WHY THIS BOOK

This is not quite like any other sales negotiation book you’ve ever read. Although it does, like others, include numerous personal stories and anecdotes, these stories aren’t included to show you what a genius I am or how successful I’ve been as a negotiator. They’re included to provide examples of a practical, repeatable, research-based process that you can start to use even before you’ve finished reading the book. Nor does it include numerous tips and tricks that I’ve devised over the years that work extremely well—but only if you’re me. Rather, it provides a step-by-step approach to a process that’s based on the way real people do real business in countries—and cultures—all around the world.

The process works because on a certain level all negotiations are the same, regardless of where they’re taking place or who’s conducting them. As a result, in broad terms, regardless of whether you’re selling tires in Ohio or computer hardware in Nepal, there is a blueprint that can be applied to the negotiation. Of course, the details vary from one deal to another, but that’s where the process comes in. It’s the process that enables you to fill in those details. In fact, although this book presents the process of filling in the blueprint from a seller’s perspective, the blueprint, because of the similarity in all negotiations, can actually be used by those on either side of a negotiation, as well as in any kind of negotiation. In the next chapter, I show you exactly what that blueprint looks like and begin to show you how, by learning the process, you can become a world-class negotiator.