Chapter 10 The Art of the Ninth Letter Negotiation

Don't make an effort to settle an argument to win an effort for revenge. my lovely daughter: This time I signed a contract with the American company successfully, so I feel complacent about receiving your congratulations.Although I don't think the content of this signing is perfect, I can say with pride that, generally speaking, our basic skills in negotiation can be said to be remarkable. After signing the contract, on the way back, I deeply felt how important it is for our business to apply the theory of arbitration in practice.While we practice this often, however, it has seldom been possible to sit down and assess its true value in the past.

We are constantly negotiating with customers, company colleagues, material suppliers, banks, real estate company personnel, and ourselves (even if we don't realize it).Therefore, in addition to having experience in doing business (this is our basic requirement), the most important thing is to be good at communicating with people, right? This is one of the indispensable and important conditions for people engaged in entrepreneurial activities. However, some people are very proficient in this aspect, and some people do not perform well. Why?On this point, my opinion can be expressed in a simple formula: F minus E is equal to S, that is to say: flexibility minus emotion equals success.

People who do business and lack flexibility in negotiations end up selling patented things.Because people hate such people so much that they don't want to deal with them unless they can't be bought anywhere else.Flexibility is to see the intention of the other party when negotiating, and accommodate the intention of the other party to some extent, so that the transaction can have a good result.This can be compared to trees in a strong wind.Although the tree will bend in a hurricane, it will not be blown off, and it will even grow stronger after the typhoon. The second term in this equation is emotion.Compared with flexibility, feelings are often more difficult to control, whether they are your own or the other party's.If you can get a dime when the contract fails due to emotional effects, you will probably become a rich man one day, right?People often cling to reality for the sake of boring feelings, just to prove that they don't listen to other people's orders.Isn't it proof that the courts and law firms dealing with civil litigation are so busy?The cases accepted by the courts are piled up like mountains, and the courts are always full of people who are unwilling to resolve disputes peacefully.That is because one party cannot suppress passionate feelings, or cannot objectively understand the other party's position, that is, lack of flexibility.As a result, these individuals often have to incur high costs in order to obtain a calm, neutral decision from an impartial judge.

To practice skillful negotiation techniques, the following three basic principles must be observed: 1. Do a good job of fact-finding, that is, to collect as much information as possible about the opponent's position, and compare it with the information you have.In many cases, due to the lack of accurate information, negotiations often fail before they start.According to Benjamin, the British prime minister in the nineteenth century.This, in Disley's words, is precisely why ignorance can never resolve doubts.I hope you don't neglect this point, because in the end, this is the key to your success.

2. After reviewing the collected information in detail, evaluate the importance of various items, and score from 1 to 10. There are two types of scores. The first is your own rating, and the second is standing on the other side. From the standpoint, score with an objective attitude.Therefore, at this time, it is necessary to understand the point of view advocated by the other party.As long as you study carefully, arrange the facts in order of importance, and represent them in a graph, there should be no difficulty.For example, the delivery date may be two cents or eight cents, and the price item may also fluctuate greatly on the chart due to the different degrees of competition, quality and other factors.

3. Divide a piece of white paper into two, copy the items on the above-mentioned chart whose scores may change on one side, and write the items on the other side whose scores are absolutely impossible to change, and complete the list.Items whose scores cannot be changed should be minimized, because when there are too many such items, self-contradiction will arise. In this way, you are ready to make the negotiation a success.But in order to satisfactorily solve a particular problem, or to go back to your office and think it over, multiple meetings may be unavoidable.However, as long as there is thorough preparation, the talks are sure to achieve overall success.If the result is not ideal (although this is not often the case), the participants in the interview may murmur, as the German poet Heine said long ago: These people are often mad, and only occasionally recover. state of ignorance.At this time, the conversation has entered a dead end, replaced by emotions, and you have to suppress your emotions.

Another secret to making negotiations successful is: never send someone who doesn't get along with the other party's representative.If so, failure is to be expected.I have asked the other party many times in the past not to send this kind of person.That's because no matter how tactful the performance is, it is absolutely impossible to get along with such a person.It is very important to respect each other's position and opinions when you have a good impression of each other and try not to let emotions appear when discussing business. The chances that the required conditions will be fully accepted can be said to be extremely small.Therefore, when fighting against the opponent, you should wear elastic combat clothing.When the talks get bogged down, you should recall what the seventeenth-century French writer Rosie Foucaud said: Disputes will not last long unless one party is right. (When I told this to your mother, she replied: It depends on who blames the other party.)

Another great cure for this kind of thing is time.Put things on hold for days, weeks, or even months before making a settlement or agreement.Because after the dust settles, I can see the problem with an objective perspective, and sometimes I can even think or reflect again.After a period of time, it is possible for the feelings to settle down.Slowly simmering problems is a method I have used many times, as have some of my experienced peers.Even so, I will try to maintain my demeanor, call the other person to have dinner, and try to make up with them. Another way to resolve disputes is to ask a third party elected by both parties to act as a mediator.It often happens that the person concerned is suddenly enlightened by a word from an outsider, and a joint point of opinion is found unintentionally.For such an operation to be effective, it should go without saying that the third person chosen must be someone who is sincerely respected and trusted by both parties, and who also has a solid understanding of the matters in question.Edward.Conflicts by Bono is arguably an excellent treatise on this issue.I believe this book will be of great benefit to you in honing your negotiation skills.How a person automatically builds an obstacle wall in his heart when a dispute occurs, and how to get along with and overcome this obstacle wall is described in detail in this book, you may wish to read it.

Also, I want you to keep this in mind: Sometimes, even though the offer is not fair, you have to accept it.It is also possible to reluctantly accept the exaggerated request put forward by the other party when you are forced to have no choice but to end the matter.At this time, of course you will think that you have lost the battle, right? (It is indeed a defeat), but according to my experience, the next time you trade with this person, the other party will definitely compensate you with a sense of atonement.One amazing thing is that no matter how irrational people are, or how shrewd business personnel are, most of them still have a conscience.

Here I would like to give you a piece of advice: In the process of negotiation, even if you find that the two parties have different opinions, try not to entrust the problem to legal experts to solve it.To listen to their opinions during the information gathering stage, of course, the more the better.However, it is a last resort to file a lawsuit to solve the matter. Before that, we must try our best to come up with all the solutions and try our best to break through the bottleneck.It is not easy to learn this lesson.When you feel cheated, you will impulsively want to resort to the law and seek justice. Is this human nature?

There was a guy who should have paid me $15,000 and I took him to court.Although the legal costs at that time were as high as eight thousand dollars, I still insisted on suing this person.As a result, I didn't ask for a dime back.And because of anger, the loss increased to 23,000 yuan.Why is this?The reason is that I did not prepare well in advance (that is, the first principle mentioned above).Had I done it, I would have known then that the man on the verge of bankruptcy had no means of paying his debts.I did something stupid once out of emotion. Looking back on that incident now, I realize that my loss was greater than the money, because I wasted so much of my work while I was hiring a lawyer to go to court with this man repeatedly.I am afraid that only God knows how much loss it will be if you don't work hard on a profitable business, and when there are no purpose disputes, it will go round and round.I am ashamed to say that on the surface I was looking for victory, but in fact I was looking for revenge.If you are driven by the same impulse in the future, I hope you can find this letter and read it again.In this way, you will definitely save a lot of mental fatigue and company expenses. full of love Howard, who knows how to make people move