Latz’s Lessons: Best of 2018
Last year I shared the inaugural Latz’s Lessons – a compilation of the crucial lessons from my 2017 monthly columns. Here’s the 2018 edition, with a few extras from previous years included too.
And in case you missed my inaugural issue, I am doing this because repetition is not necessarily a bad thing. Marketing experts tell us you need multiple touches with prospective customers before they will take action.
Taking action from these lessons – in the form of changing your negotiation behavior – is hard. This will help.
So here are some reminders of how to use these proven strategies to improve your skills and achieve better results!
- Be nice, creative and take advantage of unexpected opportunities. Frank Sander did – and we all benefited from it.
- First impressions lead to lasting conclusions. Make them count.
- Aggressive goals. Detailed preparation and homework. You need both to achieve negotiation success.
- Creative steps to strengthen leverage. And an aggressive offer-concession strategy reflecting changed leverage. All constitute powerful leverage-related moves.
- Unscrupulous business bullying exists. Don’t do it. But understand it and protect yourself.
- Threats based on anger, volatile emotion, and momentary pressures are almost always counterproductive. Strategically planning threats addresses these concerns and reduces the possibility of counterthreats and retaliation, which can spiral out of control.
- Leverage is based on your Plan B relative to your counterpart’s Plan B – and the U.S.’s leverage in the trade war with China appears weak. China’s authoritarian state has the raw power to hold out, where the U.S.’s democracy will exert significant political pressure to concede before the next presidential election. Read more about that here.
- Relationships can possess almost incalculable value. Recognize and incorporate this into your negotiation strategy.
- Where you start will significantly impact where you end – so consider expectations, goals, standards and room to move.
- Successful negotiation teams require emotional intelligence, clear goals and communication, and a team effort. It also sometimes requires you to take one for the team.
- Next time you start typing a significant e-mail to your counterpart, consider instead an in-person meeting/negotiation. You might just grab that next flight out.
- Look for counterparts with effective negotiation qualities – your results are dependent on your and their skills.
- Picking the right time, place and atmosphere – and discussing options satisfying your mutual interests – will lead to good negotiations and neighbors.
Latz’s Lesson: Repetition isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, repetition can lead to better learning. And better learning can lead to positive behavior change.
* Marty Latz is the founder of Latz Negotiation, a national negotiation training and consulting company. His new book is The Real Trump Deal: An Eye-Opening Look at How He Really Negotiates (www.TheRealTrumpDeal.com). He can be reached at 480.951.3222 or Marty@LatzNegotiation.com. For more: www.LatzNegotiation.com.