Within our community of fantastic negotiators, we’re fortunate enough to leverage technology to be able to reach out to and get responses from some pretty amazing people. W.Brett Wilson is one of those people. Brett is a titan in the wold of high finance and knows what it takes to put good deals together. A few days ago we reached out to Brett on Twitter to ask him for some tips for our readers and followers from the high finance world.
Like the true class act he is, he responded with a one line word of wisdom that if broken down can help guide you to negotiation success.
Understanding the value gaps in any deal will let’s you know what gaps currently exist and how those gaps can impact the potential of closing the deal. The possibility of closing those gaps becomes smaller and smaller the larger and larger those value gaps get.
To truly appreciate what you need to do to bridge the gaps, you need to be frank and honest with yourself and likely the other party about what needs to happen to close. Sure, there are times when you need to play your cards close to your chest, but if you’re really close to closing the deal and there are only a few gaps left, the other party needs to know what those gaps are so they can determine what they need to do to close.
What is it that you need to close the deal? Take a peek at our post on negotiation framework development to help you understand this better. Negoitation is about logic and discipline and Brett was bang on when he said that logic can prevail. If the deal makes sense, and you can close, close! Don’t screw around trying to optimize the deal if you’re within your within the riverbanks of your deal framework. Because if you push too hard to optimize, you run the risk of moving out of the zone of possible agreement and killing the deal. Don’t get greedy. Close if you can close.
Brett’s true wisdom here is built on years of deal making experience! And in this single tweet he’s encapsulated an incredible lesson for all of us to take note of.
Understand the value gaps in the deal – then look for ways to bridge those gaps. Logic can prevail. – W.Brett Wilson