It may come as a surprise to you but your own worst enemy in a negotiation is yourself. Some people seem to spend hours seeking out the magic words that will help them win in any negotiation yet fail to look to see what they or their employees are doing wrong.

Two recent personal experiences highlight this fantastically well:

The hunt for my perfect lights:

Imagine how excited I was when I found out that the one of the only 2 sellers of the lights that I wanted for my new office were about a 10 minutes drive from my home. I rushed down there and recited my list to the chap on the counter -

“I will have 2 of the powered track, 4 of the light fittings, 4 of the special fixings, please”

After a few minutes of scribbling on a piece of paper he quoted me a price which I was expecting (based on the advertised R.R.P. ) but then added:

“But that’s before your 25% discount”

Hmmm. Thank You, I thought. That equated to about £100 which I was more than happy to take yet was not expecting.

In this store there is a real need for some retail sales training rather than negotiation training. If this one member of staff was to do this twice per day for 200 working days then he has just instantly lost his company £40,000 in lost profit. That’s just from one member of staff in one location.

This chap had just negotiated against himself.

The Perfect Fish and Chips:

One of the great things about living in England is the fantastic fish and chips we have. My local chip shop happens to be very good and as a naughty treat we use them every couple of months. The last time I went there there was a large sign up over the counter which read:

“Due to the rising food prices we have decided to reward our customers by reducing the cost of our chips by 30p.” That equates to about a 20% drop in price of one of their one and only products.

Was this a wise marketing move?

Absolutely not!

The shop owner had just negotiated against himself. When he is reviewing his profits at the end of the year and is blaming the economic downturn, the credit crunch and everything else going for his terrible year will he be right? Absolutely not!

You don’t always need sales or negotiation training if you can take control of your worst negotiating enemy – yourself.