How to Master Negotiation: It's Not Just About the Deal

Today on the podcast, I'd like to look at negotiation sales techniques. But before we continue, the usual apologies, I'm not in my recording booth. And then even though the Olympics are over, one of my sons has taken the liking to Formula One racing. So that's some of the noise that you guys are going to hear in the background. And then also, I'm much better now with the sore throat. Let's see what else? So anyway, today's episode should be cleaner.

We shouldn't have as many sniffles. So with that out of the way, let's head straight to negotiation techniques for sales. Oh yeah, listener shout outs. Shout out to Kika Michael. He reached out to me on WhatsApp, discovered the podcast on Spotify, listened to a couple of episodes. He has a shoe brand. I didn't get the Instagram handle. I also didn't get the CD that he's, he's from Nigel Boy. Most definitely. Then let's see what else.

Oh, yeah. Then he said that he came across the episode in, you know, good timing because he had been considering lowering his prices. And then he came across the podcast episode where I spoke about how you shouldn't lower your prices, but just make sure that First off, you're dealing with your ICP. That's your ideal customer profile. Make sure you're dealing with your people, basically, whether you call it your ideal customer profile, your target market,

your whatever. Just make sure that you're doing that first before you start tweaking the price because too many people tweak the price. And the thing just helps with your mental and it doesn't help your game at all. And imagine the kind of spiral when you start off whatever it is you're trying to sell and you say that your price is X and then you think that OK, the price is too much and now make it X -, 10. And then you're now getting BS

from people and you now make it X -, 12. And then you keep minus and then minus it just it, it, it totally screws with you. And starting off in the wedding photography game, I've seen how the thing can really mess people out of the industry. So tweak price. Yeah, sure, at some point you will have to, you might have to tweak your price. The price might be a significant part of the equation. But trust me, for most of you,

before you tweak the price, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that you need to learn how to tweak first. Are you talking to the ideal customers? Are you talking to the right people? Need to sort that out first. After you sort out this thing of you're talking to the right people, you even need to figure out, do I have a sales process? Do I know how to sell? Is there a couple of things that I need to learn about handling sales conversations or about negotiating?

In fact, that's what we're doing today, negotiating techniques for sales people. So there's a whole bunch of other things you need to learn before you got your price. And I'm happy that I was humbled that Kika Michael was able to come across my material in good time and not drop his price. But not only that, he raised his price. And I'm, I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad when I come across stories like that. So he raises prices and yeah,

for all the intents and purposes, you know, he's not suffering, he's not drinking, Gary. So that's the way forward, especially since in Nigeria where in this, I don't know what kind of inflation this is, but you guys, you know how it is for those of us who are still in Niger, you know who haven't Jack Ma, you know, you go and buy something today and then two weeks later the price is up and then three weeks later the price is up.

And then so this whole thing that prices are just going up and up and up and up like that. So you can't say you're going to keep your price constant or cut your price and then realistically think that, excuse me now, whatever your hustle is, whether you're selling shoes or whether you're selling carpentry services or even if you're merua, you can't think that you keep your prices stagnant and things will be well with you not to talk of cutting the price.

So anyway, bottom line, Kika, Michael, thank you very much for listening to the pod. And if you found anything of value, as you undoubtedly have, like you mentioned in our chat, please share the podcast with other people so that you can come across some Nuggets here that can help them with building their businesses. So who knows, if you share something here with someone, you might be that catalyst that helps turn somebody's business around or at least prevent them from making some really, really,

really bad jam bite mistakes like cutting your price every time you think that sales are not doing too good. So with the listener shout out of the way, let's just head straight to negotiation techniques for sales. So negotiation, again, plenty of definitions. So I'm going to use a very simple everyday definition over here, something that every single man or woman listening to the show right now, all boys and girls can remember.

Pull it out of your pocket and apply. So negotiation basically is just trying to get your own desired outcome in a business conversation or in a business relationship. That's the old school definition, pretty much. I'm yawning with you right now. You and I, we're trying to get the business up and running or we're trying to, you know, we're trying to do something. And me, I'm looking out for my own outcome. So old school definition, that's negotiation.

But new school people, however, the way that new school people look at it is it's not just your own share that you're going to take because old school people are caught throat. As in I'll take my own share if your blood is on the floor, like I don't care. As long as I get my own, I'm good. That's an old school, real cutthroat kind of thing, especially in Western climes. So North America, Western Europe, you know, that's that old school cutthroat kind of thing.

Like shy. I collected my own, you know, if you didn't collect your own, that's that's that sucks for you. So new school ideas are more about keeping an eye on mutually desirable outcomes. Like me, I'll collect my own share, but you know, I'll still use something for you. So, you know, I chop yourself, you a chop, that kind of thing. Because if people feel like they're taking advantage of, then there's less room in the future for future relationships.

And in fact, there are some negotiations professionals who are going to talk about these sorts of things to say you need to look at whether a future relationship is desirable or not. And if your future relationship is not desirable, if this is a one off, then you know, what the heck, just enter and just take your own and, you know, make sure you're good yourself. And then just, you know, just leave. But new school people are not that cutthroat.

So whichever school you want to fall into, I will, I'll leave that up to you. But of course, since you know that my own focus over here is to try and see how we can get repeat business and referrals and stuff like that. You know, obviously old school ideas about taking your own share, take the lion share. Probably it's not going to work with the stuff that I talk about here about on the podcast. Well, then caveat warning, my specialty sales, my specialty is not negotiation.

So you should actually should be listening to negotiations podcasts, reading negotiations books, you know, things like that. And there are a bunch of previous sources that I'm going to talk about at the well, I hope I remember to talk about at the end of the podcast. So OK, Now one thing I need to tackle for those of us who are sales minded is negotiation a stage. Now, the reason why we have to tackle this is because some people think negotiation happens when you sit down at the table and then the other person is there, you know, the person says, Oh yeah, let's negotiate.

So some of you don't realize that you're in a good negotiationship until you're at that level. So back to my constituency wedding photography. Now some wedding photographers who think you're only at negotiation stage when the bride says I got photographer is, is this 350 you that 350 is how sure you will do something now, blah, blah, blah. So some people think that is when the negotiation stage begins, but actually the answer is no, that is not when the negotiation stage begins.

For most people who are in business, whether you're in business as a wedding photographer or as a shoe person, or even if you're a sales professional because you're selling, selling cars or whatever. The thing is, as a sales professional, when you're handling these conversations, you are constantly trying to prioritize stuff, move some things up, move some things down, make some things more important than they are. And then you're also deep prioritizing some things,

minimizing some things, making it less important, and then you're making concession on some kinds of stuff as the business relationship progresses. So even though as a wedding photographer you didn't start haggling, when you got to the part where you say my bill is 250 K and this is 350, like how now, like I'm Kelly's friend, blah, blah, blah, give me a discount and whatnot. You think you're negotiating, but the negotiation started happening earlier at the point where you guys were talking about is it one day or two days?

And even though your normal rate is 350K for one day, but she said and now that the second day is just registry is not blah, blah blah, it's all what not. So in that case you made a concession ordinarily supposed to be 350K for one day, but actually say and now that registry is just one hour. Now we see registry is just here now is not anything. And now, OK, I'll add 1K and our other 10K or something. You can see that at that level,

you guys are already making concessions. She's saying, and now this thing is small yourself, you'll be saying and now this thing is big and that's how you guys are moving priorities back and forth and making concessions. So negotiations has started then even though you didn't haggle on price. So whether you get to the stage where somebody sits down at the table and say or let's start haggling on price, The thing is in most business relationships,

whether it's cake or shoe or wedding photography or catfish or whatever, negotiations have already started from the beginning. The thing is just that you don't know the business person. You don't know that negotiation started since that's the reason why lots of times you lose out all these things because by the time you get to the price and you started haggling the price, you've already made concessions on lots of things.

So back to the wedding photography example, you know Murphy is 250 K one day what you say and now and then you agree because registry is just one hour the next day. So you agree already. You make concessions on time and then think about the value of time or the value of your time rather the number of hours that is going into the gig. You can see that you didn't haggle on price per SE, but because you've made concessions on time, you actually have started diluting the price.

So most times just shine your eyes. Negotiation starts from day one, even if at the end there's going to be another formal meeting where the bride will say, look, come to my house. Daddy is the one pain Daddy wants to negotiate. Even if there's that further stage where you still meet with somebody else and negotiate. Truth be told, negotiations have started from day one. So everybody listening to the pod right now, shine your eye.

You've been negotiating from day one. You just don't know. Negotiation is not just about money. Negotiation is money. Timelines, deliverables, man hours, you know, woman hours, What else? Different ways of defining the scope of the contract. You know, different things. It's not just money. So some of you think negotiation is money. It's not just money. So things to consider in negotiation. You need to understand the deal,

you need to understand the client. You need to understand both people's angles coming into the the negotiation, whether it's you as the vendor in this case, you know, you supply shoes or you supply or you supply wedding photography or or you sell cakes or banana bread or whatever. You need to understand where it is you're coming from. You know know your margins. You need to know what is that the client needs as well. Then product or service knowledge is absolutely essential because you need to be a master of your product or service.

You need to know what can go right, what can go wrong, and what we can realistically be expected to deliver. Because there's some people who say that is not a big deal. Now it's not just one, you know, blah, blah, blah. If you're a newbie in the industry, you think of it like it's not that big a deal. So let's say wedding videography now a video, that would be a good example. So maybe you say it's just one hour, like, what's the big deal?

Well, then an experienced videographer knows that to get one hour's worth of footage, OK, like back to the wedding day, you know, you will record them coming in. You record small interview like, oh, we got married yesterday, this is registry, it's the best day of our life, blah, blah, blah. And there's a recording that Momsie will now say, me too, let me appear in the video. That's how you now interview Momsie. Poppy will now say, so today is only the Women's Day.

That's how you now interview Popsy and some of the uncles will say, but we have some words of wisdom for our niece. That's how they too, They will enter the video. But bottom line, what I'm trying to say is this, if you're a newbie and you don't understand, have good product or service knowledge, you won't realize that that one hour of footage that you're going to deliver for the registry, you might actually sit down and record like 3 hours before you edit down to one hour.

And then even that three hours that you record, you actually have to listen over those three hours and then edit it down. But what I'm just saying is that the bride says it's just one hour. Now actually, that is just one hour now might actually equal 16 hours of your time. So you need to have good product or service knowledge so that you know what is realistic. Because some people will say it's just this now, it's not just one.

It's not just one extra #1 extra slippers. You as a professional know that OK, one extra slippers to produce that slippers, you pay the boys, you buy the material. That one extra slippers equals 17 K in material costs. So the person is saying, is it just one? You know, you actually know that it's more than one. It's bigger than that. So understand your product and the service. Know what goes into it, what can go wrong, what is realistic.

You also need to know your clients, their needs and their pain points. You know what's interesting for them, what's important to them, Because when you know all these things, you now know truly, truly what are the small things and what is not worth, what is not worth quibbling about, arguing about, then yeah, understand. Just know what it is that they're trying to achieve. Not just them, but you too. What are you trying to achieve?

How much are you trying to capture? Your boss, your sales manager, What are they thinking? What do they want to capture on this deal? What is going to be good for the company? You know, different things like that. Then a word on negotiation styles. So, you know, at the beginning of the part I spoke about how there's old school styles, especially in western climes and then the new school way of thinking about things. So you need to anticipate people's approach because some people are cutthroat, they're aggressive, you know, they'll come out blazing.

Some people even raise their voice, you know, slam table and all kinds of, you know, rubbish behaviour. There's some people are very passive or submissive and some people are collaborative. You need to just kind of source them out. Guess where they're coming from, try to fill them out and it will help. Because if you head in with a collaborative mindset and you get there and the people are absolute idiots and they want to take advantage of you and everything, then that's going to be a problem.

So you need to gauge this person before you guys start negotiating. Well, like I said, this is not my area of specialty. So you should be looking for podcasts, looking for blogs, looking for YouTube videos, looking for books, looking For more information from negotiations and specialists. Then your goals and outcomes have to be clear. You have to know for sure what it when you're heading in. Now look, you know what, for this job to make sense for me,

my profit margin on this, it has been 100K. If my profit margin is 80 K is not, you know, it's not going to work for me. You need to be clear about your desired outcomes. There's something back when I was in undergrad, they used to tell us best alternative to negotiated agreement, Batna. BATNA. My undergraduate was in law. So was it OK? No, I think that was in law school that they told us that best alternative to negotiated agreement.

So and basically this whole thing is just around your walk away point. You need to know what works for you, what doesn't. If you and your wife have sat down and you've looked at the math that look for this family to function every single time you go out and you come back, we're supposed to bring is 120 K in profit. Then you need to know that you need to be able to stick to it because by 10 people start pricing and the profit margin is entering 50K.

I guess 50K is better than nothing, but truth be told, are you going to come back with 50K? Then your wife is angry and then she has to stay at home with the kids for the whole weekend because you're out shooting the whole wedding or doing whatever it is that you're doing and it just leads to all kinds of whatever. Just know your walk away point. So by the time they start pricing and they think I started entering 100K, you can say, oh,

you know what, I'm not the vendor for you. Let me refer you to somebody else. At least if you refer to somebody else and you tell the other person that you know what, any deal you guys negotiate, I beg, just throw me like 10K, throw ME20K. You know now it's better. It's better than nothing. So understand, know your goals, know your expectations, understand your walk away points, when to stand up and say you know what, this is enough.

I'm leaving. Determine your lowest acceptable deal. Then make sure that your price ranges are realistic. We need to make sure that the people also have realistic price ranges. And that's the reason why I keep saying on the podcast, we need to have qualification conversations. This is where we, you figure out who is this person, what are they about? And then you set all kinds of expectations around budget and you set these expectations early.

If you say in the beginning that, oh bro, from what we've been talking about so far, all these things can cost anything between 4.5 M and 3.2 M on the lower end. Is that the kind of thing you're willing to invest in right now? You keep quiet, you hear what he says, the person says 3.2 bowel for who? You now know that this deal is not for you. And then you leave because 3.2 is your lowest and the person is saying 3.2. How so you just leave it.

But if you do something like that and the person says 4.5, well, 3 point, it sounds just about right. But I'm I'm, I'm preferring that 3.2 sha. You now know that OK, there's something here. You know, there's room, some of you might be scared of talking like this, but really the first time I tried it, this is how it went. We finished talking to the babe. It was at was at Abuja Wedding Expo. Yeah, it was Abuja Wedding Expo.

She seemed clean, you know, masters everything, blah, blah, blah. How much I said it could be between this and between that. I gave the high end, I gave the low end and she said, OK, sounds about right. When can I come and see? When can I come and see my mother-in-law? I was shocked. I didn't. Maybe you know, his beginner's luck as far as the first time I'm trying it. But really that's how I worked. He said, OK, sounds about right,

although we won't be hitting so, so, so and so. But when are you free to come and talk to mother-in-law? And then we showed up. We spoke to mother-in-law, but man, mother-in-law was gangster. That woman negotiated died. Like I was frustrated I had to leave the place. My video guy shagging was coming. So I sent him a text message like guy me, I'm leaving or this one is talking OPT when you come here, you continue. He told me, no, just leave it,

just leave it. And then he came in, you know, doing what Yoruba boys do. You know, he came in at a car lemma, you know, this, this, this some Batimbati language language. Next thing to her laughing and everything. And she tried pulling the tactic on on him as well. And you know, he did that whole Yoruba thing, you know, like kidney something, something, something. And then he tried to re anchor high. And anyway, it was it was a wonderful experience.

And for me, it was the beginning of me understanding that like everything doesn't have to be done in English. So it's actually it's an advantage. If you come in, you're on my bad on the other person is on my bad on too. And you guys start speaking lingo, you know, rapport, all these things, it helps. But bottom line, what I was just trying to say is set the expectation early. It can cost between this can cost between that.

So how far, what do you think? And then keep quiet and hear what they say. You do that early, you now know what kind of negotiation that you're heading in for. You need to know, do these guys have real estate price expectations? You also need to make sure I own price expectations realistic because don't forget that when I wanted to enter into this business 15 years ago, the first bride I spoke to, I told her 400 Ki just said thank you very much.

You want to build house. Thank you. And she didn't even negotiate. She was trying her best to leave the conversation. I was trying my best to keep her on the phone and it was absolutely pathetic. And I hope you guys, I hope none of you ever fall into that kind of situation because you leave that whole thing feeling like like a jilted lover basically. So I hope you none of you guys fall into that situation. So yeah, I didn't have realistic price expectations because look,

wedding photography, there are already some guys that are on ground. People have established names, established brands. You can't just come from somewhere because you're coming from abroad. You now just start the quoting XYZ price. You know, it just doesn't work that way. It's not just what you think you're entitled to. They're also market forces at play. So make sure they have realistic price expectations. Make sure you have realistic price expectations as well.

Let's see what else? OK, Before you head in, make sure you have an idea of where you can make concessions. That's something I also did later on in my practice. By the time I sorted out my packages, I didn't negotiate on the actual packages themselves. I had fixed amounts of packages and then there was a service charge. So on the service charge, I knew that if I remove, you know, 1020 K on the service charges, that's not that much of a problem.

But on the wedding, wedding packages itself, I didn't remove anything because it was pegged to cost. The what I charge on the packages was a multiple of cost. I'm not going to say how much, how many eggs. So none of my former brides will listen and say, yeah, nothing. That he charged us 450. It actually cost you 150 to produce. I'm not going to say that, but it was a multiple of cost. So I didn't touch that. I was like, look, that one is fixed.

So the package, I'm not removing anything. The service charge, yes, I might go up or down. So know those things before you enter that if you're making concessions, you can make concessions on here or you will make concessions on them. Then also the stuff that I say about building trust and rapport, active listening, paying attention to people, trying to show empathy, concern, you know, things like that. So all those things are really,

really important. Of course, open-ended questioning techniques, use that to gather information. What do you guys think about this? What about this? What about that? Don't go there, try to sound like a lawyer. You say I put it to you that, you know, don't put anything to anybody. You know, ask a question. How about this? What about this? If we do this, how does that affect that? What outcome are you looking for on this?

So all those sorts of things. Then also get ready to handle objections because there's some objections that everybody's going to say. One thing that everybody would say is that's too expensive. It doesn't matter what it is that you sell. If you sell light bulb, somebody would say that's too expensive. If you sell shoe, somebody who say it's too expensive. If you sell car, somebody who say that's too expensive. If you sell TomTom and you're trying to supply it at distributor price as in TomTom,

somebody who say that's too expensive. Because let's face it, in Abuja now TomTom is 10 naira for one, and that's mad. In my own opinion, I think that's mad like TomTom 10 naira, it's crazy. So of course, even for TomTom people who say that's too expensive. So now that you know, before the negotiation, people are going to say you're too expensive, you and your crew, you and your wife before you enter that negotiations or the other way around.

You know, wife, if you're the business person and your husband is the one who works full time, but you know he's a loving, supportive spouse, have that conversation with him. How are you guys going to handle this thing? I'm going in for this deal. I know these people will say I'm too expensive. If they say I'm too expensive, what am I going to do next? You don't wait until you get into the deal before you start trying to handle objections.

Try and figure out some of those objections beforehand, then let's see. OK, closing the deal. Now some people think, OK, let me put it this way. When it comes to closing the deal, the thing you see in films, that's just film trick. This whole thing of somebody enters the room, says a magical speech, something, something, something, and then he gives one beautiful line and then he closes the deal and then everybody class for him and all that.

That's just film trick. In real life, there's no closing the deal in one big, dramatic or decisive step. What you do is you guide conversations. Small, small, small. You decide upon small things, small, small, small. You build consensus around smaller items leading up to the bigger items and that is how you close the deal. That is how it was done, especially in complex sales. If you're selling TomTom bashes on some example, then well, now you just go in and haggle and and then pay and go.

But if you're selling your car, if you're selling wedding photography or if you're trying to supply, I don't know, diesel to a bank branch in your neighbourhood, let's say, yeah, that's your thing. There's Zenith Bank in your place, there's an Access Bank in your place and your uncle owns a filling station. You want to supply diesel to banks for generator. So those sorts of things you are actually trying to make agree upon small, small things along the way before you lead up to the big close.

So there's no closing the deal. Bam, in one big step it is small, small, small, small, small, then you close the deal. Now an example about that. Also back to my legal background. Well, this is one of the benefits of a multidisciplinary background. When you come into business, for those of us who are coming into business from different angles, it doesn't matter where you studied law or you studied accounting or whether you studied theatre arts, whatever it is that you learned in your undergrad day, your undergrad days is going to be very valuable in business.

So just, you know, shine your eye, keep your eye open and learn to apply the things accordingly. So this is one of the stuff that came through my legal background days back through undergrad and stuff like that. So OK, I'm not, I'm not sure how it is in America, Australia, all these parts, but in Niger, what you do is you do your undergrad then is it before NYSE or after NYSE? There's a part before or after NYSE where you do, I can't remember what it's called, some form of tutelage where you go to a law firm and you do some work for a while.

So while I was there, some of you have listened to the show. You already know that experience of mine because that was the first time I saw a check for I think it was 7.5 M or something. That was my first time seeing like good money, big money. That was a long time ago. Now 7.5 M is no money because what can I do with 7.5 S? What was I? Yeah. So the we went in there and my OGA at the time, he was providing legal support.

There was an Italian company, there was a Nigerian company. I can't remember of NAPC was there. Then this guy with Jerry, Jerry Carls Bismarck Bismarck Rouhani from financial something he's he was like, he was considered to be like a financial guru in Niger, Asia. Although the first time I saw him, I was wondering like, what's this papillo doing with, with Jerry Kois? Because the only person I knew who had Jerry curls was Mumsy back in the 80s.

So it was me. For me, it was strange seeing this guy like we're no longer in the 80s. You're an old man, clearly older than my father, and you have Jerry curls. Well, of course, I still have respect for Mr. Bismarck Rouhani. So for those of you listening to the podcast, I'm not taking shots at our uncle. I'm just saying that I thought it was weird at the time, but I even saw him on channels TV during the the nationwide protests.

That was like last week and he still had the Jericho's. So I guess that's his that's his thing. So I notice that what my God did was he got them to negotiate heads of agreement first before we start negotiating all the big, big things later on. Now what heads of agreement means is just that you negotiate all these small details first, all the non binding things first. Basically just negotiate a small document that says these are the main terms between A&B and these are the essential things that we're going to argue about or agree on and you know, stuff like that.

So it makes the whole thing very helpful. So we went in there and we outlined heads of agreement. So there was talk about price of valuation, there was talk about the payment terms. Those talk about in fact this price evaluation thing. That was where Bismarck, Rwanda came in real handy. And I was really, really impressed because if you're negotiating this thing, you know, the price of crude and the price of this and price of that,

you know how it is now a war breaks out in Kuwait or whatever. And then you know, the price of this goes up, the price of that go up. So just agreeing on simple stuff like how do you value this? How do you value that? I remember people that were talking about, OK, I can't remember the valuation terms that they were talking about and occurring about it. And then Bismarck ran, it was like, no, yeah, instead of Libor, Libor and neighbor, I

think Libor is London interbank opening rate. Anyway, let me not tell you guys the wrong information, but those of you who know finance, you know that this Libor and this neighbor. So they were shouting back and forth, Libor, Libor, neighbor and then Bismarck was like, no, because of this is this night that applies. How about doing this? And everybody was calm. Now you see how if you go and negotiate heads of agreement and you agree that is how we're going to value something.

You can see now that everything is calm and cool so that when you now get to the stage where you're negotiating the big, big thing, at least we have settled this whole thing of how we're going to value everything in the 1st place. Then what else? Timelines, milestones. One thing we discovered we discussed now was governing law. Like if there's basic and everything goes to blazes, where are we going to settle this thing?

Is it Nigerian law? Is it this law? Is it that? Is it arbitration? Is it, you know, quarrel all those things? Now you see, this is called heads of agreement in law. You negotiate all these foundation, all these small foundational issues first so that when all these things are calm, we can now go and start tackling the big thing. And really, that's how deals are closed. Settle the small, small, small, small things first 'cause the small stuff turns out to be foundational and then it gives you room to start arguing and shouting when the main thing comes up.

So 31 minutes, A lot more can be said on negotiation, whether it's before negotiation or after negotiation. How do you follow up? How do you document the agreement? How do you outline the terms and conditions? How are you going to focus on building the relationship? You know, like it's, it's more, it's plenty. So you should be looking for people who this is their daily bread. Negotiation is not my daily bread. I'm just telling you a bunch of stuff over here, but go and look for people who they wake up and they think negotiations, they dream negotiations.

All they do is negotiations. So look for a specialist in that field. There's one podcast that I used to listen to negotiations Ninja podcast. I'm not sure if that's still running, but listen to it because that was very, very practical because the guy also comes from a sales background. So excuse me, he was talking about negotiations from basically how people like you and I will handle the whole thing. So it was not too high, was not too high tech like that, like that.

You know, it's not about negotiating oil rights or, you know, huge construction projects or something like that. So it was that's a good podcast to listen to. So look for negotiations Nature podcast, Audible guy, American. Let's see then Harvard University. I've noticed that Harvard has been putting out some free online resources on negotiations, not just negotiations, other stuff. But I'm surprised that they have stuff from the negotiations program because they used to have, I don't know about Nausha,

but back when I was in school, they used to have real world famous negotiations kind, not faculty. So I say faculty. OK, let me just say negotiations faculty. So, you know, professors, writers, things like that around the whole topic of negotiations. And the first seminar that I attended on negotiations and alternative dispute resolution actually was a Nigerian graduate from Harvard. And you know, that was his whole thing.

So negotiation specialists, actually they're they exist and they're here already in Niger and they've been here for at least two decades. So if you look, you will find them then. So our bottom line, all these factors we've talked about, consider all these things. You consider all these things, then you increase your chances of getting a successful outcome when you actually are negotiating with people. Also, just remember that negotiations start earlier than you think.

But please don't just take everything I've said here as the Bible. Pay attention, go and look for negotiation specialist, you know, learn from them, especially to see how it applies to you people because we're all coming from different backgrounds, listening to these things. So kick out my girls. He's into shoes. I started off wedding photography. Now I'm in consulting and I've. And media production. Some of you Julia.

So is it Julia? Yeah. Julia is into more money. Who else I can't remember. Zainab is into like all of Russia. We're all into different stuff. So listen to the negotiations pros and then you see how that wisdom applies to you in your business. So I'm going to wrap it up here since this is 34 minutes. So that's all for today, so connect with me on WhatsApp for questions, quick tips and insights. The phone number is 08064662140

and the country code for Nigeria is +234. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. It's the best social network for business, career development and networking. So you all should be taking it seriously. The name of the search for is Tavishima Ayede. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.