“Hi – how are you?” my friend said to his teen daughter years ago after coming home from work. She erupted, yelled at him, stormed to her room and slammed the door. He turned to his wife and said “what did I do?” She replied “you talked.” This example, shared by...
My 14-year-old daughter has excellent negotiation skills. And that’s a problem, at least now. Of course, I shouldn’t complain. She’s a great kid and very responsible, etc. But she can also be really frustrating. My friends with older daughters tell me this is a...
I have coached and trained over 50,000 sales professionals in negotiation since I started in this business 25 years ago. Many have achieved great success, including some with seven-figure incomes. The most effective have excellent negotiation skills (since sales and...
My Dad knew a ton of things. But how to fix stuff around the house was not in his “toolkit.” 😊As a result, I knew very little about home repair issues when I bought my first house. But over the years I’ve asked questions, listened carefully, and I now recognize many...
I’m not much of a handyman. In fact, my father-in-law warns me all the time to stop overtightening everything. And he watches me with an eagle eye whenever I use any of his tools (and he has a veritable hardware store in his garage). It’s just not my skillset....
Most real estate agents consider themselves pretty good negotiators. After all, home buyers and sellers have been hiring agents for years to negotiate the purchase price of their homes (often the biggest financial transaction of their lives). Recently, however,...
“When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money,” noted writer H.L. Mencken and others. This applies in many negotiations. But not always. In fact, this has not been true for the third highest compensated college basketball coach in the...
Years ago in law school, I was taught to pay particularly close attention to any inconsistencies I noticed in litigation from our opponents – whether in depositions, motions or at trial. I was told to analyze their words, strategic moves, and tone and body language....
“Pay extra attention to the minutiae and ensure you fully understand every term and condition,” this senior partner told me when I was a junior associate. “Some lawyers will try to bury critical provisions in the least obvious places. It’s your job to catch and...