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Your business depends on people to help you perform the various operations of your venture. You will need to develop and grow your customers and business affiliates.
You will need to develop partnerships and acquire important endorsements as your business grows. Sometimes, you’ll need to barter for services or materials. All of these actions require the ability to make deals or negotiations.
The question is..are there a few guides you can use when you are making the deal or negotiation? Another question is what is the “art” involved here? I’ll briefly describe these factors in this article.
Your attitude as you enter a deal-making situation is a strong indicator of the level of success you can expect to achieve. Communication is basically how humans share thoughts and ideas. There is no other way others can know what we think is important to our business. We are required to effectively relate what our business is about and how we intend to direct it. Hence, excellent communication skills will help you develop your business into the great organization you envision through great deals.
Attitude is a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, usually reflected in your behavior. Everybody has an attitude concerning the situations they find themselves in. What is the best attitude for deal making? As a business builder, you’ll need an attitude that grows your business not destroy it. A positive, hopeful attitude will help you build a business with a culture of positivity. Your workers will follow the leader and your customers will enjoy doing business with you. Additionally, your deals or negotiations will be more successful.
I will call the effective style of sharing information for business, observational speaking.Observational speaking is a style of communicating where you are completely aware of your receiver(s). That is, you’re observing the behaviors and mannerisms of the receiver(s) as you share thoughts or information then adjusting your message on the spot as needed. This takes practice but can be mastered with patient application.
Brent Beshore in “Deal-Making 101: The Basics Explained” shared: “The anatomy of a business deal is comprised of three basic components: the expected return, upside potential, and downside risk. Another way to describe this is to ask, “What do I expect to happen? What is the best possible scenario? What is the worst possible scenario?” The goal is to have a fair expected return, a huge upside, and very little downside.”
Beshore helped explained the “basics” of deal-making by defining four things to consider as you go forward.
First, determine the motivations of the person you’re negotiating with. This requires that you know as much about your negotiator as you possibly can. What success have they had in the past? What are their basic personal concerns as they go into this deal.This requires good listening and questioning skills to help you get to the bottom of what really matters in this interaction.
Second, know enough about the deal to allow you to offer various alternatives. There are usually several ways to solve a problem and your knowledge in this area will be extremely helpful. This will also help you determine the real value of the deal. It may not be your best alternative once you consider others.`
Third, intend to be creative as you move forward. Consider alternative ways to design the deal. Keep the motivations of your negotiator in mind. “The negotiated terms are merely serving the underlying motivations, so think creatively about how to satisfy the other party’s real interests.”Beshore
Fourth, focus making the deal as simple as possible. It’s so easy for things to get complicated and far removed from what is really necessary. Highlight the main points or concerns and keep your focus on just the essentials. You should be able to explain what you are agreeing to in simple and straightforward terms. A written agreement is essential for good business.
The “art” of the deal comes in when your personality, experiences and communications skills design the nature of the negotiation you’re participating in. You will artful apply your life experiences, personal style and knowledge to the situation to influence the deal and resulting outcome. You will improve the “art” you bring to the deal as you gain more experience in deal-making or negotiation.
Being aware of your attitude and using observational speaking will give you a good foundation for any negotiation. Knowing as much as you can about the motivations of your negotiation partner and being well informed about the deal is also helpful. Finally, being creative, keeping the negotiations simple and coming away with a written agreement will help you apply the “art of the deal” many times as you grow your business.
More Management guidance in: “20 Directives for Small Business Success: Do or Die”
