LEGAL BRIEFS: Negotiate with Confidence
Author: Hunter Holcombe
July 2008
Columns
If you’ve been planning meetings for even a short amount of time, negotiation is certainly not a foreign concept.
Most people engage in the art of negotiation at work on a regular basis, but don’t even realize it. After all, it’s not only the black-and-white moments that bring negotiating skills to the table—asking for a pay raise or redefining your job responsibilities, for example—it’s also every time you need to work out a solution with someone who comes from a different position than yours.
Planners, however, are required to negotiate far more than the average Joe. Obviously, the most important negotiations are with suppliers—working out that hotel contract, narrowing down the right catering agreement, even haggling with the florist or DJ you’d like to hire. Especially these days, when meeting professionals are being asked to do more with their budget than ever before, it’s important to have the skills to get what you want without offending your partners on the supplier side.
“It’s about confidence,” says Alan Ovson, founder of Ovson Communications. A regular speaker at industry events like MPI, Ovson gives seminars on the topics of communication, negotiation and change. His experience with negotiation stems from an incredibly varied career path that includes an education in theology, plus teaching, selling real estate in San Francisco and working as a professional actor.
While he was an actor, Ovson says he learned a lot about reading a person’s gestures and facial movements. One day a friend who was a professional poker player asked Ovson to sit in on a game and watch him. “He was losing regularly, and he knew it was because he had a ‘tell’ (a behavior unique to each person that lets other players know if they are bluffing, winning or losing),” Ovson recalls. “So I found his tell, and he stopped losing.”
A lot of the same skills come into play during negotiations—being able to read your “opponent” and understand what his or her real agenda or stance is on a particular issue.
Newer planners often have trouble with negotiating, simply due to lack of experience and making simple mistakes. According to Ovson, many new planners are unable to separate their emotions from the experience. They might feel that ceding ground on a position equates to personal incompetence, or, if someone refuses to agree to their contract guidelines, they might get personally upset. “As soon as they do that, they lose objectivity,” Ovson says. “It’s not about them, it’s just business.”
A major mistake is simple lack of preparation. Setting up objectives and doing research ahead of time is so important to negotiating because it takes care of two critical needs. The first falls under the principle that information is power. Every bit of knowledge you have about your options and your opponent’s options is another tool you can use to leverage the agreement in your favor. If you are working with a potential hotel on a contract for a three-day company meeting, for example, knowing the specifics about that hotel’s competition will ensure that you are getting the best deal.
The other benefit to getting ready ahead of time is the effect it has on your demeanor and presentation skills. “A lot of fear comes from not being prepared,” Ovson says. Just like performing in a high school play, if you are a little unsure of your lines, you will be nervous, preoccupied and inwardly focused throughout the show. If you know your lines frontward and backward, your confidence goes way up and you are focused on your actual performance. In negotiations, a position of unshakable confidence (but not over-confidence) goes a long way—someone with more experience than you will be less likely to turn the tables against you.
- Information is power. Be sure to do your research before heading into a negotiation.
- Don’t let emotions take over.
- Position your-self right at the be-ginning. Assert what you are offering; state your value.
- Set high goals. New negotiators often don’t set high-enough goals.
- Know your power and the range of your strengths. Know the other side’s as well.
- Satisfy supplier needs over their wants. Be sure you know what they have to have.
- Set up a concession plan—everything is negotiable.
