Ask 4 future trainees ANYTHING! *New TCLA Team Members*

[Andrei Radu]

Hi future trainees! I have been lucky enough to be invited to an AC next week which involves a negotiation exercise. Have any of you done a negotiation and would you be able to provide some dos and don'ts. I'm worried about striking a balance between talking too much and not enough

Hey @futuretcholder and first of all huge congrats, this is an incredible achievement! As for your questions, the guide @Jessica Booker linked is amazing and so is @Amma Usman's advice. Just to add to that some further thoughts from my own experience:

Do:

• Try to anticipate before the beginning of the negotiation what would be the most common motivations and arguments levelled by you and the other party to defend a position. Then try to thing of some less obvious further points in your favor. Once you have reached an impasse after both sides have walked the others through the common points, you can use these further argument to move the compromise slightly in your favor.
• Start your negotiation with higher demands than what you actually want or expect to obtain. Say your client asks you to obtain a purchase price of $1 million. You should then maybe start the negotiation by asking for $1.4-1.5 million, and slowly start reducing the number as a result of the other party's bargaining. As such, when you finally reach your desired figure, the other party will thing you have already compromised a lot and will not be tempted to push you much further.
• Be tactical with the points you concede and with horse-trading. Even if something that the other party is adamant about obtaining is irrelevant/low-priority for you, you should not simply give that for free. Instead, you could act as if that is something that matters to you and give in to the demands as a concession. this way, you will be able to trade your concession for a concession from the other side, or at least to purchase some good will.
• Be mindful of yours or your client's priorities, even if not stated explicitly. If the priority is to get a deal through at almost all costs, be ready to compromise a lot even if the other side is not being very reasonable.
• Ask many probing questions when at an impasse, to see what motivates the other side's positions and whether you can find a compromise in a different/flexible form that is compatible with both yours and their priorities.
• Be mindful of time limits and try to allocate a sufficient amount of time to discuss every relevant point and also have time for a final recap.

Do nots:

• Be too passive or willing to compromise on anything. Especially avoid giving in to demands which are not supported by a reasonable motivation.
• Try to speak over others, interrupt, or be overly dominant. You will notice that there might be some competition between people at the beginning, as everyone is hurrying to mention some of the more obvious points before they are said by others. Try to introduce some structure into that discussion and rather than trying to compete to say the same points, perhaps try to take the role of the person who makes a synthesis of everyone's contributions and also adds some of the less obvious points at the end to shift the compromise in their favor.
• Have an adversarial attitude, even if the other side is unreasonable. Instead, you can aim to respond with an attitude of 'That's an interesting point, it's great you brought that up. However, I think we should also consider that...'. This will enable the other side to concede points without looking bad.