Bargain and Negotiate Everything for Goodness Sake
Bargaining and negotiating are essential skills that can significantly impact various aspects of an individual’s life, from personal purchases to professional advancements. These skills involve understanding and influencing the terms of an agreement or the price of goods and services in a way that is beneficial to all parties involved. Learning and mastering a few basic skills in bargaining and negotiation can lead to considerable savings, better job offers, and more favorable contracts over one’s lifetime.
Impact of Bargaining and Negotiating Skills
-
Financial Savings: Mastering negotiation can lead to substantial savings on big-ticket items, recurring services, and even everyday purchases.
-
Career Advancement: Effective negotiation skills can result in better job offers, higher salaries, and improved working conditions.
-
Improved Relationships: Learning to negotiate can also improve personal relationships by developing a sense of fairness and mutual respect.
-
Conflict Resolution: Negotiation skills are crucial in resolving disputes amicably and finding solutions that satisfy all parties involved.
-
Enhanced Decision Making: Being a good negotiator means being informed, which leads to making better decisions and achieving better outcomes.
Basic Skills in Bargaining and Negotiating
-
Preparation and Research: Understand your needs, the market value of what you’re negotiating for, and the other party’s likely interests and constraints.
-
Effective Communication: Clearly and assertively communicate your needs and wants without being aggressive. Listening is equally important.
-
Building Rapport: People are more inclined to negotiate favorably with someone they like and trust.
-
Aim High but Be Realistic: Starting with a high but realistic offer or demand can give you more negotiation space.
-
Know When to Walk Away: Understanding your bottom line and being willing to walk away from a deal can be a powerful negotiating stance.
-
Compromise: Be prepared to give something up in return for what you really want. It’s about finding a win-win situation.
Common Things to Bargain and Negotiate
-
Cars: Whether new or used, the price of a car and the terms of financing are almost always negotiable.
-
Real Estate: The purchase price of homes, rental rates, and lease terms can often be negotiated.
-
Salaries and Job Offers: Compensation packages, including salary, bonuses, and benefits, are key areas for negotiation when starting a new job or seeking a promotion.
-
Furniture and Large Appliances: Many stores have room to negotiate on price, especially if you’re paying in cash or buying multiple items.
-
Medical Bills: Sometimes, medical expenses can be negotiated down, or payment terms can be made more favorable.
-
Credit Card Rates and Fees: You can sometimes negotiate lower interest rates or have annual fees waived.
-
Services: From cable packages to contractor services, many service providers are willing to negotiate terms and prices.
Learning to negotiate effectively can not only lead to immediate financial benefits but also foster long-term relationships and opportunities. It’s a skill that, once developed, can enhance nearly every aspect of a person’s life, providing them with the confidence and tools to advocate for themselves and achieve better outcomes in both personal and professional settings.
Bargaining and Negotiating Skills with Ramit Sethi
Based on what you learned this week about bargaining — and negotiation skills — tell me your story:
Bargaining and Negotiating Resources
-
Spend 30 minutes or so and do some research *on Bargaining and Negotiating*
-
Share 2 YouTube Video Links and 2 articles *About Bargaining and Negotiating* that you found helpful
-
Briefly Summarize each video and each article
-
Tell me why you chose these resources to include in this assignment
-
Post Your Comments and at least one helpful link
-
This is your weekly “Class Collaboration Assignment”
-
Post in MoneyStudyGroup.com or
-
On our Facebook Page or
-
On LinkedIn or
-
On YouTube
-
-
-
Tell me what you learned from Ramit Sethi about Salary Negotiation and why it matters.
List and Summarize Your Top 7 Bargaining Tips, Skills, Ideas
Share what you learned this week. I’m especially interested in knowing how you will put these tips, tools, skills, and ideas into practice in your own life based on the big idea of this week’s lesson.
Who do you know Who is a Master Negotiator?
Why is this person good at Bargaining and Negotiating? What makes them good at bargaining and/or negotiating?
Tell Me More
-
If you love to bargain and negotiate
-
If you hate to bargain and negotiate
-
If it feels like a fun game for you
-
If feels awkward and painful
About Your Expericene
-
What have you “negotiated” lately?
-
What was that like for you?
-
What did you learn in the process?
-
Will you be negotiating more in the future?
-
*What will you be negotiating* more of in the future?
-
Make a list of 10 things you plan to negotiate in the future:
-
In the next 24 hours…
-
In the next week…
-
In the next month…
-
In the next year…
-
Your Article should be about 800 — 1000 words (50 points).
As always, please format your article with a title, an introduction, and feel free to use images if you like. Upload either a Word or PDF file to BB.
7 Rules, Boundaries, and Opportunities for Bargaining and Negotiating
This is my list 7 principles related to Bargaining and Negotiating, this is not so much a list of skills as it is a list of things to think about as you work on developing your Bargaining and Negotiating Skills.
-
-
Negotiate Anything and Everything
-
-
-
Exercise Your Walk-Away-Muscle
-
-
-
Practice the Daily Discipline of Patience
-
-
-
Comparison Shopping Builds 3 Kinds of Muscle
-
Mental Muscle (Research takes brains and you learn stuff, too)
-
Emotional Muscle (Patience is typically involved in comparison shopping because it takes time)
-
-
-
-
Cash is King in Bargaining (but maybe not like cash used to be king…)
-
-
-
Silence is Golden so Shut Up
-
-
-
Timing. Timing. Timing is Everything!
-