The majority of people tend to relate negotiations to business meetings and their appropriate wheeling’s and dealings. This is actually only one type of negotiation that occurs regularly. Every person tends to do more negotiating in real life than you may think.
Let’s look at some real life negotiation examples in more detail.
You may want to rent an apartment or a mobile home over the winter. Are you going to settle for the first price you are given? Probably not. You want to get a good deal so you are going to talk with the owner several times in the hopes of getting a better deal.
Some of the things you might discuss in person or via email include:
1. Your length of stay – you can offer to stay longer if the price is right.
Benefit to the owner – knowing they have regular income for a certain number of months.
2. You offer to clean your rental or take care of the yardwork – this can help lower your costs.
Benefit to the owner – saves them time and money from doing it themselves or having to hire another person.
Do you know that you also negotiate with yourself quite often?
How many times have you caught yourself questioning if you should eat that ice cream cone, or if you should eat dessert. Other frequent questions include buying new clothes or should you upgrade to the latest iPhone?
Each time you ask yourself a question like this, you are negotiating. You are trying to find a logical or satisfactory reason as to why you should act in this particular way.
The same applies to paying for work that has been done by a contractor. If they missed their deadline or you weren’t completely happy, should you ask for a lower price? You start negotiating with the company and use these reasons as your ‘why’ for the price to be lowered.
Many of these self negotiations can be viewed as an inner war. You want to give in to the temptation or choice and yet you struggle to find ways to make it seem legitimate. You are finding a way to negotiate with yourself so that you won’t feel guilty about having made a particular choice.
So the next time you feel that inner war brewing inside of you. Remember that this is just your natural negotiation instincts rearing their head. Treat it just like any other negotiation and make the best deal possible.
