Everyday Negotiations

October 5, 2010

Interview with George Lucas, co-author of the book The One Minute Negotiator: Simple Steps to Reach Better Agreements

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Mike Carruthers:
The whole idea of negotiating turns a lot of people off. But it has a lot to do with how you look at negotiating.

George Lucas:
A negotiation is the process through which 2 parties, whose initial positions don’t match up, work at an effort to reach an agreement.
 

George Lucas, co-author of the book The One Minute Negotiator, says with that understanding and a few techniques you can improve your negotiating skills. And one technique is…

As soon as somebody says, “Of course” a red light should go off in your brain to say, “Wait a minute.” Let me give you a really quick example I rented a car and I’m going down the contract with the guy and he says, “Of course there’s a $100 drop charge.”

And that’s when the negotiation began.

I looked at him and I said, “Would you mind holding a gun on me?” And he said, “Oh well, do you have a different number in mind?” And I said, “Well, you rent cars everyday how do you know you don’t need this car more where I’m going to be leaving it than you’ve got it right now. What do you think is a fair number?”

And asking that question is also an effective negotiating technique.

When you can it’s always an advantage to get the other person to put their position on the table first. And at the end of about a 1-minute conversation I ended up with a $25 drop charge instead of a $100 drop charge.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here