In the present trend of competitive marketing and exhibiting excellence, you should be able to display your business in the most admirable manner. Presentation folders serve the purpose with ease and you are able to do justice to your business. It ensures growth of the company and also builds reputation, which is a long-standing attribute in favor of a company.

Your primary approach should be to create an image of the company before the targeted consumers to possess a satisfying picture. You can create such a condition when you produce outstanding and effective presentation folder printing. Your print material must be of the standard that truly exhibits your class, which is accepted by consumers to make an impact in the decision making process.

You have to take care of competitors and have to create such a print material to overcome the competitive edge to justify your position in the market. It is about the identity in the market, which is of paramount importance in business. It should be well established with the introduction of presentation folders. You need to consider the budgetary support of the creation of the marketing tool and should keep it well under control to obtain cost friendly materials to do the marketing campaign of your products. In this manner, you are able to do well for your company and at the same time increase the sales of your products to score certain profit from the venture of presentation folder printing.

Your mission, to clinch sales and impress consumers is well-balanced when you create such fascinating folders that make visitors happy or satisfied. All the things are possible if you are able to contact a high quality online printing company for the task. There are several in the web and you must find the perfectly talented one and interact with your ideas on the subject to create competent presentation folders. Your profit grows sumptuously when you are able to synchronize the entire task in the creation of efficient folders for the business.

What’s scarier to most Americans than spiders, heights, or even death? There hasn’t been a horror movie made about it yet, but more than 75% of Americans surveyed report that they suffer from “glossophobia,” a debilitating fear of public speaking. Statistically, far more of us claim that we would prefer death to giving a speech; even comedian Jerry Seinfeld used to joke that at a funeral, most people would rather be lying in the casket than delivering the eulogy.

Why is the prospect of trying to communicate information in front of even one person so horrifying? Most glossophobes fear looking bad, being criticized, suffering rejection, and losing business or friends-all because they are certain they will forget what they’d planned to say. Maybe you have had the experience of forgetting a speech or presentation, or you’ve seen it happen to someone else, and you don’t want it to happen to you. Ever.

What’s wrong with rote?

Most people memorize speeches by rote-or word-for-word repetition-and try to deliver it exactly as they’ve written it. You probably don’t realize that this method of learning is actually setting you up to forget what you’re supposed to say because it creates tremendous stress, which is in turn the number one killer of memory.

Or if you do manage to remember every single word you’d planned to say, the effort requires so much mental energy that you come off as a terrible communicator. You’re not really there while you’re speaking because all of your efforts go into remembering what comes next. If, heaven forbid, something distracts you, or someone interrupts you with a question during a memorized presentation, thinking about anything other than “What comes next?” can throw you completely off-track. Your mind may literally go blank, just as you feared.

And there’s one more problem with word-for-word learning: 93% of our communication happens non-verbally. The majority of the message your audience receives has very little to do with the actual words you say but with body language, tone of voice, gestures, and facial expressions. So you can’t expect to convey ease and expertise non-verbally if your mental and physical energies are completely preoccupied with delivering a verbatim speech. You’ll simply be too tense, and it will show.

And what’s wrong with notes?

What about the security blanket of an outline or notes? You may feel you need notes to stay on track when giving a presentation, but if you’re tied to those notes, you aren’t free to make eye contact, a key element of non-verbal communication. You’ll also be stuck behind a podium, and if people can’t see two-thirds of your body, that has a serious impact on the 93% non-verbal communication aspect of your presentation. Notes may make you feel a little better, but they also take away a crucial tool for your effectiveness.

As a real estate professional, for example, when you’re discussing listing or selling a prospect’s home, an effective presentation is one in which you are clearly the expert and know more about selling a home than the person who wants the home sold. Likewise, an American who is fluent in French doesn’t need to reference a French translation guide while vacationing in Paris. So if you’re fluent in your topic, you shouldn’t need to consult your notes, and your audience of one or many will sense this on a subconscious level. However, if you feel you must use notes, consult them very little or not at all, and you’ll gain huge credibility as an expert.

Four Tips to Relieve Presentation Terror

1. Regardless of how deeply rooted your fear of public speaking is, with a few simple adjustments to your method of preparation, you can grow more confident about your abilities so that much of your fear disappears. When you know what you’re going to say and that your presentation is strong, public-speaking may still be a little nerve-wracking, but it’s exciting, too. Try these tips to help turn that stomach-turning anxiety into the rush of great communication.

2. Know what you’re talking about. When you prepare an organized presentation of any kind, you must be knowledgeable about the company, product, or situation. Talk about things you actually know well. If you’re not confident that you know all that you need to, commit to doing thorough research and learn what you need to know to feel and look expert. If you truly don’t know what you’re talking about, it will show, and all the tricks and techniques in the world won’t help.

Decide on a few key points. Good keynote speakers typically don’t have more than three or four key things for the audience to take away from their presentations. The classic presentation formula is a story that makes the audience laugh in the beginning, a few key points for them to take away (usually illustrated with stories), followed by an emotionally moving story at the end.

Another basic formula for effective communication is:

- Tell your audience what you’re going to tell them.

- Tell them.

- Tell them what you told them.

3. Create visual triggers. Invent pictures in your mind and “store” them in various places around the room where you’ll deliver the presentation. The pictures then become your speech. For example, if one of your points is about achieving goals, you can envision a set of goal posts as a visual representation of that concept. If you want to make a point about freedom, envision an American flag somewhere in the room, or a huge stack of money if you want to talk about increasing profits.

4. Relax, have fun and be yourself. People respond best to a message when the person delivering it is genuine. With sufficient preparation of the right type, you’ll feel comfortable enough to be yourself in front of a group. You can then demonstrate how much you believe in what you’re saying. When you can relax and be an authentic human being, you tap into powerful communication.

From Fearful to Fearless

You’ve undoubtedly heard a few presentations-both good and bad-in your day, so you know it’s a fact: you listen to and respect those speakers who talk to you, not at you. A conversation is always better than a lecture, isn’t it? When you are preparing to make a presentation, know that people don’t mind if you stumble over a couple of words; in most cases they don’t even notice. What they will notice, though, and mind a great deal, is being read to or BS’d. If your audience feels as if you’re insincere or unknowledgeable, they may give you real reason to be a glossophobe! But if you’re prepared, knowledgeable, and relaxed, you can expect to get the results you want, whether that’s more sales, promotions, or thunderous applause from your devoted audience.

It could be someone’s dream job to become a TV presenter. It is quite something to be able to host a show and become famous, the way Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres have become. However, it is also true that there is one in a million chances of someone hitting the jackpot and getting selected to present a show. There are many takers here and only if you have what it takes will you be lucky enough. Here are some of the things that you might want to look at.

The Education

Basically, TV presenter jobs don’t need any special qualifications. However, having some qualifications won’t hurt at all, especially since there is so much competitiveness all around. A degree in communication skills will help. You could also look for a degree in journalism; even that helps in increasing your chances. Other degrees that you might want to consider are specialised degrees in drama and media. But these degrees can only take you so far. There are many other things that are needed of a TV presenter.

The Personality

It is very important that you have a good personality because thousands of viewers will be watching you if you become a TV presenter. It is worthwhile if you can take up a personality development course. You could also take up language classes because a TV presenter needs to have an impeccable hold over language. Learn things like diction and pronunciation, but at the same time also focus on enunciation, because it is not just what you say but how you say it that matters as well. Work on the way you walk and dress and conduct yourself if you want to be a good presenter.

The Eagerness

To be a TV presenter, you need to have an unflagging determination. You aren’t going to find these jobs easily. You will have to apply to a lot of places and get in touch with producers of TV programs and several TV channel offices. If you have it in you, then you will get an audition and after that you have to make it work.

The Energy

One of the most important things that producers look for in any TV presenter is the amount of energy they can infuse in the shows they present. You need to be an enthusiastic person with an infectious amount of energy. You should be able to make a crowd happy and react to whatever you are saying. You will need to work on your people presentation talents as well.

These are some of the things that can improve your chances of becoming a TV presenter. You cannot develop most of these things overnight, but if this is a dream you cherish, it is worth making the effort.

In the moments, hours or days before a presentation we can be very anxious. Anxious about ourselves, anxious about our audience and anxious about our presentation style.

Such anxiety can be deep rooted. It can become all pervasive and threatening. But fortunately there are techniques to both overcome anxiety and actively use it to our advantage.

There are 3 main techniques to master.

1. Preparation. Being prepared counts for everything. Effective planning, preparation and rehearsal are essential. Our planning should include audience research; conference themes; presentation timings and audience expectations. Our preparation should encompass our working mission, objectives, title and the main points we want to make. And don’t forget an explosive start and a powerful finish to the presentation. Allowing time and space for rehearsal is also vital. Rehearsal ensures that we can run to the time allotted. It ensures that our word and sentence structures are clear and consistent. We won’t become tangled with over complexity. And importantly it also ensures that we are fully familiarized with both content and subject. Familiarization helps us to be fully prepared for eventualities that might otherwise throw us off track.
2. Mental Preparation. Being ready to give a good presentation requires a state of mental preparedness. Being prepared is one thing. Being up for it is another. We should remember why it is that we are speaking; because we have the expertise, we are the best and we are professional. Mental preparation requires us to remind ourselves of our own capabilities. We boost our own esteem and belief as a result.
3. Breathing. The best rule for public speaking is: keep breathing, without it all is lost. Droll, but true. Before we begin our presentation we need to control our breathing with effective breathing exercises. We breathe in deeply through the nose and exhale slowly through the mouth. We repeat this many times before we need to speak. These exercises, channeling our anxiety and slowing the heart rate, are best performed standing up. In the presentation our breathing should be moderated with our talk. Talking at the rate of 150 to 200 words a minute is about right. It could be slower but should not be faster. When we accelerate our speech we lose our breathing control, the heart increases its beat rate and we become more anxious.

Our presentations become effective when our underlying anxiety — our nerves — are channeled to better effect. Our natural nervous state will result in a polished performance when we are in control. Preparation and planning ensure that we are confident. But not over confident. With our mental preparation complete we know that we are the best one for this presentation — that’s why we are asked to speak. And our breathing is optimized for a presentation. It’s controlled and measured and timed with our speaking. We are ready to present.

What type of PowerPoint presentations do you create?

Do you convince and convert your audience or do you put them to sleep? Most of us want to create PowerPoint presentations that captivate the fancy of the present audience to educate them. Presentation programs like Microsoft’s PowerPoint give us the ability to create a visual companion to any presentation very conveniently and effectively. However, your success to use these resources successfully depends on a clear presentation strategy that considers what you want to communicate to your audience. This defines the way how your audiences are likely to respond to your goal. When we use a visual medium like PowerPoint, we must make careful efforts to craft an engaging story and then move on to accumulate supporting visuals that focus on our audience’s needs in a clear and meaningful way.

The Do’s of PPT Presentations

Use legible font size

36 to 40 points for titles is considered good. Body copy, which is properly bulleted, should be at least 24 points.

Be concise

Be concise with your content. A good rule of thumb in this regard is to cut the paragraphs down to sentences, sentences into phrases and phrases into concise keywords. Keywords help your audience focus on your message.

Maximum readability

Don’t stuff your presentation slides and be minimalistic with content. Use normal case and punctuate sparingly. Do not use “ALL CAPS” which seems awkward.

Make every word and visual of your PowerPoint presentation count

Every word and visual in your PowerPoint presentations should help you convey your intended message in the strongest possible way. Use appropriate PowerPoint presentation templates which support your message.

Limit the number of slides in a PPT presentation

A good rule of thumb in this regard is one slide per minute. Thus, if you are planning a PPT presentation of 30 min, restrict the number of slides to 25-30.

The Don’ts of PPT Presentations

Don’t overuse visuals and effects

Use sound, animation, and other visual effects to emphasize the key points, but don’t let them become distracting. Before using a visual in your presentation you should be convinced of its utility.

Don’t use more than 5 words per line or 5 lines per slide

Don’t use unnecessary words in your professional PowerPoint presentations

Do not use too many words

Do not use too many words or include non-essential information in your presentations.

Avoid hard-to-read color combinations in your

Color combinations like red-green, brown-green, blue-black and blue-purple etc. are hard-to-read. Avoid such color combinations in your professional PowerPoint presentations. Your aim should be using high contrast between PowerPoint backgrounds and text.

Proofreading is very important and mustn’t be skipped. After you’ve prepared your presentation slides, go back and edit everything. Take there are sentences left, try to replace them with keywords and crisp phrases. Take out presentation slides if you can live without any of those. Remove visuals if you have used more than you really required. Remember, PowerPoint presentation is a tool to enhance your presentation and the presentation itself. Don’t let your presentation slides overwhelm you and your message!

If you have taken a home loan and due to some personal or financial problems, you are finding it difficult to continue making the monthly payments, then you should prepare yourself for negotiating a deficiency after the foreclosure. Once you start to default, the lender gets the right to take refuge of foreclosure whereby your property is sold off and the funds generated are used to pay off the debt.

Foreclosure and deficiency judgments

Normally, the prices of real estate increase with time. However, if the value of the property doesn’t appreciate much, then the funds collected through foreclosure will be less than the amount owed by the debtor. The lender will expect the borrower to pay off the difference, and to compel him to do so, he will file a legal suit called deficiency judgment.

Deficiency judgments are potent legal weapons that are commonly used by the lenders to fork out every single penny of the debt from the defaulter. If the lender succeeds in getting the judgment, then things literally go out of hand. The best method to avert a deficiency judgment is to negotiate deficiency immediately after the foreclosure.

How to negotiate deficiency

Negotiating deficiency after a foreclosure is not an easy task. Firstly, you would have to bring the lender to the negotiating table. Secondly, you would have to convince him that your financial condition is not at all good. For this, you would have to collect and present all your bank documents, salary details, and so forth to prove that you are financially misfit to payoff the debt. Finally, you would have to make some arrangements to decrease your indebtedness. To ensure success, you would have to be overtly frank, honest, truthful and straightforward.

Benefits of hiring a negotiator for negotiating deficiency

Frequently, the lenders sell the deficiency judgments to collection agencies for a few dollars. These agencies use different kinds of inappropriate and embarrassing methods to retrieve the pending payment from the debtor. To prevent the lender from getting and selling the deficiency judgment, it is advisable to hire a proficient negotiator. A competent negotiator will use all his expertise and experience to make the lender believe that deficiency judgment is not a suitable strategy to recover the outstanding debt. Through factual data, balance sheets and comparative analysis, he will persuade the lender to reduce the unpaid debt and pardon off the differential.

Remember, negotiation is a powerful tool by which you can not only avert deficiency judgments, but you can also reduce your debt load. Hence, don’t be afraid of negotiating deficiency after foreclosure.

Negotiation in sales can be a tricky process when salespeople don’t know the true needs of their prospects. But the most successful sales and business professionals know how to ask questions that determine what their prospective clients really want. They use questions to open up communications and encourage prospects to share information.

However, using questions to uncover information and to break down barriers at the negotiating table requires more than just asking questions as you think of them. If you ask the right question, you can get the information you need to close the deal. But ask the wrong question, and you risk offending your prospect and losing the sale. Essentially, you must know how to ask effective questions that produce the right response.

Formulating effective questions requires forethought and skill. So use the following seven guidelines for effective questioning techniques the next time you sit down at the bargaining table with a potential client:

1. Plan Your Questions Ahead of Time

Before starting the negotiations, figure out exactly what key issues you’ll be negotiating. Researching the prospect you’re negotiating with, his or her organization, and background relative to the situation enables you to formulate the right questions to get more information.

Find out what type of person the prospect is, whether he or she is an experienced negotiator, and what’s at stake for the other party in the deal. The more you know, the more effective your questions will be. So plan in advance the kinds of questions likely to produce the most information, and the kinds of questions with the most potential for moving you and your prospect toward a solution.

2. Ask Permission to Ask Questions

Questions can sometimes put people on the defensive. To avoid this situation, choose words and phrases that make your prospects feel like they are being interviewed, rather than interrogated. The last thing you want your prospects to feel is that they’re under interrogation. So use care in your word choices and allow them to open up and let the information flow.

Start by saying, “So that I can understand where you’re coming from and how we might work more closely together, it would help me if I asked a few question. Is that okay with you?”

Once you have their permission, be sure to ask your questions gently. Instead of saying, “Why do you insist on those terms?” try saying, “So I can better understand your position, can you please explain to me why those terms are so important to you?”

3. Begin with Broad, Simple Questions and Progress to Questions with More Depth

Broad questions prevent your prospects from feeling pinned down, so start with open-ended inquiries. For example, ask them about their main goal for the negotiation. This method will allow the prospects to answer in general terms and to keep their negotiation strategy a secret. Then as you and the other party become more comfortable, move on to narrower, more direct questions.

Direct questions give you specific information, such as facts and figures. “How much to you expect to pay for this service?” is an example of a direct question.

Then as you uncover the facts, you can gradually progress to positioning and strategic questions, such as, “What will it take for you to agree to our offer?” Strategic questions help everyone focus on working out an acceptable agreement.

4. Make Your Questions Simple

Ask questions that are easy to answer. In other words, don’t ask questions that may make your prospect uncomfortable. So avoid personal questions, unless the answer is absolutely vital to your negotiations. For example, a person’s salary is personal information, but a real estate agent has a valid reason for asking prospects to reveal how much they make.

Also, if someone asks you a question that you don’t know how to answer, admit it. Learn how to say, “I don’t know.” But always offer to find out the answer, and promise to get back with them.

5. Once You’ve Asked a Question, Take Time to Listen

Although listening seems like an obvious part of the question and answer system, the practice is often overlooked. Many times, when salespeople get caught up in the negotiation process, they focus on what they want to ask prospects next, rather than listen attentively to their responses.

If you want to get information from your prospects, you must listen to what they say. Don’t plan your second question until they’ve answered the first. Be quiet, concentrate on their responses, and consider how their statements affect the negotiations.

6. Use Questions to Give Information

To avoid sounding pushy or overbearing, communicate important information by turning your statements into questions. For example, “Did you know our company out-sold our closest competitors by 125 percent last year?” sounds friendlier than just stating numbers and facts.

Also, statements in the form of questions encourage your prospects to respond with more information. For example, your prospect may respond, “Yes, we were impressed with your company’s record of consistently outperforming its competitors. The last company we dealt with seemed to struggle to keep up, which caused many problems.” This response tells you that they are aware of your reputation, and your stability is important to them.

7. Use Questions to Clarify

Experienced negotiators always ask enough questions to ensure that all parties understand all the details of the agreement, because many times two parties will agree, but not on the same terms. For example, if someone agrees to pay on the first, what do they mean? They may mean that they will pay on the first of the month, but which month? Or they may mean they will pay on the first delivery, or the first chance they get.

This may sound nit-picky, but you should always cover every detail of the agreement terms to avoid confusion. Keep asking questions until you and your prospect mean the same things by the terms you use.

The Benefits of Effective Questions

Information is the key to better negotiations, and effective question-asking techniques allow you to collect more information from your prospective clients. The right questions can open up communication lines and encourage conversations that increase the level of trust your prospect has in you and the product or service you sell.

When you use these seven guidelines for effective questioning, you and your prospect can move beyond your individual positions, focus on ways to pool your strengths, and form mutually beneficial agreements. And mutually beneficial agreements mean more clients, more sales, and more money for you and your company.

Biography

In tough economic times, you can still achieve successful outcomes when you negotiate, but you have to use slightly different tactics and increase your skills when it comes to reading body language. It’s a given that people will try to maximize the use of their resources during a recession or other economically challenged times. If you can read and interpret body language (non verbal signals), you will have a better understanding of the gestures and other responses you receive while negotiating.

A lot of people believe the person that negotiates on her/his own turf has an advantage. To some degree that’s true. There are other factors that go into the makeup of that advantage. First of all, the person that perceives that situation as an advantage is right. Now some of you may be thinking, what happens if both individuals/groups/teams perceive that situation as an advantage? Guess what, both parties are right. The proof is in the outcome.

If you’re good at interpreting body language, you will ‘catch’ signs and signals that you can use to your advantage. When you enter into someone’s environment, they know where everything is and more than likely, they feel comfortable in that environment. How then can you enhance the probability that the outcome will be more favorable to you or your team? There are several ways you can do this.

If you began to act extremely comfortable in that environment, as the result of sending body language signals that suggest you were comfortable and very much ‘at home’, you can neutralize the other person’s perceived advantage. What else could you do to take the advantage from the other person in their environment? You can observe pictures that your negotiation partner has in their environment. Is your negotiation partner holding people in the picture? Are they being held? Who is in the picture? Is it a loved one, a boss, an associate? How are they acting? What’s the expression on their face?

The reason it’s so important to observe, ‘pick up’, and interpret the non verbal clues in those scenes is because you will get clues into that person’s character and makeup. If the person you’re negotiating with is in a picture with a member of the opposite sex, you can inquire as to who the individual is. After receiving a response, that’s the time to note other aspects of the picture. As stated above, does your negotiation partner have his arm around the other person? That would display a sign of dominance. Does the person you’re negotiating with have the arm of the other person around them? That would be a sign of being dominated. Observe the distance between the people in the picture. That distance will give you insight into the ‘space’ your negotiating partner likes to have. If your negotiation partner has pictures of inanimate scenes in her environment that insight can lead you to assume that person may not be the warm and touchy feely type. Keep in mind that those pictures are a snapshot in time, but as you negotiate, you can use the interpretation of those scenes to your advantage.

Understand, there are a myriad of subtle signals you can glimpse when you’re in someone else’s environment. As such, you don’t have to be at a disadvantage. You can take the advantage from the other person. You just need to use different tactics and heighten your awareness of non verbal signals.

The better you are at interpreting subtle signals, the better you will be at interpreting body language and thus, the better the outcome will be for you … and everything will be right with the world.

The negotiation lessons are …

· You can acquire an advantage when you’re in someone’s environment. The accurate interpretation of their body language in their environment will be the source of your advantage.

· Invest the time and effort that it takes to learn how to control the non verbal signals your body sends. Once you become good at sending the right signal, at the right time, in the right situation, you will win more negotiations. In this case, the right signal would be the one that most aligns with the outcome you seek.

· Always give consideration to negotiating in someone else’s environment as a strategic tactic.

If you have done much negotiation, then perhaps you’ve come into this situation where you offer a gift of some type to those you are negotiating with at the time of the original handshake of your meeting. If you find your fellow negotiator on the other side of the table taking that gift with barely an audible thank you, and then move and take it away and then act like it never happened then you are probably negotiating with a very shrewd negotiator who is using a specific tactic.

This technique they’d be using is called; “closeting the negotiation gift,” and this should be a wake-up call to you that you are seen as an opponent, and this person is out to out negotiate you.

In other words, they don’t have your best interest in mind, only their own, and they are not going to be working for a Western-style win-win type negotiation. If you find yourself unprepared for this level of negotiation, it’s best to ask for the gift back, tell the other party that they have offended you and your culture, it’s fun to throw that in, and turn around and walk out, tell them the negotiation is over, and you might even consider not doing business with them at all ever.

This is what I had done many times in the past in my business, and each time in hindsight this proved to be the best strategy. If you cannot trust the other party to enter a win-win situation, then you can expect that they will try to weasel their way out of any agreement you sign later in a legal battle or court of law, or undermine your forward progress in the marketplace for their sole benefit. Also, if you give them a concession, and they “closet that concession” that means they plan on giving you no concessions at all, and hoping you will be naïve enough to give them another concession. Don’t fall for it, walk away.

Indeed, sometimes it is good to throw them off guard. If I was negotiating with the Iranian regime over their nuclear weapons program, I would ask them to take off their shirts and kindly give them to the other side of the negotiation and, our side as a gift, because they had failed to bring a gift and dishonored our cultural way of doing things, and until they did that, tell them there would be no negotiation.

And if they did, and once they did, you could tell them that you were kidding, and that they look like such fools as they handed over their clothing, and they were not smart enough to negotiate with you, and to go back home and get someone who was a competent negotiator. It’s time we play hardball, it’s time that we learned how to on balance the other side who thinks they are God’s gift to the world in high-stakes negotiation. And if we can’t come to any negotiated settlement over Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program we should strike.

That’s how I’d play it, and then I would blame the preceding war on their negotiators and their inability to come to terms. Please consider all this and think on it.

Do you ever use surrogates in your negotiations? Used correctly, surrogates can enhance your negotiation efforts. If you don’t know how surrogates can/should be used and the benefits derived from doing so, read this article. You’ll never look at a negotiation through the same lens after doing so. Plus, your awareness will be raised when someone attempts to use surrogates against you.

Benefits of using surrogates:

Surrogates can gather insight that you may not wish your negotiation opponent to know your seeking. In some cases, if the other negotiator is aware of what you’re seeking, he can glean insight into how you might negotiate from a tactics and strategies perspective. By using a surrogate to gather such information, the surrogate can gain access to information that is valuable to your negotiation position without the other negotiator being aware of its value. You can use that insight at the appropriate time to get concessions that you otherwise might have forgone.

Surrogates as foil/shill:

Surrogates can also be used surreptitiously as foils to weaken the other negotiator’s offers/counter offers. This is accomplished by posing the surrogate as a potential power source in the negotiation. Then, when the opposing negotiator offers a point that you’d be willing to accept, the surrogate could say something akin to, “I don’t think that’s the best deal we (your team) can get. It has to be better.” Best case, you enhance your negotiation position by discovering the other negotiator is willing to sweeten the pot. Worse case, the other negotiator becomes annoyed with your surrogate and become ingrained in his position. At which point, you dismiss the surrogate from the negotiation, which will gain you points, if the other negotiator is not savvy to this ploy.

Surrogates as multiple negotiators:

Using multiple surrogates that appear to only represent themselves is yet another way to implement their use. When used in this manner they appear to be a single entity from which they’re negotiating independently. In reality nothing is further from the truth. Therein is the beauty as to why this tactic is so powerful.

I’ll use an example to highlight how you might employ this tactic. Imagine someone is selling a car in a very small market place were there’s not a lot of potential buyers. The seller lists his vehicle for $15,000. You assemble 5 of your friends for the purpose of being surrogates. On day one your first friend makes an appointment to see the car and tells the owner his price is too high and walks away. A few days later your second friend/surrogate looks at the car and he too says the price is too high. This time he asks the seller what his best price is. The seller drops the price to $14,000. Your friend says that’s still too high and walks away. This continues with your third, fourth, and fifth surrogate. In some cases, the seller will be lowering his price and worse case he’ll question himself as to whether his price is too high. Then you come along. The seller’s tired of having one person after another look at the vehicle and not purchase it. When you display a genuine interest in buying the vehicle, he’s delighted. By then he may have lowered the price by another thousand dollars or so. You can test his fortitude by asking if he can do just a little better on his price or accept it.

Surrogates as ‘advance team’:

If you tell your negotiation counterpart that you’re sending in the advance negotiation team and he agrees to negotiate with that team, he’s accepting your signal that this is phase one of a longer process. That can be good or bad depending on the time frame you have to negotiate, and the expected outcome. Also keep in mind, the longer one invests time and resources in a negotiation, the more likely one is to make unnecessary concessions as the negotiation drags on.

By sending in surrogates, you indicate that you don’t have time to negotiate and that the negotiation does not have the priority that warrants your initial investment of time.

As you can see, surrogates can serve in a host of ways. When used correctly, they can increase your negotiation outcomes tremendously. Before your next negotiation consider how you can employ surrogates. If you use surrogates, you’ll increase the probability of coming out further ahead in your negotiation… and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!