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Hi everyone. My name is Arman Assadi and I'm the creator of the Freedom Lifestyle
Movement at WhyILeftGoogle.com. I wanted to make this quick video to add a little bit
of extra content to the most recent post I put on WhyILeftGoogle.com titled How One
Email Made Me $11,249: the Art of Negotiation. My thoughts on this are pretty
simple. A lot of people run away or hide from negotiating. They see it as very
confrontational, and at times they just get awkward about it.
Anytime there's a situation where they know they need to step up to the plate and
negotiate something like the rent on their apartment, perhaps like an increase of value
or an increase on the rent, or perhaps you need to negotiate the price of a car that
you're about to buy, or even a mattress. It could be something as simple as that, and
many times it doesn't even have to do necessarily with money. A lot of times it's just
negotiating how much work you need to do on the next project with your boss. There
are a lot of different situations that this is useful and we find ourselves needing to
negotiate all the time.
But unfortunately, a lot of people have a very fixed reaction when it comes to
negotiating. Like I said, they see it as confrontational. And really what I realized a few
years ago, especially when I started to get into sales and marketing and business
development, and I started my career early on in retail learning how to deal with people,
I realized that this negotiation concept is one that's already been heavily skewed and
it has a very negative connotation for a lot
of people. And I wanted to change that for myself mentally.
I wanted to have a more positive outlook towards it so that I could not only take
advantage of those situations but help both sides, help both parties find more benefits
in the outcome of the situation. So I want you
to go ahead and read the post to get more details, but there are four steps to a negotiation
that I see. There are a lot of theories out there. There's a lot of stuff that says you
need to follow these diagrams and it's like a
little Venn diagram and it gets really complicated. But at the end of the day it's just a
negotiation. And what does that mean? It means there are two people that want two
different things. Sometimes there's an overlap, sometimes there's not. And when there
isn't an overlap you need to create one.
So first of all, step number one is who's the decision maker? The reason I bring that
up as step number one is because sometimes the
decision maker is not who you think it really is. So you need to make sure you are
talking to the person who can actually give you what you want. And then also, some things
you need to consider about that decision maker are when is the right time
to be communicating with them, what the right setting is, everything from what the right
method is, the form of outreach, should it be in
person, should it be in private, is it something casual, can it be done through email? So
sit down and think about these things and write them down.
Number two, you have to ask yourself what's in it for the other person. And when you
find out what's in it, you need to speak to those needs and wants. That's really the
key. The whole thing revolves around step number two, understanding what their needs
and wants are. If they have a certain desire or if they have a certain agenda that they
need to meet, if you're dealing with somebody like the way I used in my example there
was a human resources person that obviously I need to consider. They have their own
job, they deal with people like me every day, and they need to do what's best for them
and their position without obviously getting into any kind of trouble. It needs to work
on paper for that person. So ask yourself what
are their needs, what are their wants. If your
offer does not address those needs or wants, you're going to have to get
creative. You're going to have to come up with some sort of outside proposition or
influence that you can bring in to the offer to make it more appealing.
Step three, make your offer. Make it clear, concise and up front. Those are the three
keys. And I want to reiterate a little bit here and actually delve into it a little bit.
They need to be clear. The offer needs to be clear,
meaning, don't add in all these extra details. Stick to exactly what it is you're
looking for. Make it concise, nice and short. If
it's an email, very, very short to the point. Don't fluff it up. If it's in person, don't
do all the talking. Make your offer and leave it right
there. And upfront, what does that mean? It means it needs to be directly at the beginning,
up front. Don't wait until the end of the conversation, make them sit there and wait
for you to come up with what you're trying to
say, what it is you really want. People hate that. I hate that and I'm sure you do too.
And step number four, so you've made your offer. Now you shut up. That's it. Step
number four is shut up. The number one reason most people fail at negotiating is
because they continue to speak after making the offer. This goes across so many
different industries and it's huge. And it's probably the number one thing I learned from
all the companies I've worked at. Once you make your offer, no matter what it is you're
discussing you need to shut up. Don't start selling additional benefits. Don't tell them
why this is good for them. Just be quiet. Allow them to take the time to respond. That's
it. If it gets quiet, if it gets weird, that's the hard part. You just have to deal with
the awkwardness. Look forward to it. Think of
it as an opportunity for you to have put your offer out there, and now you're just giving
space to that person to think about what they want. If they respond with a counter offer
or if they respond this is the worse offer I've
ever heard in my life, then you're going to have to start over and think from scratch
and you could probably even do it right there.
But the key is wait for them to respond.
And that's it. For me personally, learning this art of negotiation has resulted in so
many huge benefits in my life. For example, this
blog post that specifically lays out how I made $11, 249 with one email, and I'm sure
that opportunity will come up for you as well one day. Thanks for listening and please check
out the blog post. Make sure you check out our Facebook page. And if you like this
and it was informative and you learned anything at all, please share it with your
friends, family, co-workers, maybe even your boss because then at least you can hopefully
meet halfway and not do this all the time. All right, cheers everyone. Take care.
Bye.