In every field you are involved in negotiations on a regular basis, whether you realize it or not. When people think of negotiations generally the term “high level” comes to mind. There is a group of cigar smoking men surrounding a table in a board room and the volume is loud and occasionally emphasized with a fist pounding on the table.

That scene may have played in the ’70’s or earlier, but it really is an archaic vision into a past era, and it has almost nothing to do with this article. Everything you do comes as the result of a negotiation with someone, unless you are living alone on a desert island, and even then you are probably negotiating with Wilson.

Think about it. What did you have for dinner last night? Did you cook it? Did you choose the food? Where did you buy the food? All of these are the results of some low level negotiations. Did you speak with your spouse about the choice? If you looked in the paper for sales on food, that is a form of negotiation with the vendor.

But now the point is made, and perhaps you are looking at negotiating and thinking, gee, I never thought about it that way. So how do you negotiate face to face (or through other communication methods?) You have to start either with a need or with a solution, depending which side you are on. Either way these 10 points are things you need to have in mind to have a win-win.

1. Your negotiation has to have a two way commitment to the agreed upon ending

2. Know the real goal when you sit down to the table. Your goal is not to every step of the process necessarily, but to achieve the end result. Don’t let the steps drag down the negotiations

3. Remember the process is going to involve give and take. Don’t expect to dictate the terms, unless you are willing to walk, if they are not met. (See point 4)

4. Be prepared to walk if the negotiations aren’t going to fulfill your needs within your budget.

5. When you sit down at the table, know what your limits are on all aspects of the deal. What are your time, money, and product parameters? What is open to negotiation, and where is your wiggle room?

6. Have options in mind when you sit down. Perhaps you don’t need the widget gold plated; maybe silver will work just as well. Keep an open mind.

7. Know that to have successful negotiations it is not generally a once and done deal. Don’t bargain so hard that you won’t be able to return for another deal.

8. When you are done, you should have a written contract with solid goals and a timeline. There should also be consequences if the timeline is not kept, and possibly incentive if it is done right and done early.

9. Create a winning team. When you enter into a deal with someone, you are forming a team, at least in the short term. Make sure you can work with someone, if need be. Sometimes negotiations will make odd bedfellows, but make sure everyone is willing to pull their weight for the good of the team.

10. Remember the “Big Picture.” You are there for a specific purpose. Don’t get sidetracked and bogged down by the bug dust.

It takes commitment on the part of everyone involved to have a successful negotiation, and all negotiations are the beginning of a relationship. How that relationship starts out often dictates how it goes over time. Camaraderie goes a long way to keep things smooth along your journey, so keep your sense of humor and know that life will throw curve balls at you occasionally. Negotiations are the start of a relationship and relationships make business work.

Rob Britt

http://www.RobertBritt.com

http://www.ThePeopleAcademyInc.com

In today’s economic times businesses are asking themselves the questions they probably should have been asking during the times of milk and honey. What is really necessary around here? How can we trim the fat? Which leads to lean… But “Lean” is often just associated with variation reduction, six sigma, and the like. But drilling down to the basics, lean is “how do we do business without the fluff?”

That really is the tough call. Who is the one deciding what is fluff and what is needed? As we pare down the different functions and people need training to do new tasks or as they move into new positions, again, how do you decide what they really need, and what is the least expensive, most effective option?

Often combined products are purchased and none of the multiple aspects live up to expectations. Other times you are so blown out of the water by the depth and usefulness of a product, you wonder why the price is so attractive. Those latter situations are the ones we really look for, don’t we? And when you find them, do you share them with colleagues? Isn’t that what networking is all about? Suddenly instead of a conversation being about you or your product, you are talking about something that will help their company in many aspects of its business, and will also build your relationship with the person you are networking with.

What seems to be the one thing that is the barrier to growth and/or profitability in many companies? In my mind it is all about relationships and communication. If you can’t communicate clearly the goals and methods to achieve those goals, you might as well close the door. And when relationships start to form - good bad and everything in between, that’s when you either have synergy or conflict.

So the road to synergy has to be in massaging the relationships while growing the business and guiding everyone toward set goals. What does that sound like to you? To me it’s coaching. Effective coaching. But most people haven’t been taught how to be a coach. My degree is in Organizational Behavior and Applied Psychology, and there wasn’t a single course that was about coaching others. It was hinted at, but it was never fully on the table. So it is no wonder that as a leader, I wasn’t the greatest coach in the world. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the general tools, I did. During my time in the military there was lots of ‘on the job’ training, coaching moments, and they helped me grow.  I also graduated from the Army’s Non-Commissioned Officer Academy and learned about primary leadership, but still that didn’t give me all the tools that I needed.

Self-education and teleseminars can only take you so far, and beyond that you better have someone that you can lean on and if that is a single person, rather than a department of experts, they need to have the tools and programs to support whatever you get involved with.

One of the most overused terms in the American lexicon is ‘personal coach.’ Now I don’t know about you, but from the very first time I heard the term, I had to step back and say “What?!#” Personal coach? Am I Roger Federer or Bjorn Borg? (Wanted to cover the generations there.) If you don’t recognize those names fill in Tiger Woods or someone of that ilk.

What in the world is a personal coach really and why would you or I need one? (And to make it clear, I am not a coach, so this is not a prompt for my services.) The best I can figure, and from personal experience, the way to excel in anything is to be focused on a goal.

Now there are two parts to that success equation, focus and goal. Before you can focus on the things you need to do to succeed, you have to know what your goal is, and that’s where a coach can be a huge help.

Early in life I traveled to Phoenix Arizona to go to school at Devry Technical Institute. I was in their electronic engineering program and did not have focus. I was in a strange city, 17 years old, 2500 miles from my parents, and wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew. I couldn’t admit that being there was a mistake. (It was too early in my life to realize that admitting a mistake is sometimes the best course of action.)

The point I am making is that I had a goal, but no focus, and I failed to attain that goal and achieve success. Other times in my life I have been searching and trying three or four different things at the same time, figuring that one of them may work out. There I had an abstract goal — success — but no focus. Again, things didn’t work out.

What I could have used at both points of my life is a life coach. By speaking to a qualified coach I could have come to the realization of steps that would lead to success, and again, realizing that you could use help, and seeking it, is a huge “ah ha” moment and a step that can lead you to great success.

It’s the same in business. Focus and goals. Business owners, both large businesses and entrepreneurs, also have to have solid vision, goals and focus to have the greatest possible success. Sometimes they can succeed and not even know why and often businesses fail, and again the owner doesn’t know why.

In business and in your personal life the “why and how” to success is knowing “what good looks like to you” and removing the barricades that block you from reaching that “good” state. To do that we all can use occasional coaching and some sort of problem solving model.

Time management effects people in all facets of their life whether at work or at home. Each and every one of us is responsible for the way we use the time that we are given here on earth. How your time is managed is very much dependent on attitude. You may wonder how this could be. How can my attitude effect my output? A simple answer to that is that the people you work with will be much more cooperative and willing to work with you if your attitude isn’t one that drives them away.

How can effective time management improve your overall ability to make things happen?

•    It will give you control over your activities rather than vice versa.

•    It can give you a better balance between work and life.

•    You can begin to be proactive instead of reactive.

•    It can reduce the stress that we put on ourselves daily.

What else can effective time management do for us? It can help us with figuring out why, how and when tasks are best performed. Instead of scratching your head trying to figure out ‘what’s next’ you already have a clear and concise plan in place. The main thing with this is defining what you have to achieve and when it needs to be done. This can help you set priorities and not feel like you are under the gun. By examining each task, you can also more accurately judge how long things may take and that will allow you to take task and deadline into account while prioritizing.

Without a clear and concise plan you end up feeling like you don’t have time to do things. Tasks pile up and before you know it, you are working on things that should have been addressed earlier, and yet there you are working later. Assigning priorities will limit this and will give you a feeling of being in control of the situation.

A recent term that is being used more and more is “eating the frog.” This means that instead of putting off tasks you find distasteful, you tackle them at a scheduled time, instead of putting them off and having them hanging over your head. These sort of tasks are best done when you are at your best. For some people that might be first thing in the morning, for others, maybe right after lunch or even at night. Whenever you choose to tackle it, it needs to be part of your scheduled plan.

Rob Britt

http://www.RobertBritt.com

http://www.ThePeopleAcademyInc.com

What have you done with your life? Where have you been and what have you experienced? The answers to these questions form the core of who you are. Taking that core and exposing it to people is how you can build rapport and solve problems. Identifying those problems/challenges starts with getting a good picture of what you really want.

On a talk radio show was a guest who was talking about ’star’ quality and what that means. It is how you present yourself as a celebrity. Now this isn’t like, I want to be Paris Hilton, and I am presenting myself as a spoiled brat, so you better treat me right. It’s about having ‘presence’ and an attractor factor as Joe Vitale would say.

The best way to do this is talking autobiographically. Talk about events in your past and relate them to the point you are trying to make. It’s an allegory, just like Aesop used to tell in Aesop’s fables. You know, the tortoise and the hare, etc, etc. The thing is, some of your experiences don’t seem that interesting to you, but to someone else they may be so far removed from their experiences, that they become interesting.

And we all have this. Even some mundane event in your life is fascinating to someone from another country or even another socio-economic section of our society. I talk to people all the time who have never left their own home town/county/state. What do you think my observations on Germany might be like to them? They are a glimpse of something completely alien to their life. Even something as simple as drinking beer mixed with cola. In Germany they call that a diesel (at least where I lived) and it is a corruption of good beer in one opinion, but in another opinion it’s just a sweet low alcohol drink that also contains caffeine. (You can try this with a light ale - ratio 2 parts ale to one part cola - maybe you would like it.)

So we all have these experiences in our lives that are unique to us and an insight to others. These are what we bring to the table. You may have years worth of running heavy equipment, doing,blue collar work or some other physical labor type of work or you may have a college degree and worked in corporate America, or been a successful (or unsuccessful) entrepreneur.

The point of it all is, what do you have to offer to people you talk to? What experiences do you take as boring or mundane which may be really insightful to someone else?  You have a unique place in the world with unique experiences, no matter who or what you are. Speaking to people, whether one on one or from a stage is all about relationships. Being a star or being someone that other people are attracted to is all about that.

Being attractive means engagement. It means empathy. It means relationships.  It all ties back to that radio show for me. Unique Selling Proposition. How unique we all are. How much each of us has to offer. How our experiences shape us and how that can help you discover what good looks like. That’s not just a phrase, it is an extremely powerful starting point to getting to where you want to be and figuring out strategies to overcome obstacles that are in your path.

But the first step to all that is figuring out what your goals are. That may seem like child’s play, but do you really have set goals? ”I want to get rich and retire and travel the world” might be an interesting idea, but there aren’t specifics there. How do you get rich, what does ‘rich’ mean? I want to make $300,000 by January of next year, is a goal. Now what is the plan to acheive that? What are, as I just said, the obstacles that stand in your path?

How does being charismatic impact that plan? Can you attract the right customers? Can you talk to customers and relate to them? Do they need what you have to sell, or are you being a pushy sales person?

That last question should be looked at carefully. If you can sell something to someone isn’t connected at all to if they need what you have. If they need what you have the sales process is a much easier thing. If you were knocking on someone’s door, what would make you feel more at ease, holding a vacuum cleaner, or a bagful of money? Which one would be easier to get rid of, and what sort of pressure would be off of you if you knew that the person wanted a vacuum as much  as they’d like a bag of money?

Your dreams, goals, plans and experience all make up who you are. Representing yourself as a genuine person, and having a bonefide plan will benefit you greatly in the long run.

Rob Britt

http://www.robertbritt.com

Http://www.ThePeopleAcademyInc.com

Twitter: RobertB1963