in Hong Kong
When dealing with differences in culture during international negotiations, etiquette is an important strategy/tactic to consider. Etiquette coach, Bernice Lee, joined me on the podcast a few months ago to discuss etiquette, largely dealing with the culture in China and Hong Kong. She had so much valuable knowledge to share that I invited her back for a second round. In the latest episode with Bernice, we talked in more detail... Read more
Creating Alignment with Challenging Internal Customers
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is a highly important part of negotiation and success. In procurement, professionals tend to excel at strategy and following process and downplay the magnitude of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence has been linked to career success more than intelligence alone, proving EQ a critical tool to have. Luckily, unlike IQ, EQ proficiency can be developed through exercise. On a recent episode of Negotiations Ninja I spoke with... Read more
Critical Thinking and Decision Making in Negotiation
Effective decision-making is not always easy. We've all made decisions we regret, but, when we understand what drives our decision-making framework, we can confidently move forward and make progress. Annie Duke, a World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, believes it's essential to get rid of our constant need for certainty and instead, replace it with a habit of accurately assessing what we know and what we don’t know.... Read more
Know When to Hold ‘Em
"You've got to know when to hold 'em Know when to fold 'em Know when to walk away And know when to run" The chorus to Kenny Rogers' song, "The Gambler" always gets me thinking of negotiation and poker. Both disciplines are so intricately linked and both have so much in common. The opening line of the chorus, "You've got to know when to hold 'em" may be one of... Read more
The Danger of the Escalation of Commitment
"We have to move forward with this decision,.....we've already spent the money!" The escalation of commitment (or the related sunk-cost fallacy) is when we behave completely irrationally and continue to pursue something that delivers increasingly negative outcomes (monetarily, psychologically, emotionally, etc.) instead of altering course. "Yeah, Mark, this doesn't happen to me. I'm totally rational and if I can see that it's producing negative results, I change my course of... Read more
The Danger of Confirmation Bias
"I knew I was right! That explains everything exactly as I has suspected!" Confirmation bias is the inclination to look for and remember selective information that confirms or supports our preexisting beliefs or ideas. Yes, this is a real thing. And yes, you do it. Sometimes we want so badly for something to be a certain way that we allow our emotions to cloud our judgement about that issue and... Read more
Optimism Bias
It's funny that sometimes the things that makes some of us most successful can also be our greatest undoing. I just finished a fantastic book called, Entrepreneurial Negotiation. The authors Samuel (Mooly) Dinnar and Lawrence (Larry) Susskind interviewed a stack of entrepreneurs to determine how entrepreneurs negotiate and where they sometimes make mistakes. In their research they found that there are 8 mistakes that entrepreneurs regularly make with regards to negotiation.... Read more