The language of negotiating

expert — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:24:55 +1000

I had an interesting experience recently in the field of negotiating. I was in a negotiation for a very expensive item. The seller wanted $725,000, my counter-offer was $675,000. What happened next is incredibly illustrative of how negotiating is a game, and how the subtext of what is taking place is critical to the outcome.

Just bad luck

expert — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 03:16:23 +1000

I was speaking to a couple of reps the other day about control. About how you're not in total control of your client's response, and that there are a lot of factors that can influence results that are completely out of your hands. I spoke about things like weather, the product the client picks, the price they sell it at, salesmanship in-store, etc etc. But then there's the completely off-the-hook stuff that you can't forsee or prevent - it's just Murphy's Law, and frankly all you can do is to sit back and laugh. Here's a few to brighten your Monday:

Perfection as a liability

expert — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 12:41:27 +1100

In my experience, perfection is typically seen as a positive goal, as well it should be. My boarding house master told me to 'never settle for mediocrity' and it's one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received. However, like most things in life, it's not necessarily black and white.

It's not all about price

expert — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:55:45 +1100

I had a rep talk to me the other day about their frustration with an opposition publication 'poaching' their clients. It seems that despite having good relations with a number of clients, they had stopped advertising with her as the opposition had been offering cheaper deals for the free publication in town.

The rep's take on this was that the only way she was going to win back the business was to match the price, but I'm not so sure. Here's a couple of things to consider:

Patience is a virtue:

What Hitchcock can teach us about management.

expert — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:37:20 +1000

I've been discussing a range of sales management issues with one of my consulting clients and I got to thinking about Alfred Hitchcock.

When looking for the culprit in a great murder-mystery, motive is key. If you want to work out whodunnit, simply start by asking who served to benefit from the crime. It's a great place to start.

The same should be true of management, but I've noticed through my discussions with my client that the 'motive' for doing something in management often becomes obscured or completely forgotten in the grind of getting stuff done.

Simplicity makes sense

expert — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 07:10:32 +1000

This is an interesting article (I'll also include the text at the bottom of this blog in case the link breaks at some stage)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickspenner/2012/07/02/marketers-have-it-wrong-forget-engagement-consumers-want-simplicity/

Innovation continues

expert — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 09:38:16 +1000

Just when you think you've seen everything in newspapers, some clever cookie comes up with a new take (or reinvents an old take). These concepts for TAC are great for a number of reasons:

So guys like looking at girls, who would have thought?

expert — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:07:48 +1000

There's some interesting research here to do with mapping how people look at ads. Just flick past the first two which tell you (surprise, surprise) that guys like looking at girls. The rest are more interesting.

http://www.businessinsider.com/eye-tracking-heatmaps-2012-5#ixzz1xlcah4AR

Pretty cool

expert — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:31:47 +1000

As the media landscape continues to shift dramatically, and arguments abound about how print will cope with this change, the hysteria often drowns out the really cool stuff that's happening.

Deceleration shock

expert — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:16:12 +1000

I was thinking this week about the issue of dealing with change and 'deceleration shock'.

There's a lot of talk right now about the real estate market and how difficult it is for sellers. The market is tough and many sellers are being forced to drop 10-15% on their prices in order to sell. This can be extremely painful.