how to get a stranger to agree to something

How to get a stranger to agree to something

Andrew Fogg

Andrew Fogg Co-Founder

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anyway. enough about that

How to get a stranger to agree to something

this is about negotiation

which can go well

or badly (slap!)

you. negotiate. every. single. day.

you are in the business of motivating people to do things

motivating your team to work together

motivating your customers to buy from you

motivating your investors to give you money

speaking of money - money is a pretty good motivator

but in a startup there ain’t much around

you have to use other means (soft skills)

negotiation is probably the most important thing that you do

what makes me qualified to talk about this?

i am certainly not an expert

i had to learn

how to do it

8 years ago i was an academic (neuroscience)

i thought networking, sales and negotiation were easy skills

that these were the only people who cared about getting better at those skills

i started out being arrogant and uninterested

and was therefore bad

i have good news

negotiation can be learnt

there are credible experts

how to network

how to sell

how to negotiate

you won’t believe how many times i have recommended this book (everyone should read it)

three quick startup scenarios

comes from my experience so comes with a health warning

1. getting a meeting (networking)★ Clearly articulate (to yourself) the profile of the people you need to meet - their job title, their role in an

organisation

★ If you are targeting specific people / organisations go online and on LinkedIn. Is there someone who can give you an introduction? If not, then who is in that direction?

★ Introductions are key. They are also karma: give them away and you will get them back. Be generous - it works!

★ If you are targeting lots of people then ask yourself where those people go: online and IRL (online communities, meet up groups)

★ Go to those places just join the conversation. When networking just walk up to people and stick out your hand (might sound obvious).

★ Drink but don’t get drunk when networking.

★When actually scheduling a meeting, send a calendar invite putting time straight into people’s diary’s. Then send an email saying you have done this. 90% of time you get straight acceptance, saves a bunch of time. I do this so often I have a Streak shortcut.

2. getting a deal (sales)★ Selling to businesses you either help them save money or make money. It is preferable to

help them make money.

★ There are two ways of then helping the organisation actually buy from you:

★ Identify a budget that is being spent elsewhere and claim it as your own. Rather than having to find new budget customer just redirects existing budget.

★ Insert your product into the customer acquisition process. It then just becomes a formula. More money spent with you = more customers for them.

★Avoid: workings with big SIs (Accenture, CapGemini etc). They will talk forever and they always think they can build it themselves. Hard sell and ultimately fruitless.

★Also joint ventures with prospective customers never happen just get them to pay for the product. You may encounter them because your product allows the customer to do something genuinely new.

★ Be confident when it comes to payment terms. Ask for a ton and come down, ask for all cash up front, or half now half on delivery. Get creative and avoid positional bargaining (e.g. don’t get fixated on the price - there are other terms). When pricing remember that you are selling value to the customer not cost to you.

3. getting a contract (negotiating)★Not got any contracts? Then get online and search for examples, reword as necessary.

Some of my earliest contracts came courtesy of Microsoft, Salesforce, Apple, Oracle, Adobe. So thank you!

★ Everyone wants to sign on their own paperwork including you. So get your paperwork issued first.

★Avoid redlines. Put a master agreement online as a PDF and issue an order form, the order form references the online master agreement. It supports single-call-resolution for you or your sales guys. If you send a Word document you WILL get changes back.

★ If you get into negotiating on a redline fight EVERYTHING on the first draft including things that you don’t really care about. You can then gift back the ones that you don’t care about later. By the time you are at this stage, the fundamentals of the deal have already been agreed - legal need to show that they have won their pound of flesh. So they don't care but some of those clauses (e.g. IP) are critical to you.

★When negotiating clauses if something seems unfair then insist on symmetry. Drives out things that are clearly unfair. “ I’ll let you F me in the A, but only if you’re also willing.”

★Keep the momentum of the deal going.

ok, hope that was helpful

finally for fun

4. getting an upgrade (upgrade)

★ Smile

★ Build rapport as quickly as possible: plans after work, plans for weekend, children etc - get a proper conversation going quickly.

★Use their first name (classic)

★ LTL - latency to laugh (or at least smile). You have 60 seconds.

★ Enjoy it. It is natural to be sincerely interested in others.

★ Once you have built a good relationship with them…

★Killer question - “is it a good room / seat / car etc?”

Andrew Fogg Co-Founder

★Visit our website http://import.io

★Watch a presentation of these slideshttp://youtu.be/oT1qMyu6LUc