Category: Finance, Real Estate.
One of the cardinal rules of Power Negotiating is that you should ask the other side for more than you expect to get.
Why should you ask your boss for an executive suite although you think you ll be lucky to get a private office? Henry Kissinger went so far as to say, "Effectiveness at the conference table depends upon overstating one s demands. " Think of some reasons why you should do this: Why should you ask the store for a bigger discount than you think you have a chance of getting? If you re applying for a job, why should you ask for more money and benefits than you think they ll give you? If you re a salesperson: Why, if you are convinced that the buyer wants to spread the business around, should you still ask for it all? If you re dissatisfied with a meal in a restaurant, why should you ask the captain to cancel the entire bill, even though you think they will take off only the charge for the offending item? Why should you ask for full list price even if you know it s higher than the buyer is paying now?
Why should you assume that they d want to buy your extended service warranty even though you know they ve never done that in the past? Why should you ask the other person to invest in the top of the line even when you re convinced they re so budget conscious that they ll never spend that much? If you thought about this, you probably came up with a few good reasons to ask for more than you expect to get. If you re selling, you can always come down, but you can never go up on price. The obvious answer is that it gives you some negotiating room. If you re buying, you can always go up, but you can never come down.
This is the most that you can ask for and still have the other side see some plausibility in your position. What you should be asking for is your MPP- your maximum plausible position. The less you know about the other side, the higher your initial position should be, for two reasons: You may be off in your assumptions. If he s selling, he may be willing to take far less than you think. If you don t know the other person or his needs well, he may be willing to pay more than you think. If this is a new relationship, you will appear much more cooperative if you re able to make larger concessions.
Conversely, if the other side doesn t know you, their initial demands may be more outrageous. The better you know the other person and his needs, the more you can modify your position. If you re asking for far more than your maximum plausible position, imply some flexibility. The other person s response may simply be, "Then we don t have anything to talk about. " You can get away with an outrageous opening position if you imply some flexibility. If your initial position seems outrageous to the other person and your attitude is take it or leave it, you may not even get the negotiations started. If you re buying real estate directly from the seller, I realize that, you might say you re asking$ 200, 000 for the property and based on everything you know that may seem like a fair price to you.
I ll never sell it for that, but he does seem to be sincere, so what do I have to lose if I spend some time negotiating with him, just to see how high I can get him to go? " If you re a salesperson you might say to the buyer, "We may be able to modify this position once we know your needs more precisely, but based on what we know so far about the quantities you d be ordering, the quality of the packaging and not needing just- in- time inventory, our best price would be in the region of$ 25 per widget. " At that the other person will probably be thinking, "That s outrageous, but there does seem to be some flexibility there, so I think I ll invest some time negotiating with her and see how low I can get her to go. " Unless you re already an experienced negotiator, here s the problem you will have with this. So perhaps you know something that I don t know, but based on all the research that I ve done, it seems to me that we should be talking something closer to$ 160, 00 At that the seller may be thinking, "That s ridiculous. Your real MPP is probably much higher than you think it is. So, we re all reluctant to take a position that will cause the other person to laugh at us or put us down. We all fear being ridiculed by the other. Because of this intimidation, you will probably feel like modifying your MPP to the point where you re asking for less than the maximum amount that the other person would think is plausible.
You don t know how the universe is aligned that day. Another reason for asking for more than you expect to get will be obvious to you if you re a positive thinker: You might just get it. Perhaps your patron saint is leaning over a cloud looking down at you and thinking, "Wow, look at that nice person. In addition, asking for more than you expect to get increases the perceived value of what you are offering. She s been working so hard for so long now, let s just give her a break. " So you might just get what you ask for and the only way you ll find out is to ask for it. If you re applying for a job and asking for more money than you expect to get, you implant in the personnel director s mind the thought that you are worth that much. Another advantage of asking for more than you expect to get is that it prevents the negotiation from deadlocking.
If you re selling a car and asking for more than you expect to get, it positions the buyer into believing that the car is worth more. Take a look at the Persian Gulf War. He said, "I m not bragging, I m not bluffing and I m not bullying. What were we asking Saddam Hussein to do? (Perhaps asking is not exactly the right word. ) President George Bush, in his state of the Union address used a beautiful piece of alliteration, probably written by Peggy Noonan, to describe our opening negotiating position. There are three things this man has to do. He has to restore the legitimate government of Kuwait( don t do what the Soviets did in Afghanistan and install a puppet government) .
He has to get out of Kuwait. And he has to make reparations for the damage that he s done. " That was a very clear and precise opening negotiating position. It was also the least for which we were prepared to settle. The problem was that this was also our bottom line. No wonder the situation deadlocked. If we d have said, "Okay.
It had to deadlock because we didn t give Saddam Hussein room to have a win. We want you and all your cronies exiled. We want United Nations supervision of the removal of all military equipment. We want a non- Arab neutral government installed in Baghdad. In addition, we want you out of Kuwait, the legitimate Kuwaiti government restored and reparation for the damages that you did. " Then we could have gotten what we wanted and still given Saddam Hussein a win. You re thinking, "Richard, Saddam Hussein was not on my Christmas card list last year.
I know what you re thinking. He s not the kind of guy I want to give a win to. " I agree with that. It creates deadlocks. However, it creates a problem in negotiation. From the Persian Gulf scenario, you could draw one of two conclusions. What s the second possibility?
The first( and this is what Ross Perot might say) is that our State Department negotiators are complete, blithering idiots. Right. We had absolutely no intention of settling for just the three things that George Bush demanded in his state of the Union address. That this was a situation where we wanted to create a deadlock, because it served our purpose. General Schwarzkopf in his biography It Doesn t Take a Hero said, "The minute we got there, we understood that anything less than a military victory was a defeat for the United States. " We couldn t let Saddam Hussein pull 600, 000 troops back across the border, leaving us wondering when he would choose to do it again. So, that was a situation where it served our purpose to create a deadlock. We had to have a reason to go in and take care of him militarily.
What concerns me is that when you re involved in a negotiation, you are inadvertently creating deadlocks, because you don t have the courage to ask for more than you expect to get. If you go in with your best offer up front, there s no way that you can negotiate with the other side and leave them feeling that they won. A final reason, and it s the reason Power Negotiators say that you should ask for more than you expect to get is that it s the only way you can create a climate where the other person feels that he or she won. These are the inexperienced negotiators always wanting to start with their best offer. I know that they re getting bids from people all over town. This is the job applicant who is thinking, "This is a tight job market and if I ask for too much money, they won t even consider me. " This is the person who s selling a house or a car and thinking, "If I ask too much, they ll just laugh at me. " This is the salesperson who is saying to her sales manager, "I m going out on this big proposal today, and I know that it s going to be competitive.
Let me cut the price up front or we won t stand a chance of getting the order. " Power Negotiators know the value of asking for more than you expect to get. Let s recap the five reasons for asking for more than you expect to get: You might just get it. It s the only way that you can create a climate in which the other side feels that he or she won. It gives you some negotiating room. It prevents the negotiation from deadlocking. It raises the perceived value of what you re offering. It creates a climate in which the other side feels that he or she won.
I remember being involved in a union negotiation where the initial demands were unbelievably outrageous. In highly publicized negotiations, such as when the football players or airline pilots go on strike, the initial demands that both sides make are absolutely outlandish. The union s demand was to triple the employees wages. Power Negotiators know that the initial demands in these types of negotiations are always extreme, so they don, however t let it bother them. The company s opening was to make it an open shop- in other words, a voluntary union that would effectively destroy the union s power at that location. Power Negotiators know that as the negotiations progress, they will work their way toward the middle where they will find a solution that both sides can accept.
An attorney friend of mine, John Broadfoot from Amarillo, tested this theory, Texas for me. Then they can both call a press conference and announce that they won in the negotiations. He was representing a buyer of a piece of real estate, and even though he had a good deal worked out, he thought, "I ll see how Roger s rule of Asking for More Than You Expect to Get, works. " So, he dreamt up 23 paragraphs of requests to make of the seller. He felt sure that at least half of them would be thrown out right away. Some of them were absolutely ridiculous. To his amazement, he found that the seller of the property took strong objection to only one of the sentences in one of the paragraphs.
He held out for a couple of days before he finally and reluctantly conceded. Even then John, as I had taught him, didn t give in right away. Although he had given away only one sentence in 23 paragraphs of requests, the seller still felt that he had won in the negotiation. Power Negotiators always ask for more than they expect to get. So always leave some room to let the other person have a win.
Read more...
Another Thing To Watch Out For Is The Escrow Service That The Bank Uses - Finance and Real Estate Blog:
When a bank forecloses, they take ownership of the property, usually in order to resell it in hopes of earning back some of their money. Bad for the home owner, since you can, good for you often get bank- owned foreclosure real estate for a song.
Instead Of Closing The Deal Yourself, You Will Assign It To A Real Estate Investor- For A Small Fee - Finance and Real Estate Articles:
As you may hear more and more about investing in real estate the buying and holding method of gaining wealth with real estate is ideal.
Meeting At The Property Is Much More Productive, And Professional - Finance and Real Estate Blog:
Contacting the homeowner in most cases is a challenge.