The Negotiators Secrets

Greetings Negotiators!

I’ve been laying a little low but as summer cools off I’m easing back into the money-never-sleeps world wide web with some fresh content.  One thing I’ve just put into the data stream is my new portal site.  At http://bruce-burns.com you can find all the different websites that I personal host, webmaster and generate from my own personal power.

So lets get right to the Negotiator’s Secret of the Day.  I’m not sure how often I’ve shared this as a Negotiator’s Secret on the web but for my apprentices and my clients I’m constantly re-affirming a very important guideline to effective negotiations. In a negotiation there are only 4 possible positions with the negotiating dynamic and they are:

1. No One’s Position Changes
2. Your Position Changes
3. Their Position Changes
4. Both Positions Change

I know that might sound like some kind of faulty zen puzzle, but there it is plain and simple.  You might even ask yourself (or my virtual self) “This is so apparent…why mention it, why include it in the great volume of Negotiating Secrets as if saying ‘The price of gas is expensive.’ isn’t obvious enough?”

Speaking of gas - a great way to thinking about The Four Negotiating Positions is to create a simple metaphor.  Traffic…

What do you do when someone is going to slow in front of you?

Change Your Position.

The reason The Four Negotiating Positions is essential to a powerful and effective negotiation is that knowing which position the negotiation is in helps you to choose what to do next in the negotiation. Lets take something too simple and complicate it.  Have you ever dealt with someone that had no spine at all?  Every negotiation you ever had with them ended up with them acquiesing?  Sure you have.  What was your primary negotiating tactic?  I know when someone else is negotiating for me, my primary negotiating tactic is often just silence.  Let them talk themselves into whatever it is you want to talk them into.

So we review The Four Negotiating Positions and discover that the above-made-up-from-my-imagination-based-on-people-I’ve-actually-dealt-with Negotiating Compliment and discover they are changing their position.  Just as a reminder for simplicity sake we will assume for this lesson that their positions and yours are genuine and not faux-position. What do we know?  We know:

1. Our Position and..
2. they are changing their position and…
3. we haven’t changed our position therefore …
4. we maintain our position as it seems to …
5. be creating a Negotiating Gravity that they are responding too.

Going back to the beginning I remind you that we don’t just Negotiate but we Negotiate to Your Own Best Good.  That “your” can be singular or plural.  In a fulfilling negotiation there is always a transaction to your own best bood.  With few exceptions, The Negotiator wants to avoid position # 1) No one’s position changes.  It is the very change in position that identifies the transaction weather it be words, the signing of a check or the vacating of a condition that was not supportive for The Negotiator.

The study of Position and Positioning in a Negotiation is vast and could be dedicated to an entire other website and set of material.  Since you already know this website I’ll spoil you and keep it here.

If today’s Negotiating Secret has nudged your mind or inspired you to be curious or even if you have an objection (I respect those who challenge the information) then feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com I always respond to real questions and real people (not Viagra spam) and will even use your question as the source of a future blog with your permission.

Soon I’ll be expanding The Negotiator’s Newsletter and if you would like to receive it regularly please find the sign up box in the upper right portion of this page.

I’ll be watching for you to changes positions at the Negotiating Table.

Bruce Burns, The Negotiator!

Greetings Negotiators!

I’ve been away from the daily discipline of blogging but never has a day gone by that I wasn’t taking Negotiating to the edge and beyond.  As a 4th of July gift to you all I will return to a most basic concept and break it down with some interesting nuances.

Recently I was asked to Negotiate for a client that was in a unique position to help someone she has “other” business dealings with.  Their business dealings has my client indebted to the other party, so my client asked me to fashion a negotiation that would allow her “help” to translate into the resolution of the debt.  The challenge with a request like this is that we each have our own belief about what is really resourceful for another and what is not.  If you are an avid reader of my blog then I’m sure you know what I’m going to say next.

First, calibrate your belief about the other party.  You believe they really need something you have.  Don’t take your own belief as the be-all and end-all analysis, ASK RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS INSTEAD.

So I agreed to enter into this negotiation on my client’s behalf.  Of course the other party had no idea I was negotiating because all I did was call and ask resourceful questions. Interestingly enough I mentioned the very helpful resource over and over again in my conversation without “framing” it (I didn’t explain my client’s intentions for the resource) and the other party just didn’t bite.  They didn’t seem interested, didn’t respond positively, etc.

No Problem! One of the most important rules of a Negotiation is Never Rush a Negotiation. A negotiation is not unlike a garden. Even though my client and I see the potential for Negotiated Transaction until the other party can see it, the vision is nearly useless.  So, plant a seed.

The trick to planting a seed is giving it the time to grow.  The resource you need to make that trick work is patience and faith in the process.

I’ll probably post the results of my plant-and-wait method in the near future.  What seeds have you planted lately?

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

Greetings Communicators!

Have you ever watched a kid play with legos or for those of you who are as ancient as I am, Lincoln Logs? They will spend hours fascinated by what comes out of their…what? What is the operative process in what a child or adult is doing when they put two or more legos together? Connection. Where does the connection first occur? Inside the child. How does the connection occur? Asking a resourceful question. What is the result of the connection? I don’t know. That is the mystery and the magic of communication. When your communication creats a connection for yourself - often times we might refer to this as talking out loud. What do we call it when it creates a connection for someone else? Wisdom, insight, intuition?

How does it work? This might be the only real lesson you’ll ever need to achieve Mastery in Communication and Negotiation. It works just the way it did when we are kids. The child sees the different colored Legos and ponders (by Asking a Resourceful Question) what the result might look like, then confirms that result by making the connections.

I was at an after-work part recently with some friends and more significantly some friends-of-friends. The group was a mixture of genders and ages, coupled and single. They were mostly in the sub-business-culture of marketing, internet marketing and sales. The first thing I “did” to make the connections was to interview anyone that would let me. Most people actually like being interviewed, it’s a chance for them to get undivided attention and feel significant to someone else. My interview starts like a cocktail party conversation:

1. What’s your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. What do you do?
4. How are you connected to this group (or the person that sponsored the party)

Who can’t do that, you ask? People who are in bed sleeping. Everyone CAN DO THIS. Ok so what makes my cocktail questions different from any other shallow smoozer? I’m the kid who can’t put the Legos down. I immediately start making connections not only in my mind - but out of my mouth for the interviewee. Here’s a sample of some follow up questions from the above four:

1. Wow that’s an interesting name where does that come from? (asked that at the party)
2. I’ve been to (name place person is from). Do they still have “Rodeo Day” every year? (show you that I know where your from and entertain you with some local trivia)
3. That’s fascinating (what they do), I once (tell a short story or related life fact about their business)…(if you don’t have a story or fact then reveal a personal or secret interest in something that really relates to what they do) When I went to college I really wanted to go into law but..
4. If you’ve heard about them through friend then say so “Penny has mentioned you a few times - I always wanted to connect the name with a face.” If you haven’t heard of them then at least feign disappointment that you hadn’t met sooner “I’m going to tell Penny she’s been hiding you for herself!”

Still cocktail party you say? Yeah, though a good one. Imagine though if for every (of the original 4)cocktail question that gets answered, you generate 10-50 new questions. Think back to a family get together or even just babysitting a relative’s child. What does a child do before about the age of 8? Do they ask a lot of questions? “where do babies come from” ad infintum. They are making connections in their mind. They are mapping out relationships for the first time that we old, slow, stuck-in-our-ways adults take for granted.

Do you have some fear on asking 200 questions to one person at a party? I can appreciate that. It’s been my experience that about 1 in ever 50 people or so don’t like to be interviewed to that degree. So that means the next 49 people will let you ask 200 questions while that 50th person might only let you get away with 10. Lets break that down. 49 x 200 = 9800 + 10 (from #50). So do you think you can come up with something amazing with 9810 answers? That is an enormous amount of information.

The party I went to consisted of about 15 or 20 people. I talked to about half of those. I even found #50 in the group I spoke to - which I thought was funny. I don’t badger the #50s but when I come across them I still smile. After 3 hours, I had made several appointments, 2 future get-together dates with a larger group and had circulated my phone # and my website shamelessly. Oh here’s another fact - of all the people I did speak to about 90 percent of them had already heard of me. Here is the irony - the person that put the party together is also a #50. She won’t even let me ask questions of her boyfriend questions (though he and I talked anyway). The lesson there is just because a #50 mind find you annoying doesn’t mean they don’t see your value - I still get invited to parties.

So let me wrap up this construct for you with some value. The difference between a child making a lego pyrmaid and any human making the connections with other humans is that once you’ve inventoried their map (the interview) then you share your map and finally you build a new map with the two existing maps. Connections build the bridges between your map and theirs. Those bridges are a map unto themselves and allow resources and opportunities and possibilities to pass back and forth.

If you’d be interested to know more about making connections or just have questions, feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. I’m available for private consultation and training.

I’ll see you at the cocktail party or perhaps the Negotiating table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Greetings Communicators and Negotiators!

Some of you may have been wondering why there’s been no new posts in a month’s time.  One of my pet peeves is “excuses”.  In all my years of having someone to account to - I’ve only heard 1 person not like this comment: “I have no excuse”.  So, I have no excuse.  However, I do have some good news.  I’ve been working with a woman who has a  stack of credentials in the world of producing.  By producing, I mean Television and the Big Screen.  She’s contacted me for some of my services and while we were getting to know one another’s businesses better, I discovered she had as much to offer me in the way of her knowledge and training as I did her.

I’d like to share my Personal Calibration.  If you remember I’ve mentioned calibration at least a few times.  It is the process by which you determine the impact of your Negotiation.  Calibration has both a short term benefit and a long term benefit.  Simply put, Calibration is the evaluation of what you are doing and MOST IMPORTANTLY what impact that is having on those around you.   One form of Calibration is to ask yourself Resourceful Questions or more specifically, ask yourself Resourceful Calibrating Questions.  You’ve just asked a new potential business client about his hair transplants.  What happened to his body language, did his tonality change?  Did you de-rail him or did he smile?  Is this something you ever want to bring up again or will this get him to talking no matter what?  Of course your questions will be based in real time evaluations.  The error in most peoples communications and Negotiations is that they simply don’t calibrate.  The short term benefit of calibration is to adapt your communication so that your Negotiating Compliment is inspired to continue sharing information and making communication transactions in your favor.  The long term benefit is that in each subsequent Communication you don’t have to start from scratch.  You can remember NOT to bring up the hair transplants or  TO bring up his new grand-daughter he can’t stop talking about.

So, this website is a form of my communication to you.  I have not calibrated as effectively regarding this website as I am able.  Part of my New Years’ Resolution was to increase my sensory acuity in regards to my personal and professional Calibrations.  I hope that you benefit from this.  The first distinction I had help making and I would like to share with you is this: Most people don’t want to become a Negotiator.  They may want some of the skills and benefits that a Negotiator could offer, but by-and-large few are able to maintain that frame about themselves.   If you are the empirical type, here’s the data: less than .83 % (that’s less than 1%)of the members who’ve signed up for my newsletter have signed up for my apprenticeship program.

Without an hour discussion about what I did in the month you’ve not heard from me - let me show you my bottom line.  After working with this woman (who I might give credit to later once she’s given me permission to do so)who lives in the world of producing, I discovered that what almost everyone is interested in and can “see” themselves “being” is a Communicator.  I’ve been working on an audio series called (tentatively) Life Communication Series.  I’ve been adapting my training for daily situations where people may have previously felt dis-empowered in terms of what they communicate and how they communicate.

Don’t get me wrong, Negotiating is still my passion and I will have much more material both free and for sale in the coming months on that as well.

So, lets see if I can get up something today for you as a gift for being so patient with my month long hiatus.

Thank you.

I’ll be Communicating with You soon or see You at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce  the Communicator and

the Negotiator!