Negotiating to Create Mutual Benefit

Learning how to negotiate is crucial when working in the music business. As engineers were normally hired for one project at a time so it’s important to know what you need to be able to do our best work. Negotiation can be a very scary process for most of us. One thing that we can do is break it down in to steps to make sure we don’t leave anything out. I found it easiest to break the process into four steps.

Step one is to find out what you need fro the deal. This is the step where you figure out how much money you will spend on the project and how much you need to be paid to make sure you make a profit. You also need to find out how much time you need to get the project done properly.

For step two you need to look at step one and calculate how much you can negotiate on the positions you came up with in step one.  This will allow you to understand when you need to walk away from the negotiation because it’s just not going to benefit you to do the project. One important thing is to understand that money is not the only valuable thing you can gain from negotiations.

The third step is analyzing the other person. Emotions play a huge role in negotiation. Find out what the other person cares about and what their motives are. Understanding this allows you to anticipate their position and stay a step ahead of them in the negotiations. It’s very important when negotiating to understand that nobody has to win or lose. When negotiating we need to try to create mutual benefit. Mutual benefit is when we both parties walk away satisfied with the outcome of the negotiation. This paves the way for a smooth relationship once you start working together.

The fourth step is figuring out what you are going to do if the negotiation goes bad and you walk away. This is your best alternative to negotiated agreement commonly referred to as a “BATNA”. Your BATNA can be as simple as taking a different project or as complicated as quitting your career as a producer to work at your uncles barbershop. The important thing is that you know what you will do if you walk away from the negotiation. You can use your BATNA as leverage in certain situations, in others it might be motivation to try harder to come to an agreement. Negotiations can be difficult and awkward but hopefully these steps will help you in your next negotiation.

Why We Need to Negotiate

  

Negotiation is a very important part of being a business owner. If we cannot negotiate effectively we will never get what we want and what we deserve.  There are many aspects to understand before you can properly negotiate. But most people are too afraid to negotiate. Professor Margaret Neale said something that really resonated with me in a video; She explained, “We need to answer an honest question when considering a negotiation; how much are you willing to pay to avoid the discomfort of negotiating?” Anytime we take an offer without negotiating out of fear or anything else we are paying for not negotiating. Two people can be offered the same salary to do a job, if one of them negotiates for an $8,000 increase that means that in four years the other person who was too scared to negotiate lost out on $32,000. Losing that much money just because of a fear of negotiating is a scary thought to most people that’s why we need to educate ourselves on how to properly negotiate so we can be more comfortable negotiating.

William McCormick explained in his presentation that there are 4 common mistakes made by negotiators. Of the four he mentioned the two that resonated with me the most were “conceding too much, too soon” and “Don’t understand what win-win really means.” “Conceding too much too soon” is something that I’ve personally been guilty of. Sometimes when trying to make as deal we feel like we need to give the other person an amazing deal. There’s nothing wrong with sweeting a deal but we need to understand that doing that too much can cause us to lose more than we are gaining from the deal. Win-win is something that most people don’t understand, it means that both parties benefit equally. This concept of mutual benefit is what we should aim to create in every deal.

Stan Christensen explained that to make negotiations smoother we should brand ourselves as trust worthy people. If we’re known as trust worthy people we will have a much easier time explaining our positions during negotiations. The only way to brand ourselves as trust worthy people is by being trust worthy. People have more respect for trust worthy people and it will have lasting effects on our career in general. Negotiations are not easy but by learning how to negotiate we can do it with confidence and get the outcome we want.