Startup entrepreneurs are not always the best negotiators. They step into the shoes of a business owner for the first time and find — to their surprise — that nearly everything involves negotiation of some kind, and they may not always have those negotiation techniques down.
Starting a business requires, quite literally, hundreds of negotiations. Some are small, like securing the best price on printing your letterhead and business cards. Others are far bigger deals that can make or break your startup business from the get-go. Sometimes you are the buyer; other times the seller. Either way, the skills you need to be a good negotiator are the same.
For some small business owners, it comes naturally. They’re the ones who started negotiating an allowance and extra TV time with their parents at age four. For most of us, however, it comes through effort and experience. Rarely is it something you learned as part of a formal education.
Here are ten tactics that can make you a better, more confident negotiator on behalf of your small business:
Ten Negotiation Techniques:
- Prepare, prepare, prepare. Enter a negotiation without proper preparation and you’ve already lost. Start with yourself. Make sure you are clear on what you really want out of the arrangement. Research the other side to better understand their needs as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Enlist help from experts, such as an accountant, attorney or tech guru.
- Pay attention to timing. Timing...
Author: The Sloan Brothers
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