Negotiation Tactics

For this assignment, I watched 3 different videos that each discussed negotiation techniques. The first video I watched was William Ury’s video “The walk from “no” to “yes”. One fact that I took away from this video was the story at the beginning of his speech regarding the 3 brothers who were trying to figure out how to divide up 17 camels between themselves. What I took from this short story was how to reach a mutual benefit between the 3 brothers in how to divide up the camels. Much like the story people need to step back from situations and find the “18^th” camel in and come to mutual grounds when it comes to a negotiation.

            Stephen Stuart gave the next video I watched and he discussed the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). In the video he said the best thing to remember is to not bargain over your position. Any negotiation should produce a wise agreement, it should be efficient and it should improve the relationship between parties, not damage them. A wise agreement is one which meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible and resolves conflicting interests. Basically this entire speech revolves around the BATNA and one key fact he pointed out was that a party should not accept a worse resolution than it’s BATNA and that care should be taken to make sure that deals are accurately valued, taking all considerations into account.     

            Margaret Neale gave the next video I watched and she talked about getting what you want in a negotiation.  In the video she covered the basic outline of negotiations, one thing I took away from the video was that you have information that your counterparts don’t have, and that is what you should bring to the table. If they had all your information, they wouldn’t need you but because you have unique information and they have unique information, value is created between yourself and the people you are negotiating with.

Business Finance

This month I attended a finance class and honestly I wasn't sure what to expect going into this class except that it was going to cover the finances of running a business. Boy was I wrong; it is much more than just applying financials to your business. It covers not just what kind of finances go into running your business but also how to understand certain numbers that involve making smart business choices.

I also learned how to manage my own finances and really learned how to read a variety of statements varying from credit card statements to reading the fine print of investing and how to make money through investments. Learning also what kind of smart choices to make when applying for a loan and how to get the most out of paying off bills and managing your personal finances to best impact your financial future.

Also learning how to invest properly was an extremely valuable tool. From investing in mutual funds to learning how to understand the basics of trading in the stock market, everything I learned in this class will help me to understand and manage my finances when I do decide to start my own business in the near future. Learning the smart way of starting my own business helped understand what it takes to start up my business, like instead of buying new equipment you should rent your equipment first and rent a building or space instead of buying one. These are the things that will help you turn a profit your first year of business and in the future you could buy new equipment and maybe buy your own building but first you must start from the bottom to climb to the top and have new equipment to match your desire.

Again this class really helped me understand the financial side of running a business and opened my eyes to the smart way of investing money both for my business life and my personal life.