Take It Or Leave It: The Only Guide to Negotiating You Will Ever Need

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Eight hundred hours! That sounds awful. But it points to something that is almost certainly true, which is that you can listen to or read all the negotiating advice you want, but the only way to acquire the poise under pressure to use that advice in real time is by way of extensive practice in the real world. And sure, maybe you already negotiate several times a day, but bickering with your spouse over who does the dishes isn't going to help you steer your start-up through a complex merger agreement. Advice is nice, and all of these books make useful points, but they won't transform you into a different person. In the real world, that takes a commitment in time and effort that many of us would make a deal with the devil to avoid. But perhaps, at some level of your experience, you already knew that.

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Close the Deal

Lindsey McAlpine
CEO, The McAlpine Group LLC
Charlotte, N.C.

About 14 years ago, I was a young man anxious to work on my first real estate project. I met with a much older industry leader who was selling a piece of land in Charlotte. Perception of ability was the key issue in the negotiation, and his perception was that my ability was not there. Sensing that, I said, "Look, I have an experienced partner. I can't tell you who he is, but he won't agree to these terms."

I sat back and waited to see what his answer would be. Then he said, "Let me think about it." But I had a feeling he wasn't going to give me the answer I wanted. I was scared to admit I had pulled a tactic on him. So I held my ground, and we agreed to meet again the next day. Within 24 hours I had to go and get a partner. My entire goal was to find a man who was older than 50 with gray hair -- what I call, to this day, my gray-headed equity. I asked an older friend in the industry to partner with me. His sole role in that meeting 24 hours later was to sit there and look mature. That's all he had to do. And you know what happened? The old man signed the deal. We had already agreed on the basic points, but my gray-headed equity pushed it over the top.

Treat Your Adversary With Respect -- and Win

Bernie Tenenbaum
Former president of RBT, subsidiary of Russ Berrie & Co.
Oakland, N.J.

After we acquired the company that made Koosh Ball, it was my job to ensure that sales and profit would go up. We flew to Hong Kong to meet with key vendors to see if there was an opportunity to improve pricing, and we tested the integrity of the current vendor's price with a second manufacturer and found we could get the balls for 3¢ less per ball. Then we had a very elaborate dinner with the current manufacturer and his whole family to find out whether it was possible to get his price down. You have to imagine, we're sitting in this room, 16 people at the table, and we're trying to accomplish three things. First, we want to have a good relationship. Especially in China, your word really matters and the honor you give your partner means everything. If we had walked in and said, "I've second-sourced your product and can make it for 3¢ less," he might have walked away because we would've embarrassed him. Second, we wanted to let him know we were growing the business and there was an opportunity for him to make more products for us. Third, we had to ask for his help. We never told him he needed to lower his price; we asked, was there anything he could do to help us? He understood what that meant, and he came back with a price that was a penny below the second source.

Hire a Star

Barbara Corcoran
Chairwoman, The Corcoran Group
New York City

Twelve years back, I didn't have the kind of high-end real estate salespeople who attracted multimillion-dollar listings or customers. One woman had been working for a tiny real estate company that went bankrupt. She was a phenomenal producer -- the cat's meow, as my mother would say -- and every big player in town was after her. I saw her as a bridge to high-end business, so I was drooling at the mouth. I begged for an appointment. She finally agreed to come in, saying I sounded like a "nice lady."

I knew that my archrivals at bigger firms were probably offering her the world, and that the only way I had a shot was to simply gang up on her. The evening before she was due in, I asked 15 of my best, most loyal, most-in-love-with-Barbara salespeople to wear their very best suits and dresses to the office the next day. She arrived that afternoon acting deservedly self-important. I groveled. When I ushered her to our conference room and opened the door, all of my best salespeople were sitting there. I sat her down and said, "Here are some of the people who work here. They'll tell you what's good about the company." And I left. She was so startled that she didn't come out for almost two hours.

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