May 2

May 2 Expert Advise for Business Negotiations

Topic: Business Negotiations

Skills: Critical thinking, reading, writing

English Level: C1/C2

Instructions:

Read and answer the questions below.
Be sure to highlight and take note of any new vocabulary words, interesting phrases and expressions.

A) You must be able to play poker with the other side, and be able to walk away if the terms of the deal aren’t up to your liking. This is easier said than done, but is sometimes critical to get to an end game. Know before you start what your target price or walk away price is. Be prepared with market data to back up why your price is reasonable, and if you are confronted with an ultimatum that you absolutely can’t live with, be prepared to walk away.
- Explain the phrase, “Be prepared to play poker.”

C) You have to understand that the longer a deal takes to get completed, the more likely that something will occur to derail it. So be prompt at responding, get your lawyer to turn documents around quickly, and keep the deal momentum moving. However, that doesn’t mean you should rush through negotiations and make concessions that you don’t need to make. Understand when time is on your side and when time could be your real enemy.
- Why is time the enemy when it comes to negotiating?

D) Avoid the bad strategy of “negotiating by continually conceding.” Ten years ago, a company I was involved with was desperate to sell itself. The CEO was convinced that a certain prospective buyer was the ideal acquirer and he wanted to do the deal with them. But the buyer kept coming up with new unreasonable demands, and the CEO kept giving into those demands in the hopes of getting to a closing. So what did the buyer do? It learned that it could just keep asking for more unreasonable things, and that the CEO would always eventually cave.
Nine months and $1 million in legal fees later, the company still didn’t have a deal. I then took over the negotiations and told the buyer that we were no longer interested in the terms they had been proposing, and we were walking away unless the price and deal terms got much better for us. By that time, the buyer itself had expended a great deal of legal fees and management time to get to a deal, and they panicked at the prospect of losing the deal. So they conceded to virtually every point I wanted, including an increased purchase price, and we closed the deal in 45 days. So the lesson was that continually conceding points (while not getting anything in return) can lead to the exact opposite of what you are hoping for. If you are conceding a point, make sure to try and get something in return.
- Explain the strategy, “Negotiating by continually conceding” and explain why this is a bad strategy.

F) Write a short paragraph about a time when you had to negotiate a business deal. Be sure to mention the parties involved, time, place, and details of the negotiation.