Characteristics of the best business relationships

While preparing for a "Elite Negotiator" workshop some time ago, I asked John E Pepper Jr., the former CEO, Chairman of the Board and President of Procter & Gamble, who orchestrated several multi-billion dollars acquisitions what would be, in his opinion, the most important characteristics of the best long-term business relationships.By the way, John's life-long belief (which I share wholeheartedly) is that "Life is all abot relationships", and that people do business with people, not companies with companies! This you will feel "perspiring" from his ideas below.His reply came fast, as always. He said that, from his experience, there are 4 characteristics which will signal that you are on track…

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Hamlet’s dillema in negotiation

A recent call from a good friend reminded me of Hamlet's Dillema: "To be or not to be?" But this time the context was less phyosophycal and more "down to earth": a business negotiation. And it is excellent example of winning negotiations with little power!In brief, here is the background of the situation: the Romanian subsidiary of my friend's company (let's call it "THE Service Provider") has been struggling for some time getting into a "green P/L" and his local team was (understandably so!) very stressed. When a high-budgetclient (let's call them "The White Knight") approached THE Service Provider looking for a 1-year collaboration contract, the team was very excited…

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How a bad internal negotiation could kill a brand

There are many ways to kill a brand, some achieving this deadly result faster than others. Screwing up the customer relationship is, in my opinion, the "most successful" one. I recently had a truly awful customer experience from one of my beloved brands. After the initial shock, I tried to understand why this happened, and the conclusion I reached is that the company manufacturing the brand decided to put the profits well ahead of the customers' needs. We all see this happening increasingly more nowadays,  and I strongly believe that, at the core, the issue is that the financial department won the internal negotiation with the brand team.So, what actually…

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The worst way to sell – and how to avoid it!

Is there such a thing like the "best way to sell"? Or the "worst way to sell"? Personally I believe yes and in this short article I will share my experience about the latter and tell you how to avoid "killing the sale with your own hands". These advices are 100% helping in  the selling process of both services and goods. As most of my business life I've been a client, I attended countless meetings in which suppliers tried to sell their goods or services. In the majority of cases, the potential suppliers made formal presentations, aiming at gaining us as a client.  What differentiated the successful suppliers from the unsuccessful…

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Know what and how to buy

A good friend of mine called me 2 weeks ago to ask my advice related to a purchase she had to make for her marketing team: a brochure for their forthcoming new brand launch. She has little commercial purchasing experience and wanted to get the most for her money, while avoiding potential pitfalls. So here are my condensed advices I gave her - which I hope will help you too! They refer to purchasing goods and also services and will help you know better what and how to buy what you need. Know what exactly you need to buy. Be clear in your mind what exactly you MUST get (mandatory) and…

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