Any sources for the general hints and tips?
remember for a deal to happen both parties need to actually “win”. In the world of law, if you negotiated your counterpart to the point they submitted to everything, reality is when it comes to things like due diligence, the deal wouldn’t go through and all your time would be wasted.
So you are going to need to compromise. What you need to do is work our quickly what your priorities are: your must haves, nice to haves and compromises. You are likely to have to move on all of those points though.
Also think about creative solutions. Rather than just moving a figure up or down, creative compromises will often be better.
don’t be unrealistic in your starting point - if you think the matter is worth £1 million and you are willing to buy it at that, there is little point starting at £100,000 - you have just lost all your credibility and the other party is just going to assume you will have really stupidly low starting points on other points you raise.
work as a team, but appoint roles in the team. You can’t all negotiate otherwise it’s just going to talk over one another. So do each of you take a particular point/do each of you take a particular role?
Keep an eye on the time and keep the conversation moving. If you aren’t moving on a point, try another point.
record what is being agreed.