The worst thing you can do to a negotiator

What is the worst thing you can do to a negotiator?

Negotiator often tell me version of:

'Insult him.'

'Annoy her.'

'Go over her head to her boss.'

'Make him look stupid.'

All these behaviours are to be avoided;however, none of them is the worst thing you can do to a negotiator

The worst thing you can do is to accept his first offer!

Why is it so bad to accept the negotiator's first offer, especially if it is one of those offers which is 'too good to refuse '?

Junior sales people are most given thoughtlessly dancing to the 'offer-I-could-not-refuse' tune. Partly, it is the fault of their sales training that tune them into 'order-takers'. 'The order, any order, and nothing but the order 'is drummed into them by trainers (long of the road) who forget to beat the drum as loudly about the the more important massage of profitability. Graduates of the sales training programmes end up like computer-programmed football players who only know about scoring goals - including own goals! - because the programmer forgot to distinguish between them.

Partly,also, junior sales people make the cardinal mistake of first-offer-acceptance as a result of their lack of experience. Euphoria is always generated when a difficult task is accomplished (selling is seldom 'easy'), and dose of you who have been 'baptised' in cold-canvass selling will know how difficult it can be to get that first order from a prospective customer.

It is the euphoria (or the relief) that somebody wants to buy that leads junior sales people to say 'Yes' to the first offer. They sign, grab it and run. This is why women often makes the best negotiators - they learn at their mother's knee never to accept any man's first offer.

If this proclivity to first-offer-acceptance were confined to the inexperienced it would be a minor problem and a self-correcting as time goes by. Sales people gain experience-if they can't or don't, they find another carrier-and their experience teaches them always to challenge a negotiators first offer.

Amazingly, first-offer-acceptance is widespread among negotiators, many of them quite senior and with considerable experience (mainly serial repetition of their first time). This presents you an opportunity to raise your game because you are bound to find yourself in the neare future on the receiving end of a first-offer-acceptance challenge and, perhaps, may be tempted to accept it,or worse ,suffer from someone accepting your first offer.

Let me illustrate the traumas of first-offer-acceptance to a friend of mine living in the west of Scotland, where we have many fine yachts clubs, patronised by a fair cross-section of the community. As with everything in life, there is various layers of affluence among the owners of the most expensive belts and the more modest dinghies,but there is also a fair amount of classless camaraderie.

The size and capacity of a bait helps in those circles to distinguish its owners social position such-foibles are our ruin but few escape them, which explains why somebody described belting as a hole in the sea into which the owner pours money. Some people buy belt for the sheer pleasure of sailing, which the west of Scotland tends to produce experts in handling boats in force 8 gales, whereas in Bermuda or Mediterranean it is about getting a sun ten. Indeed, in St tropez, in France, the people pay hundreds of dollars to hire a boat for a few days with absolute no intention of living harbours-hirers of the most expensive boat sit on deck sipping champagne, and watch the crowds on the quayside watching them sitting on deck sipping champagne.

The owner of the boats are obviously meeting some deeply -felt tribal need among their customers so are not ashamed to charge outrageously for it.

Back in Scotland a modest affluent Glasgow solicitor (Angus McTavish) was looking for a bigger boat and took a fancy to one listed for sale in his club's newsletter, which belonged to the commodore (equivalent to a golf club's captain). According to the newsletter, the commodore, another Glasgow solicitor, wanted £353,000 for his boat, the Isobel. He too wanted a bigger boat, being far more affluent than Angus.

The most that Angus could put together to purchase the commodore's boat was about £335,000 mostly composed of the price he has got when he sold his small boat last month and some cash he had in the bank. He was in the club once day and got into conversation with the commodore. The subject of the bigger boat came up and hi expressed his interest in the commodore's boat. The commodore said he would be delighted to sell his boat to Angus, he 'and Anne being such good club members'.

Angus hesitated but decided to come clean. 'The absolute most I could offer for your boat is £333,000 (he held back a little on his top price),but I don't suppose you would take that for it?'

He was stunned when the commodore replied: 'Ok,Angus I'll sell you my boat for £333,000.' They shook hands on the deal (in Scotland verbal agreement are binding).

Within minutes he had the doubts about the deal. In fact, he felt slightly sick about the whole business. Instead of rushing off to tell Anne, his wife (she being a sailor too),he wondered whether hi had done the right thing.

What will Anne say (she too was a solicitor) when she heard he had bought a £353,000 boat for only £333,000. She was bound to ask how long the negotiation negotiations had taken and what concessions each had made to get the deal, she was bound to be sceptical about either the real price he had paid or about the Isobel's condition.

Indeed, Angus could think of all the different in the Isobel-nothing serious,they had sailed in it many time-and he began to worry about any blemishes he did not know about. Before the deal he was prepared to ignore the blemishes, even excuse them; after the 15-second deal they loomed before him. Most of all, the commodore's acceptance of his first offer depressed him end. Instead of a bargain he wondered if he had bought a lemon.

How would Anne feel about what he had done, or rather what the commodore had done to him? She would hardly be impressed with Angus. Her mother's fears would have been raised behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

For Angus years of worry were just beginning. Next to a house, boats were major expenses of living in his social world. Should he had opened at£320,000or,why not £300,000? And not knowing haunted him.

What had the commodore done to Angus by accepting his first offer?

He had certainly made him miserable. Instead of a great bargain he had made it a difficult deal. He had undermined Angus's self-confidence as a negotiator. Hi had all done the same to himself. He would never know if Angus had a better price to offer. By treating Angus with respect he could have made the both of them happy even if you ended up with the price of £333,000 that he had accepted, or Angus had to pay more than he he had first offered.

How could the commodore achieve the remarkable situation of a deal on worse money terms than fifteen-second deal he had agreed in the club?

Think of what would have happened if the commodore had haggled with Angus over his first offer of £333,000 . How he haggles is not the point here, only that he haggles in some offer from £333,000 to £335,000, or even higher by forcing Angus borrow a bit from his mother-in-law? If the settled at a higher price than the first offer,will Angus be happier?

Yes! He would rush home and tell his wife of his 'brilliant' negotiation - he had bought Isobel for only £335,000; an absolute snip at the price'. He would minimize the 'very minor blemishes'in the boat ('normal wear and tear;overall the boat is as sound as a battleship'),and he would promote the family image in owning such a magnificent boat'-tha's one in the eye for the next door of holidays in St Tropez!'Altogether he would be proud of himself.

So too,would the commodore. He would have negotiated a better price Angus first offered. He would be £2,000 (perhaps more) better off. His would duly impressed or at least less unimpressed as a result. He would have proved his ability as a negotiator.

All this would remain true even if t so?

If the commodore haggled and found he could not get the price up,but had made an effort to bargain ('cash deposit now and the rest by Friday','bare boat minus all moveable and less the GPS'',say) he would have made Angus work for the deal. And a deal somebody work for is a deal they are happier with. I know I've heard Angus on the subject.

It wasn't the money terms that were wrong. It was the way they were wrong. It was the way they were arrived at.