Does Your Home Business Have a Cubicle Mentality?

“In the his­tory of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.” —Lawrence Sum­mers, Economist

When you wear the hat of home busi­ness owner, nearly every­thing involves nego­ti­a­tion. Some deals are tiny, like get­ting a great price to print let­ter­head and busi­ness cards. Oth­ers are sig­nif­i­cant arrange­ments that can make or break your busi­ness, like sign­ing a con­tract to do work for a big client. Some­times you are the buyer; other times the seller. Whether the sub­ject under nego­ti­a­tion is tiny or sig­nif­i­cant, you use the same the skills.

For most of us, nego­ti­a­tion skill comes through effort and expe­ri­ence and it’s rarely taught as part of a for­mal edu­ca­tion. This is a rude sur­prise if you’ve spent most of your work­ing career in a cubi­cle where the rules of engage­ment are strictly defined and you are not the negotiator-​​in-​​charge and not taught when or how to negotiate.

If you nego­ti­ated extra TV time with your par­ents when you were age four, then bar­ter­ing for a good deal comes nat­u­rally to you. Have you ever watched teens, in par­tic­u­lar boys, ‘trash talk’? You know, the kind of put-​​down and one-​​upmanship that would lead a casual lis­tener to believe that they are bit­ter ene­mies when in truth they are beloved best friends? The type of nego­ti­a­tion that ‘comes nat­u­rally’ to you is actu­ally learned behav­ior taught through social inter­ac­tion as chil­dren and is great prepa­ra­tion for the big­ger nego­ti­a­tions that come with adulthood.

Give us this day our daily…bargain?

Every day each of us nego­ti­ates for some­thing — usu­ally more than one some­thing. Most of our par­leys we take for granted as we bar­gain our way through the day on auto­matic pilot. For exam­ple, I am look­ing after my neighbor’s cats while he is away for a cou­ple of days. He has made it clear that he expects to pay me for this. I have made it equally clear that I do not require pay­ment, that I con­sider it a neigh­borly act and that any chance to play with cats these days is pure joy for me.

We are nego­ti­at­ing. We expect to reach a con­sen­sus bar­gain between us. I think it will come down to a bot­tle of wine. I won’t take money, he won’t let me do it for no com­pen­sa­tion, and we share a fond­ness for red wine. So a bot­tle of Mer­lot, nego­ti­a­tion com­plete, we both win, and so do the cats.

Cat sit­ting does not make much dif­fer­ence to any­one (except maybe the cats) when you con­sider the larger pic­ture and the kinds of life-​​death-​​rich-​​poor-​​put-​​bread-​​on-​​the-​​table nego­ti­a­tions that take place in busi­ness. And yet, these tiny, daily nego­ti­a­tions are impor­tant even if not global in scope.

What do your daily nego­ti­a­tions look like?

There is an art to bar­gain­ing and an accepted process that turns art into sci­ence — a process that is taught and learned.

Take a moment and think about your inter­ac­tions with peo­ple over the past few days. What insignif­i­cant daily nego­ti­a­tion have you under­taken? Did you come out on top? Was it a win-​​win out­come? Is there a tiny seed of resent­ment or dis­ap­point­ment stuck in the back of your mind because you gave away too much or came away feel­ing manipulated?

All of these exam­ples are real out­comes of a nego­ti­a­tion. We tend to over­look and under­value our tiny daily nego­ti­a­tions, how­ever they are great prac­tice for the larger issues. When you are nego­ti­at­ing as a home busi­ness owner for small or large work-​​related issues, then it is use­ful to know — and use — effec­tive nego­ti­a­tion tech­niques that will advance your home busi­ness inter­ests. Reach­ing an out­come that is ben­e­fi­cial for every­one con­cerned will make a dif­fer­ence to the future growth of your business.

Become a Bet­ter Negotiator.

Here are five tac­tics that can make you a bet­ter, more con­fi­dent nego­tia­tor on behalf of your home business:

Prac­tice. Research. Prepare.

Enter a nego­ti­a­tion with­out prepa­ra­tion and you’ve lost from the get go. Know before you begin exactly what you really want from the arrange­ment. Research the other side to under­stand their needs, strengths, and weaknesses.

Know When to Shut Up.

Tim­ing is crit­i­cal in nego­ti­a­tion. Be delib­er­ate and sen­si­tive to when you press ahead and when you wait. Press for what you want when yours is a posi­tion of strength. Be aware that push­ing too hard can poi­son long-​​term relationships.

Know When to Walk Away.

When you care too much, that emo­tion can inter­fere with your abil­ity to get the best deal. Note that it may not hin­der you from get­ting a suc­cess­ful deal. Enter­ing a nego­ti­a­tion will­ing to walk away with no deal is a power posi­tion. Make it yours when you can by not invest­ing your­self in the out­come — or at least learn how to not show that you care. The best nego­tia­tors leave you believ­ing that you came up with the solu­tion or that you came out on top, even if the num­bers show otherwise.

Know When to Listen.

You will do well to become a quiet lis­tener who patiently lets oth­ers make their case with­out inter­rup­tion. Encour­age the other side to talk first. One of negotiation’s old­est max­ims says that who­ever men­tions num­bers first, loses. This is not always true, but in most sit­u­a­tions, let the other side go first. Even if they don’t men­tion num­bers, it gives you a chance to ask what they are thinking.

Know When to Ask.

The more you know about your nego­ti­a­tion partner’s posi­tion, the more likely it is that you will hit upon the per­fect com­bi­na­tion of irre­sistible ben­e­fits that will seal the deal. As part of your prepa­ra­tion, define your high­est jus­ti­fi­able price. Aim high, but the higher your price, the more you will need to argue your posi­tion convincingly.

Want to know more?

This is the first arti­cle in a series that will fully explore nego­ti­a­tion as a tool for home busi­ness. Sub­se­quent arti­cles will focus on dif­fer­ent nego­ti­a­tion styles, when you might use a more con­fronta­tional style ver­sus a con­sen­sus build­ing style, how to safely prac­tice nego­ti­a­tion to build your skills, and how to gain a bet­ter grasp of nego­ti­a­tion to ben­e­fit your busi­ness and per­sonal life.

If you are not yet a sub­scriber to this blog, this is a great time to sign-​​up! Use the links in the side­bar to be added to the Home Biz Smarts email list or to auto­mat­i­cally receive new arti­cles via your pre­ferred RSS ser­vice.

How good do you think your nego­ti­a­tion skills are? What bar­gain­ing suc­cesses or dis­as­ters have you expe­ri­enced? Share your opin­ion and under­stand­ing in the com­ments below!

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