IM Blog

One of the most common mistakes that people entering a business make is not negotiating. And that often brings a lot of undesired consequences, like expenses that could’ve been avoided or income that could’ve been had, if only there was a little negotiation between the parties.

The cause of this may be the entrepreneurs personality, lack of experience, fear of losing what he already has or just lack of patience and/or time to negotiate (sometimes it can take a while, depending on what’s at stake). In any case, at least one party is losing (and most of the times both of them are).

Let’s say, for example, that one of the affiliate networks you’re signed up with contacts you and says that they’re not satisfied with the quality of the leads you’re sending and are asking that you stop advertising it (a lot of networks won’t even have the courtesy to tell you that and will just shut down the offer, so be careful). Most people will just accept the fact and stop promoting the offer. Only a few will try and negotiate.

Ask for a lower payout, different targeting, negative or bad keywords, whatever; just keep the offer running. Nowadays, finding a new profitable offer is harder than keeping an old one active.

Always try to engage the other party to find a compromise that would be beneficial to both of you. Let’s say you found a company in China that can provide you with cheap new OEM or refurbished cartridges for laser printers, but you find the price too high. Don’t just give up if you know this business will work. Negotiate a lower price. Most of the times, they will have a high profit margin set for themselves and will be able to lower the price enough so that you make a profit, too.

If you would just give up, both of you will lose. They will lose a customer and money; you will lose a potentially precious provider and income. Negotiating a lower price on their part is a win-win situation here.

Creating a mutually beneficial compromise is a key point in negotiating. You must show them that they get something good out of the deal. They don’t care much what you get (and you shouldn’t tell them unless specifically asked), as long as they’re making more money/have a greater reach/influence/etc.

Of course, if your deal doesn’t offer anything good to them, but does make you quite a profit, you can try offering something unrelated to the main business, like if you are a chop shop and have enough spare parts to build a good motorcycle, you could trade it for new computers for your office, for example.

Maybe that’s a little farfetched, but you never know if it would work until you try. Who knows maybe the owner of the computer store is an avid biker and will gladly accept your offer?

This brings me to another, last point: always try to negotiate with the higher-ups or the persons who are really in charge. Managers and simple workers are not that good at this (mainly because they do not know what the company wants and don’t control anything) and they simply could not care if they make a good deal with you or not (they won’t get paid any more money in most cases, so why bother and waste time?).

I hope I demonstrated that negotiating is important, and in some cases, it could make, break or set back your business by quite a large degree. Next time you plan on dropping an offer because it’s not profitable or buying spare ink for your office printers, remember this and negotiate a better payout or a lower price, respectively.

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