How often have you negotiated a special deal involving a number of creative concessions such as a volume discount or referrals and then failed to collect?
This happens all too often and sometimes is almost built into the process, i.e. we pretend to be asking for an additional concession so that we can justify the deal to our colleagues, managers and even to ourselves and they pretend to agree. But both sides know that it will never come to collecting on these concessions.
Don’t ask for or give concessions that you don’t intend to collect or give. If you fail to collect on concessions owned to you, you will undermine your reputation as a negotiator or worse still create a legend in your own mind regarding your capabilities as a negotiator. If you don’t deliver on promises made you run the risk of gaining a reputation as an untrustworthy negotiator. This fatal.
Good follow up is an essential negotiation skill. Often there will be opportunities to improve on a negotiated outcome during the course of a follow up. Make sure you take advantage of these.
