David Nyeste

Negotiation Strategy Basics Before engaging in any negotiations you should set up some rules and guidelines for how you plan to approach the situation. Let me elaborate on some basic principles of negotiation and focus on some specific strategies that I was able to apply effectively on multiple occasions. I was able to negotiate multiple work contracts that were mutually satisfying and I was always happy to sign each one of them. Most importantly however: looking back at all the deals I am still happy with each one of my decisions. I accredit this fact to successful negotiations. Principle I The Invariant of Negotiations: Foster Relationships All negotiations should lead to better relationships between the parties. Your paramount objective ought to be to enjoy the debate and to learn something, regardless if a deal is cut or not. Remember you all have a mutual interest and both parties will do their best to find common ground. Hence your focus should not be on convincing your counterpa...

Winning is great, not losing is greater Professional traders on the stock exchange close multiple deals each day. When they close a deal they have certain expectations of how much risk and how much profit is implicated in the deal. One common way to limit the risk is to set a 'stop loss'. Let's assume a trader buys oil for 50$ a barrel and hopes to sell it later for 55$. He will sell  as soon as the price has reached 55$  and take the profit. At the same time he will hedge against failure and set a 'stop loss' limit, in case the price should dip below 48$. At this point he will sell for 48$ with a loss of 2$. This way he is able to exit the deal at a predefined point and avoid any further loss. Master Class MFR The minimum feasible requirement (MFR) works the same way. The point is to define absolute limits prior to negotiations which you will not break under any circumstances. I usually go with a set of three items: fixed annual salary, days of vacation, ability to...

Prepare For Impact Prior to the actual negotiation, you ought to be clear on three things: 1. Your Maximum Plausible Demands (MPD) 2. Your Minimal Feasible Requirements (MFR) 3. Your concessions strategy All three aspects will determine the success of the negotiations. They can make all the difference between you coming out of the negotiations beaming while hovering above the ground or like a beaten dog carrying your head under your shoulder. It is key to be specific and as precise as possible on all three of them. The more you are aware of what you want and what you don't, as well as what you are willing to sacrifice, the more you'll be able to make an impact at the negotiation table and to achieve your goals. For now I will focus on the first: Maximum Plausible Demand - MPD In a job interview, whether with a headhunter or with some staff member of your potential employer it is likely they will ask you for your desired salary or to share information on your current salary. Be ...

Understand Your Customer's Desire A generally underrated part of successful negotiations is knowing your potential customer's desire. You've clarified your own desires in the previous step. Now it is equally important to find out what your customer longs for. There is a big difference between what your customer 'needs' and what your customer 'desires'. Desire is more powerful. Appealing to a need will satisfy your customer. Appealing to a desire will excite and delight your customer. Always keep in mind: Desire is the fabric of which dreams are made of. When Apple marketed its first iPods, how did they do it?  Did they use the standard 'Super-awesome MP3-player'-pitch of their competitors? Of course not.  They came up with something simple and brilliant: They invented the slogan '1000 songs in your pocket'. BAM! The rest is history. Understanding your customer's desire makes all the difference. Answering the question, what desire you inte...

Know Thyself (Sokrates) Breaking news: You're in a marathon, not a sprint. Therefore the first step towards successful salary negotiations is a clarification process: you need to be very clear on your desires. Which values are important to you? How do these translate into your expectations on your potential occupation? Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years from now? Ask yourself this first: What do you really really want from life and who do you want to be? And by 'want', I mean the thing you are burning for so much, that you are willing to make sacrifices for it. Do you want to learn and become an expert in a specific field? Do you prefer to work in a dynamic and rapidly changing or in a well predictable environment? Do you rather want to work with a certain type of people e.g.  with creative, analytical or highly energetic colleagues? Do you prefer to work  in a certain environment, e.g. in an international, globally distributed team? Bonus task:  Also be very cl...

DISCLAIMER I am not making this public to brag or to make anyone feel bad or jealous. Negotiating my salary is just one of many habits I applied over the past decade regularly, so I acquired some experience in what worked and what didn't. Depending on the context, this experience may or may not benefit others. I regard the consequential increase of my salary rather a side effect of my actual overarching self improvement strategy, than the result of merely smart ninja-negotiation tactics. My foremost desire was -and still is- to become the best possible version of myself. But that itself is a topic for another post.  In this series of posts I will share some details of my salary, its development over time and some further specifics that I hold necessary to demonstrate my point. So in case you should feel offended, jealous or bad in any way about gaining insight on that kind of information, this is your opportunity to exit this post here and now and to skip to the next one right away...