Slav Negotiation
My early career went through a steep negotiating skills learning curve.
I'd enjoyed an International Strategic Negotiation module at B-School. Knew of the prep required to make it work. Had a few of the snappy responses primed to pushback or breakthrough. Yet perhaps my greatest leap was a few short quarters after in the hands of a Welshman in semi-retirement and his full-day (epic! imagine that now...) course replicating the white heat of the corporate deal team room.
Thirty years on I can say one thing with certainty. Salespeople tend not to be natural negotiators.
When I've been involved in negotiations alongside others, they are typically bamboozled in the lengths you must go to so that you emerge unscathed.
I lament to report I have had the experience of being told I'm talking nonsense. Only to see them report back empty-handed. And in worse shape than before.
One of my key pillars is having a feel for when the timing is right;
"when the pressure to buy equals that on us to sell".
That pretty much sums up when best to begin.
There's a lot of levers going on in there.
I learned this coincidentally around the time David Owen was leading European negotiations with the Serbs to stop their brutal killing, thieving and colonising in the aftermath of Yugoslavia's break-up.
He simply called them out for being untrustworthy. I heard him frequently exasperated. Saying whatever they agreed to in talks, you knew would never get stuck to. They'd deliberately ignore it.
It's not difficult to see the link with today's Russian kleptocrats in Ukraine.
On a personal level, having been in Kiev as it was just prior invasion, and being with locals throughout, it feels a true disgrace of our times.
As I read one seasoned negotiator, Dr Fiona Hill, caution [sub'n req'd];
“The entourage, the circle around Putin, have enriched themselves so much by availing themselves of all the goodies that the state can provide, what is it that Trump can give them that they don’t already have?”
She offers this visual metaphor many a seller may well relate to;
"If you offer the Russians a carrot, they just eat it, or they take it and hit you over the head with it".
You start to wonder when such a side ever feel that frisson of deal-making pressure. And how it might or even could be brought to bear.
A tell for when someone feels dominant during such discussions does indeed include their outlandish claims, take-take-take and never-give-an-inch behaviour.
The plain Sales fact is that when encountering an uncompromising approach, you are permitted to walk away. The first time you do so is a toughest of call. But stands you in good stead.
I've always hated hearing that someone is a tough negotiator as if it's a virtue. As that invariably means they are not actually a negotiator at all. Merely bully.
Proper business negotiation is centred on long-term relationship win-win growth.
If someone does a Russian with your carrot, I strongly counsel you consider move on and ending negotiations.