Shopping the competition

Don’t hesitate to do your own research. Rather than read about what is happening in the marketplace, pound the pavement for the information. A firsthand look can be a real eye-opener. Suppose that you’re planning to purchase an apartment building. You may want to play the role of a prospective renter before ever offering to become an owner of the entire building. Walk through the neighborhood, visiting other apartment buildings. In an hour, you can become the world’s leading expert on the price and availability of apartments in that block or two. Talk with tenants in the building you’re planning to buy. That approach always produces more reliable information than talking with the owner or the owner’s representative.

Whether you are buying or selling, a shopping trip is one of the best ways to educate yourself about price, availability, and quality considerations. I’m not talking about buying — just shopping. Frankly, this is the only kind of shopping I really enjoy. The more we know, the better we feel. Don’t forget to make notes during your shopping expedition. You’ll be gathering a great deal of new information. You may remember most of it; but without good notes, you won’t remember where you got the different pieces of information.

Visiting the library

The library is one of the most underused negotiating resources in your community. Reintroducing yourself to this great institution can be a blast. The library has all sorts of resources you can use to find the value of various goods or services. Of course, the Internet has sharply decreased everyone’s visits to the library, but it remains a good source for hard-to-find periodicals and research materials.
When you go to the library, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Librarians are among the most helpful people in the world, and most city libraries designate a staff person to assist in research

Browse the Internet for Negotiation Preparation

Browsing the Internet is perhaps the easiest and fastest way to research the marketplace because the Internet is a giant warehouse of information on any topic you can imagine. The list of reliable search engines continues to grow and improve as technology evolves. If you visit the Web sites for search engines Google, Yahoo!, and Ask.com (to name just a few), or use Wikipedia to research various topics, you’ll discover that nearly any information you need is at your fingertips. Make it a habit to visit any or all of these Web sites before entering a negotiation. Remember, knowledge puts you a step ahead of the game.

But don’t believe everything you read on the Internet just because it’s sitting there in black and white. Anybody can put anything up on the Internet to be read by the world. Check your sources carefully. Information from the Internet is not like the information you find in a book from a reputable publisher in which editors have pored over every sentence for clarity and accuracy. Blogs in particular require scrutiny because most of them present the unabashed opinion of the author. Many sites are sponsored by commercial entities whose sole and undeniable aim is to change your mind about something or sell you something, and if the best way to do that is to leave out some essential facts, so be it. That being said, the Internet is a mighty awesome source of information.

But no one source is perfect for providing answers to everything. If the Internet doesn’t help you find the information that you need, the following sections discuss other resources that very well may.

Gathering Information: The One with the Most Knowledge Wins

Some people think that power comes from size, gruffness, or clout, but the easiest and most effective single thing you can do to increase your power is to prepare. You may be facing the greatest negotiator in the world, but if you’re prepared, and the greatest negotiator isn’t, you have the upper hand. Yet people routinely shortchange themselves when it comes to preparation. Even experienced negotiators often sacrifice solid preparation on the altar of self-confidence or a crushing time schedule. Some negotiators don’t fully appreciate the value of spending the extra time and effort on thorough preparation. To others, preparing just feels like drudge work.

Preparation doesn’t have to be dull. Preparing for a negotiation can trigger the same type of excitement experienced when preparing for a military scouting mission. Your palms may not sweat, but the rush is similar. You’re about to head into the unknown. The outcome is uncertain. Pulling together data is like girding your loins, checking your ammo, becoming secure, and getting ready. Prepare as though you are going into battle.

Preparing is essential, even if it’s someone you know

When it comes to gathering information about the other party, every day is different. Don’t assume that you can begin any negotiation without special preparation, no matter how well you know the person. When a seasoned purchasing agent sees a regular salesperson, the purchasing agent often opens the conversation by saying, “What’s going on with you these days?” Pleasantry or preparation?

A neighbor who’s about to ask you to stop parking in front of her house begins by saying, “Hi. How is the family doing today?” Pleasantry or preparation? After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, even the least skilled negotiator first asked how the person on the other side had fared in the storm. No one pressed for resolution of matters until housing and offices returned to some normalcy.

Even if such questions have been a pleasantry for you in the past, start making them part of your preparation and treating the person according to the answer. I have actually put off a negotiation if the person sounded stressed out or confessed to being under a deadline. It’s good manners. It’s good negotiating.

Recognizing faults that can trip you up

People use three statements when a negotiation goes badly because they failed to find out something negative about the person whom they negotiated with.

• “Nobody told me!”
• “Who knew?”
• “I wish I woulda known!”

Never say those words again. When you use these phrases, you’re missing a good opportunity to learn an important lesson: Get to know the person you’re negotiating with before you make a deal with them. If a negotiation goes sour because you got into a deal with someone who was unethical or dishonest, you should say:

• “I screwed up. I didn’t investigate enough.”

or

• “I saw some signs and I ignored them.”

Failing to find out enough about the person with whom you’re negotiating is the most common mistake people make in the preparation phase of a negotiation. In fact, people repeat that oversight every day all across the country when making the largest purchase of their lives: the purchase of their own family home.

Focusing on the Negotiator’s Interests

When I talk about interests, I don’t mean things such as baseball (not that it’s a bad interest and can’t make a difference in a negotiating session once in a while). I’m talking about the person’s negotiating interests. You want to know what that person is interested in getting out of the negotiation. It’s almost always more than money. (If you’re buying a used car from an individual, money may be the only consideration, but that’s about the only time it is.) I can’t think of a negotiation of any importance that does not have issues other than money attached to it, and often these issues are more important than money, especially to the person across the table or to that person’s main client.

For example, if you find out that the negotiator had a bad experience with your company’s delivery, quality, or communication, you had better believe that these issues will be important in this negotiation, even though the person on the other side of the table may be reluctant to bring them up. You also need to be alert to the possibility that the interests of the person whom you’re negotiating with and the person whom he has to please are a bit different. The person you’re negotiating with may receive his bonus based on some cost-saving formula. His boss may be focused on timely delivery.

Be sure you find out all you can about the boss/client so you meet the needs of both the negotiator and his client