Hello, welcome back! So what we did, we looked at this triangle that looks at the factors that are necessary for success. We had the knowledge, the skills and personal development. Personal development we talked about some issues such as productivity and time management, some of the issues on personal development. Another issue that needs looking at in terms of personal development is negotiation. 

We all negotiate something every day. The reason we do that is that everything that we need is either controlled or is owned by someone else, and in order to get it, we have to undertake some kind of negotiation. 

So what I’ll do is just quickly run through some of the key principles of negotiation, the stages in negotiation and some of the tactics that are commonly used in negotiations. 

Let’s start with the three stages of negotiation. First of all, in order to undertake a negotiation, you have to set the criteria as to what is being negotiated. So for example, in a property deal, when you’re buying something, it might be the price that you are actually looking at, that’s what you are trying to negotiate. So on your side if you’re a buyer, what you might be looking at is the price because you want to control or you’ve got a certain amount that you need to pay in order to sell on that property for a profit, if that’s your intention to make a profit from that property. You would possibly have a different objective if what you wanted to do was to live in that property afterwards. And on the other side, on the seller side, you have to know what is important to them. Apart from the price, what else is important? 

Establish why they are setting that property. What are they going to do with the money? So in this case, what’s important to them would be what they are going to use that money for afterwards. If you can find out, you can work out a better deal for them and yourself. So we set the criteria, which is the first stage. And then these bits about information that we’ve just been talking about. You get some information. You already know the information that you have yourself, but then you also need to find out some information on the other side. Once you’ve gathered that information and you know the criteria, then you reach the third stage, which is where you reach a compromise, a compromise solution and settle that negotiation. 

It is at this compromised stage that there are so many tactics that can be used in order to get the best deal in a good negotiation. Some of the common tactics you might hear about is a win win situation, a win win scenario. Let me just talk a little bit about this win win in order to have a win win. What is important to you on one hand and what is important to the other side, they have to be different sorts of things. If you think about it, if both of you, what is more important to you? 

Let’s see if the price is important to you. And on the other side, they are more concerned about the price. You’re not going to end up with a win-win situation, because if you think about it, let’s say what you want to do is to save money. And what they want to do is make more money. So if money is the objective in both cases, you’re not going to end up with a win-win situation. Because one of them, one of you is going to get less than what they want, but in order to have a win-win situation. There has to be more than one component that is being negotiated. So in the case of a property deal that I was talking about before, what might be the case is that you have a price on one hand and then the other person might be interested in other things. 

It could be the time for making a deal or the depending on what they are going to use the money for could that be accomplished by other means or if they get the best price. Is it possible that you make a payment over a longer period of time instead of right today or in the shortest possible time. So by finding out what happens on the other side, you can figure out a win win situation. In other words, what you do is you trade off, you tradeoff the money for something else that is more advantageous to them so they can give you a better deal because they know that they’re getting something else that is of greater value to them than you. So, for example, are they might be willing to accept a lower settlement figure if you make a deal today. Because to them time is more valuable than money. So that’s how you create a win win situation. You have to have more than one item that is actually being negotiated or is important to different parties. OK, we’ll continue on that one.