By Marty Finkle, CEO, Scotwork (NA) Inc.
June 2009
Each of us negotiates everyday. It is an integral part of living, working, socializing, and maneuvering around other human beings. There are a number of us who make a living negotiating. We negotiate prices, work schedules, benefit plans, proposals, leases… and the list goes on. In my experience, there are many levels of competency surrounding negotiators. Frankly, some individuals are better at it than others. I can write pages around the different strategies associated with negotiation, manipulation, winning and losing – but that’s for another time. Today I want to talk briefly about the one behavior that is extremely important to not only getting what you want, but also paramount in maintaining a good working relationship with the individual or company that you’re negotiating with.
That behavior is what I call Negotiating with Integrity. We sometimes engage in only one act of negotiation with another party, but most of the time we have several interactions with the other party. Our past behaviors carry more weight than our perceived wins and losses. We can be viewed as a shrewd negotiator, but fair and upfront, or we can be thought of as a shrewd- cutthroat –can’t be trusted negotiator. It’s our choice, because we earn these reputations based on our past behaviors. One of the central guiding principles we at Scotwork stress is Negotiating with Integrity. In fact that is how we drive our business.
Here are 4 general guidelines to use when practicing Negotiating with Integrity:
1. Share the right information and let each other know what your main issues are. You may be surprised at the outcomes.
2. Be honest in what you are looking for from your customers or your internal trading partners.
3. Let the other party know what you need in order to get the job done.
4. Let them know what you are flexible with so they can give you what you are looking for on terms you can accept. You are then better able to present these terms to those whom you need to sell internally.
If you develop the skills associated with Negotiating with Integrity, you can expect:
• A shortening of your negotiating cycle times
• A quicker revenue recognition or cost savings
• The ability to make decisions more soundly and rapidly
• Very little guesswork regarding hidden agendas
• Less game playing
Scotwork has been offering extensive negotiation courses in North America for over 7 years. We offer open enrollment public courses, focused one company courses, one day negotiation introductions and one day follow ups. Our instruction method uses 1 tutor for every 6 students, ensuring more one on one coaching and to help each participant hit the ground running when they return to work through practice with the trained negotiators.
We had both buyers and sellers in a few of our public courses this year. That in itself was not unusual. What was unusual was on a few occasions, the buyers from one company attended with sellers who called on them. Sticking with the theme around integrity, one of the buyers came up to me and was a bit uncomfortable about sharing their secrets with the sellers. I asked them to imagine what would happen if they were more open - how would that affect the time it took them to come to a decision? They did not even have to say anything. They realized that if you let the other side know what is important, you will make better deals. They then had a very long talk about how to help each other.
We spoke to a customer who was asked to respond to an RFP. They found out that the RFP was written in terms of one of their competitors. Having nothing to lose, this company gave honest responses to the questions. There was nothing fancy in the responses, just straight forward indicators to what they were good at. It even included contact information from a few satisfied customers. I received a call from them to let me know the RFP response was accepted and they were asked to participate in a finalist presentation. At that presentation, they spoke with clarity and truth, linking their services to the customer’s needs. They left asking for the business. I got a call from them about a week later and they said they won the business and were incredibly excited. I asked why they won. They believed it was because of their integrity and their straight forward approach.
Remember, we teach each other how we want to be treated. If you always negotiate with integrity, you will most likely get what you need in the right time, with the right resources, and the right terms.
Marty Finkle is CEO of Scotwork (NA) Inc. He can be reached at usa@scotwork.com or call the Scotwork office at 973-428-1991. Ask for Heidi Pensado, Business Manager, or Marty Finkle. ScotworkUSA.com
