Say Hello To The Bogey-Man – A Negotiator’s Best Friend

As a negotiator, the key to your long-term success is to have a number of different techniques that you can use when a situation calls for it. One way to think about this is like a carpenter who has a tool belt with his most commonly used tools on it. As the carpenter is working … Read more

Both Win: How To Negotiate A Better Deal For Both Parties

The phrase “win-win” is looking pretty ragged along about now. How about if we talk about the much more meaningful “both win” strategy for negotiating? The key to creating a successful both-win negotiation is to remember that at its heart, negotiation is all about sharing value between both parties. If it was as simple as … Read more

A Quick Note Of Thanks To The Folks At Alltop.com

As those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed, this blog is now sporting a shiny new badge over there on the right-hand side from the good folks at Alltop.com. They have added us to their listings of blogs and so I wanted to thank them for doing so and, of course, let you … Read more

Do You Want To Play A Game? EA & Take-Two’s Negotiating Failure

At this blog, we firmly believe that the best negotiating learning comes from observing the real world – not from just reading yet-another-book-on-negotiating. Thankfully, there continue to be a number of fantastic stories in the news that provide key lessons on how companies negotiate with each other and, all too often, what goes wrong… Set … Read more

How To Make “Total Cost” Work For You When Negotiating A Sale

I suspect that I’m just about every car salesperson’s nightmare. I’m the guy who decides what model car he wants by either personal experience (“I want another one just like that one”) or by reading every car review that I can get my hands on. I then go ahead and spend countless hours online and … Read more

No Ha, Ha At Tata – Negotiation Over Land & A Car Plant

Negotiation is a skill that is used everyday, all around the world. There’s a great example of just how careful one must be when negotiating – remember, as Yogi Berra said “It’s not over until it’s over”. Tata Motors thought that they had successfully negotiated a deal until it started to come undone. Let’s take … Read more

We’ve Moved (But You Shouldn’t Care)

Over the weekend I moved “The Accidental Negotiator” blog from its comfortable home at Google’s Blogger to a brand new home at a self-hosted WordPress site called, of course, www.theaccidentalnegotiator.com. All of the existing posts and comments have been copied over to the new blog – it is complete. The old blog will continue to … Read more

Does Your Body Language Mumble?

Ah body language, the secret communications channel that we couldn’t turn off if we wanted to. When we are negotiating it’s important to remember that your body is giving off all sorts of signals that you may or may not want it to be sending. I’m not sure if you can prevent your personal body … Read more