http://www.blog.negotiators.com The K&R Blog Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:56:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en There was a recent article in the Nova Scotia Business Journal that contained a fundamental principle for successful negotiators.  In the article titled "Five Fatal Business Mistakes", the author included the following: "The psychology of the customer is vital to marketing and sales success.  ...The prescription has three parts: do ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/11/what-the-nova-scotia-business-journal-knows-that-you-dont/ K&R does a lot of work near year-end.  In addition to delivering Negotiation Skills Workshops, we directly consult on sales that are projected (or sometimes just hoped) to close before December 31st. Having had many of these discussions lately, one thing struck me as a pervasive problem.  Many sellers who consulted ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/10/procurement-gets-a-ferrari/ First - we're not really writing that technology buyers are defrauding sellers - so don't send nasty letters.  But there is a common technique that buyers use that has a parallel to the infamous Advance Fee Fraud, and which provides a negotiation lesson for sellers. An Advance Fee Fraud, also known ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/09/technology-buyers-and-%e2%80%9cadvance-fee-fraud%e2%80%9d/ In a previous article we discussed Negotiation Leverage in the long-running, but recently settled Qualcomm/Nokia patent dispute.  Setting leverage aside, let's look at just one of the reported terms of that agreement as an illustration of one of K&R's Six Principles of Negotiation. The principle is this: "Terms Cost Money, Someone ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/09/the-qualcomm-and-nokia-patent-agreement/ A lovely (to us, not so much to Netflix) example of how to make a value argument in sales arose after a recent Netflix technical problem caused their web site to go down, and shipments of movies to stop for days. The unknown technical issue was rumored to be internal ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/08/an-outage-at-netflix/ In our preceding article we applied the principle of Negotiation Leverage to a sales argument for replacement software.  The case we looked at used an overstated fear of the risks of lack of support to attempt to drive a client to buy a replacement. ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/08/oh-no-mr-bill-part-2-patents-at-qualcomm-and-nokia/ When negotiating, you should be aware of the principle of Negotiation Leverage.  Leverage describes the use of facts, rationale or conditions to move the other party closer to your way of thinking.  Here are some simple examples: Your software is already installed and in production, or your services team has ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/07/oh-no/ Open software is in the news every day.  Much of it is licensed for free.  For priced software, K&R hears, time and again, sales pitches similar to this, "We're providing you with $100,000 (Euros, Rupees, Rubles...) of software value for only $63,000 (just sign here)."  If you are a buyer, ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/06/is-your-software-better-than-free/ While many, including K&R's own GM of Business Development, might argue that coffee could not possibly be a commodity (bought primarily on price), at the wholesale level it is.  Recent news from the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) provides some simple examples from coffee sales that can be transferred to information ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/05/coffee-on-the-nairobi-coffee-exchange/ K&R believes (and teaches) that you should understand your "leverage position" in a negotiation.  As a seller, the worst position you can have (in terms of the price you can get) is to be a commodity, the best is to be a monopoly.  As a buyer, you will get your ... http://www.blog.negotiators.com/2008/04/monopoly-value-or-not/