Learning Exercise: Keeping a Client

The purpose of this exercise is to apply the five negotiation skills presented in this chapter to an actual negotiation. Your business is helping retailers find good locations for their stores and helping them work with neighbors and local governments so that the development of the shopping area goes smoothly. You have been cultivating as a client a national company that develops designer clothes-outlet shops, and have finally reached an agreement whereby you can represent it on its next project. You have drawn up your normal engagement letter and expect to finalize the deal with Mr. Black at your next meeting. However, Ms. White attended the next meeting and began to ask detailed questions about the work you intend to do and the expected outcomes. She was particularly interested in your strategy for answering questions about traffic issues, because the developer had recently teamed that there might be organized opposition to the particular location the developer hoped to purchase. Although many of the details of the job that Ms. White raised were not mentioned in the engagement letter, you and Mr. Black had discussed them and they had been resolved, you believe, to his satisfaction. Ms. White seemed unaware of those discussions, and you are afraid you are starting all over again to negotiate this deal. A major concern to you is that she has asked you to limit your travel expenses by agreeing not to go to the out-of-state location more than one overnight a month for the anticipated year-long project. You know that one visit a month will not get the job done.

Answer the following question:

Skill 10.4: How can you avoid the psychological trap of agreeing to an arrangement guaranteed to fail, just to keep this client?