Negotiating with a Meeting Facility – Part II

In most negotiations, there are four tacitly understood variables. They exist, whether one recognizes them or not.

1. Power Balance

This is the ability to make the other party do things in the way you see advantageous.

The two top power sources are competition and the written contract (In the case of a hotel, this could be the printed rates). If there is significant competition in the area and the hotel knows that there are others who would want your business, then the hotel you are dealing with would most likely want your business too. They will be flexible in both prices and terms. Similar to most commercial enterprises, they strive to gain more than one customer group.

It is good practice to question the printed material, especially the rates. When is the last time you paid list price for a new car, or published prices for a stay at a hotel? Most of the time, the printed rates are not the final rates.

2. Time

Unless all parties are skilled and collaborative negotiators, ninety percent of the negotiating happens in the last twenty percent of the allotted time.

Parkinson’s law states, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” Most negotiations follow a similar rule. “Negotiation will use all the time allotted to it.”

Negotiating will go on forever unless there is some sort of deadline imposed by one of the parties or by some factors external to the negotiation. If one side imposes a period, they should not give the impression that for some reason they don’t have much time. The corollary is that time works against those who don’t have it. Try not to reveal your real deadline, and avoid negotiating when you are in a hurry.

3. Knowledge

This is a combination of information management (collection, analysis, and sharing) and skills in having constructive dialog. The idea is to find out the wants and needs of the other side. How and when the person you are dealing with evaluated? How experienced is the other person? What is the hotel’s standard daily rate, its peak season, and does it have other customers who want the same dates? Asking right questions is a critical part of negotiation skills.

4. Leverage

Why would a hotel or anyone negotiate with you? They won’t. Unless you have something that they want or you can do something that they don’t want you to do. To negotiate an issue, you or the other side must have some clout to compel negotiation.

In Negotiating with a Meeting Facility, Part III, I will describe the gambits used in negotiating with a hotel or another facility.

Until then,
Ciao!

P.S. Send the negotiation situations in everyday life or at work you want to read about. I will be glad to research and make recommendations.