Negotiation, step 6: bargain

Bargaining is the trading activity that occurs throughout the negotiation process. You bargain for information, concessions, signals, time or the deal.  

Put conditions before offers and, instead of questions, make statements like this: If you agree to cut prices 15%, we'll sign an extended two-year contract.

Tips 

• Be prepared to concede in areas of lesser importance to gain in areas of greater importance.
• Put a price on demands (including an unreasonable price on the other side's unreasonable demand).
• Don't give away anything without getting something in return!   

Next month we'll address step 7, close.  

Negotiating with a teenager? Bring your wish list!

One friend of Scotwork told us how he negotiated with his teenage daughter when she asked him to pay for her prom dress. He simply put forth his conditions in a statement: 

"If you agree to go out to dinner with me twice this month, I'll buy you the prom dress and even go with you to pick it out." She happily agreed!

Ready with the wish list 

Dad agreed to purchase the dress because she agreed to an important item on his wish list: more time with his daughter.

The former Happy Days' actors won't get their millions for merchandising royalties, says Joel Jankowski from Abbott. Congrats, Joel, our May winner!

Highlights of his winning analysis

With its press statement, "We've been working for quite some time to resolve the issue," CBS may be signaling a desire to settle the case based on evidence that each actor is owed about $9,000. But the stars apparently haven't sent any signals, except an unintended one about their lack of solidarity--without the two biggest stars, Howard and Winkler. Advantage, CBS!

Contractors vs. unions: you decide

Contracts for more than two dozen New York City unions are due to expire June 30, at a time when union workers hold only 60% of construction jobs, their lowest level in decades. The key points: 

Contractors/management

• Unions must accept a 20% wage and benefit cut, or face even fewer jobs.
• Unionized labor costs about 25% more than nonunion workers, a figure that needs to drop to 10%.
• We need to eliminate non-productive workers and inflexible work rules (e.g. who can use certain equipment), which together will waste $100 million at the World Trade Center site.

Unions

• We've made concessions for the past two years.
• Management always wants to reduce our wages, but we have no proof that it has tried to cut other expenses (e.g. architectural and material costs).
• Work rules are needed to protect our employees, especially older ones.  

Win a bottle of wine...

Sandy Sbarra

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Rich Waldrop Bio    Email

Simon Letchford

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Register here for the Advanced Negotiating Skills course on Sept. 12-15 or on any of these dates: 

Parsippany, NJ  

-Aug. 22-24 ("Next steps")

-Sept. 12-15

-Oct. 10-13

-Nov. 7-10

-Dec. 5-8

Other sites  

-Aug. 8-11 (CA)

-Sept. 26-29 (IL)

About Scotwork

North America

Scotwork (NA) Inc. is the North American division of Scotwork Negotiating Skills, the world's largest independent provider of negotiation skills training and consulting with offices in 31 countries.

Its seasoned negotiators offer consulting and training in 17 languages to more than 9,000 executives and managers worldwide. Scotwork's clients receive an average return of 10 times the course fee within three months.