One of the best techniques to negotiate a deal that I’ve used comes from another mentor of mine, Steve Hirschfeld, Vice-Chairman of Medidata Solutions, Inc.  Try to get everything on the table before you start negotiating.  This is not an easy thing to do when professional negotiators are sitting on the other side of the table – using “divide and conquer” and “nibbling” techniques throughout the negotiation process, but critical to a successful negotiation.  It’s easy to give in to a request from a prospect.  After all, we ultimately want to get our contract signed, sooner than later, and it’s easy to say “yes”.

 

Procurement tells you not to communicate with your business contacts.  Legal tells you they won’t talk about price.  No one tells you that outside counsel will be involved.  The business tells you they don’t get involved with terms and conditions, and everyone says you’ll never get a press release, so don’t ask.  It’s complicated!

 

Before you start the process of quid pro quo exchanges, be sure to get as many of the negotiating points identified as you can.  Asking the simple question, “What else”?, over and over again, works quite well.  You won’t get every item identified at the start, but you will learn a lot more by taking your time, and learning as much as you can leading into the negotiation process.