"7 Negotiation Secrets From Harvard Business School"

Negotiation is a necessity for everyone, just like a three legged horse
cannot win the Derby, similarly a person without negotiation skills
would not be as successful as he should looking to his
intelligence/skills/knowledge!

A study in USA found that nearly half of workers (49%) don't negotiate
their first job offers.

Oftentimes, it comes down to a lack of experience in negotiating, which
can be a tricky step for most.

A new survey published at CareerBuilder found that the more work
experience candidates gain, the more likely they are to negotiate that
first offer.

Participants in the study who were at least 35 were 55% likely to
negotiate the first offer compared to 45% of workers between the ages 18
to 34. Furthermore, men (54%) tend to negotiate for higher salaries than
women (49%).

But whether you have negotiating experience or not, pushing for what you
want at the beginning of your career will have payoffs later on in your
professional life.

Below, Deepak Malhotra, a professor at Harvard Business School, provides
negotiation tips for his business students.

There are 7 key points. Read them, digest them, make them your
mental-habits, only then would you brighten your chances for outstanding
success in life!

7 Negotiation Secrets From Harvard Business School
1. Make the other side believe that you deserve it.
"It's not enough that you believe that you deserve it," says Malhotra.
"It has to be believable and justifiable to them." Essentially, don't
ever ask for something without giving a good explanation of why you
deserve it and why it's a legitimate thing to ask for.

While it's important to fight for what you deserve, Malhotra also says
to keep in mind that you still need them to like you at the end of the
day. "They need to be able to want to do it for you," he says. Learn to
walk the thin line between promoting your successes and coming off as
arrogant.

2. Help them justify it to their bosses.
No matter how much someone wants to do something for you, they may not
be able to due to internal constraints. Before the negotiation process,
"you want to spend a lot of time figuring out where they're flexible,
where they're not flexible," he tells Harvard business students.

Basically, you need to understand what they can give. Keep in mind that
they still need to sell the deal to their higher ups, so if the company
is hiring 20 other people from your school, it might be difficult for
them to explain why you deserve a higher salary.
3. Let them believe that they can get you.
It might make them push harder and faster for you if they think someone
else might scoop you up, but they also need to believe that they have a
real chance at hiring you.

Says Malhotra: "Nobody is going to go fight for you, go to bat for you,
expend political or social capital internally for you if they think at
the end of the day you're going to say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'"
4. Know the other party.
People often think negotiating is all about persuading the other person
to think the way you want them to, Malhotra says. And although that
plays a part, "nothing is fundamentally more important than
understanding the person on the other side of the table from you."

Who are they? What do they like? What are their interests? What are
their constraints?

Malhotra says you need to learn as much as you can about a company to
understand the bottom line and why they're interested in you. Then you
can align your interests with theirs.

5. Negotiate multiple interests simultaneously.
If you get an offer and you have a few concerns, bring them up all at
once. Don't list a few things, and then list a few more later in the
process.

"You can imagine why that's really annoying," Malhotra says. Hiring
managers want to get all of your concerns upfront, so that they can go
back to their bosses once and come up with a workable solution.

It's also important to say what's most important to you. Otherwise, the
employer may think that they've met you halfway, while you feel that
they opted to change the least important details.
6. Understand the meaning behind the questions.
There's always a reason the employer is asking you something. To answer
adequately, you need to understand why the questions
<http://www.businessinsider.com/why-employers-ask-you-certain-interview-\
questions-2013-8> are asked.

"Don't get stuck on what they're asking you," he says. "Figure out why
they're asking you." When a hiring manager asks if you're interviewing
elsewhere, for example, they're really trying to figure out how fast
they need to act to get you before another company moves in.

7. Ignore ultimatums.
Malhotra says that sometimes things that sound like ultimatums will be
said as an attempt to show "a position of strength," but it doesn't
always mean that it's actually an ultimatum.

If someone says "we never do this," the worst thing you can do is ask
them to repeat it. If they find out that they are able to do it for you
later, they will be embarrassed if you call them out on it. In short,
let them make the ultimatum a big deal, but don't make it a big deal for
them.