Have you ever tried to negotiate a deal for software, computer equipment, or consulting services with a technology company? The task can be daunting. Unfortunately, the sales forces of most IT companies are armed to the hilt with techniques to get the best deal for them, and not necessarily the best deal for you. And even worse, most of us computer folk (like myself) have never been trained in the art of negotiation, so it can be difficult to spot a snake in the grass. Before you begin negotiating a technology deal, know what you're getting in to.

Business owners have four options to resolve disputes with partners, vendors or customers. Each option is based on different assumptions, and entails a different cost. Therefore, it pays to understand them better.

Option #1 Direct negotiation

Time was, in the country, the local doc was as likely to get paid with a couple of chickens as a couple of dollars. Doctors these days wont stand for that, of course, but while some people have moved completely away from barter and stayed there, others have embraced it wholeheartedly.

Today I worked on a barter deal with a web designer to do search engine optimization on my web site in exchange for some articles. I HATE doing SEO, and I LOVE writing articles. This person needs articles written and is good at SEO. Its a good match.

Conflict is a word that can have varying degrees of severity, meaning, and implication for each individual or circumstance. For example, the conflict that is experienced in our current, daily lives seems insignificant in comparison to the Samurai, or those in war, who faced death on a regular basis. However, it is still important to extrapolate the significant lessons that have been derived from such severe scenarios, as these notions are still applicable in the conflict that we experience
in the workplace and life today.

Criteria Elicitation

Last week, a wonderfully-skilled electrician installed a new light fixture for us. He was competent, courteous and efficient. He answered all our questions simply, with skill and eloquence. I was amazed, as you might imagine, when I asked him, How much do we owe you? and his embarrassed reply was, Gee, is $50 okay?

With the quality of work hed done and the amount of time he put into it, I would have expected to pay double that amount. His resistance to naming his price reminded me of my small business clients who have the same problem.

Did you know that at one time in this country that there were no fixed prices on anything. You would go into a store and find an item you needed then you would begin the process of negotiating the price. This might seem foreign to us today, but it use to be the rule. In a later article I'll talk more about the history of price negotiation in this country, but today I want to give you some pointers about how to negotiate well.

Ask and you shall receive and knock and it shall be opened andsend an email and see what happens.

As a student of personal finance you are probably familiar with the advice to negotiate with your credit card companies to get a lower interest rate. Why stop there?

There is hardly anything that can't be gotten for less than what is being asked if you are smart and creative about asking.

Since you are reading this on a computer, let's start there. Got AOL?

I called AOL and they gave me two months of free service. Here is how it went...

I would like to comment on the A Beautiful Mind movie and the book, which was actually much better. I just finished reading another book on the similar side of John Nashs assertion of working together rather than competing against. That book was Co-opetition. By Adam M. Brandenburger (Havard guy)and Barry J. Nalebuff (Yale Dude).

What exactly are we trying to accomplish by proving to others that were right? We might win the argument but ultimately lose the relationship. Perhaps a better, deeper-rooted question is this: Why do we lose sight of success, of our big objective, when we feel challenged or intimidated?