Negotiation skills

[Blurock]

Just remember the first rule of negotiation. "Never make a price/offer first" He who does that, lose! Get them to tell you what they think it is worth, keeping in mind they will always quote less. Then decide on a strategy.

PS. The professional trainers on negotiation skills has a very nifty game they play with their students, demonstrating that he who quote first, lose. It involves selling a car. To the seller they give a set of info, basically coming down to it is an old car, not worth much to the owner and he just want to get rid of it asap. Some low pricing is given as expectation. The buyer on the other hand is given info that he is acting on behalf of a collector, who happens to know the car is worth a lot. Also, some guidelines on price is given. So you have two parties, miles apart. You can imagine what will happen when negotiations start. The party who quote first, will lose.

Is this not one of the reasons (there are many) why South Africans make such poor negotiators in the world arena?

When you negotiating, one should aim for a win-win situation and not try to screw the opponent. Negotiations are based on trust, not who wins. Once the other party feels cheated, they will never trust you in negotiations ever again.