Testimonials

People tend to focus too much on themselves and not enough on the person they are negotiating with. Your employer will likely care more about what is in your employer’s best interest than why you need or want more money. Also, one needs to be careful to be persuasive but not annoying. Thus, “if you don’t give me a raise, I am leaving” may result in the employer replacing the employee, even if not immediately. On the other hand, “I appreciate working here and would like to make it work long term. How can we get my pay to at least the level of what similar people in our geographic area typically make for this type of work?” and have the data to back it up, would likely give better results. Your worth to the employer is probably the cost of your replacement plus the value of you over that replacement. Keep that in mind and show your employer why that is higher than you are getting paid.

You will benefit by using a good real estate agent when listing your home because you will net more money and improve the quality of your life. A good agent will help you price and advertise your house and effectively deal with real estate contracts necessary for the transaction. A good agent will negotiate effectively by knowing what other similar properties sold for and compare the home at issue with the others in ways that make the home value you want to use look reasonable. The great agent will know how to negotiate strongly without upsetting the other side and ideally in ways where they will prefer you to others. A great agent will take most of the time and stress burden from you in selling your home and get you more extra money above the cost of the agent than the home seller would get without a good agent. Neutral4Hire, can find you an agent, and at no additional cost to you, Keith Schulner, a real estate broker, who has taught negotiation to MBA students, property law to law students, has resolved hundreds of conflicts, and is an award winning negotiator, you will be available to help with negotiations and the inevitable conflicts and legal issues that arise.

The benefits of mediation compared to going to court include saving money and time and reaching an agreeable solution that a court verdict may not provide. Mediation will also likely result in better relationships than fighting in court. For example, Keith once mediated a case to settlement in part of a day for less than $2,000 over a six figure real estate commission dispute. At the end of the mediation the parties were agreeing to another listing which would likely be profitable for both parties. Trial would likely have taken over a year, cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, and resulted in parties talking badly about each other, harming their reputations...

Arbitrators typically charge per hour about the same as lawyers. In arbitration, however, the hours will typically be much less, saving parties a lot of money and time compared to going to a jury trial!

In any negotiation, you want to figure out your best alternative to reaching an agreement regarding the negotiation so that you only agree to something that is in your best interest. You also want to figure out what the other participant(s) best alternatives are so you know how far they should be willing to move toward what you want, and so you can explain why it is in their best interest to agree to what you are asking for.

If you are dealing with someone with whom you will likely have and/or want a long-term relationship (e.g. business, friend, relative), you need to pay extra attention to how your behavior may affect that relationship. It will likely be more important to discuss and/or negotiate important matters in person (or via video if in person is not practical) so that you can benefit from visual and auditory clues. Thus, if you begin to make a suggestion, and you see or hear the person starting to get upset, you can alter mid suggestion to avoid hurt feelings and long-term consequences. With a long-term relationship, your best solution may be to give the other person what they want this time if what they want is more important to them than it is to you. The future benefit may outweigh the present cost, unlike in a one-time transaction with someone you will never see again. You may want to say something like, "Your relationship is worth more to me than getting what I want in this instance. I am willing to ... this time. Will you do the same for me in the future?"

Positional based negotiation means both sides state their positions, e.g. “I want the whole orange.” If both sides want the whole orange, they may agree to split the orange 50% / 50%.

Interest based negotiation goes to the reason why people have or state the positions they have, e.g. one person wants to make orange juice, the other person wants the orange rind for a cake recipe.

Often people negotiating, or mediators helping, do not figure out the actual interests, and therefore they reach inefficient solutions. A good mediator in the above situation would find out why the parties have their positions and realize that a much better solution to splitting the orange in half between the parties would be to give one party the entire rind (and peel) and give the other the entire inside with all the juice.

To find a good alternative dispute resolution professional, mediator, or arbitrator, knowing from firsthand knowledge, or though someone you know and trust who knows the person is good with what you need help with, would be helpful. As those are often not options, reading reviews and recommendations, would be helpful. For example:

Looking at the below you see I have a Master of Dispute resolution degree, which would likely be helpful in any situation, an MBA, which would especially be helpful for business or disputes involving complicated calculations, present or future value of money, etcetera and a real estate broker’s license, which would be helpful if real estate is involved. On Neutralral4Hire.com, you will see many recommendations, background, past clients, awards, experience, and links to Yelp and other reviews.

For any negotiation, one needs to be able to compare options to choose what is best. One needs to be able to understand what is being offered by others and be able to explain why what one is offering is in the other person’s best interest. One also wants to understand how people think. For example, people do not like to be lied to. Thus, saying something is the best one will ever offer when it is not, puts one in a bad situation if they reject the offer as one ends up with no deal or one shows they cannot be trusted. One needs to learn to be persuasive without causing the other person to have negative feelings, such as not wanting you to get what you want. From a financial perspective, one should be able to figure out present and future values, taking into account interest and opportunity costs, so people can understand and compare different values of investment and income stream options.

Alternate dispute resolution (ADR) usually refers to alternates to trial in court. The main two alternative options are, arbitration and mediation, which people often confuse.

In arbitration, an arbitrator issues a verdict, e.g. who gets, gives, does what. Most arbitrations are binding, meaning the parties must do what the arbitrator says, though arbitration could be non-binding, where parties can decide not to do what the arbitrator says. Arbitration is generally quicker, less expensive, and more private than going to court.

In mediation, the mediator helps parties come to an agreement by helping parties to understand their options and reach an agreement that is in their best interests compared to not settling. There is no such thing as binding mediation, though some people agree to start with mediation and if a settlement is not agreed to, they agree to let the mediator decide, e.g. turn the mediation into an arbitration. This is sometimes referred to as a Med-Arb. The majority of the cases Neutral4Hire mediates, settle in a day, as opposed to over a year of expensive litigation. Also, Neutral4Hire helps people reach agreements with better options than courts provide with less damage to relationships.

If your offer is less than other offers, I would consider saying something like, “I have received offers $X or more, higher than you are offering. How high are you willing to raise my offer?” If the offer is still lower in compensation but you are still interested in the job you may ask something like, “Why should I accept your offer over another offer of $X)” and see what they say, e.g. better advancement opportunities, quality of life…

Keith Schulner offered a construction company the opportunity to paint his yellowing cabinets which would have cost about $200, and they refused. They said the subcontractor who made the cabinets went out of business. Keith let them know that does not stop their liability, that Keith is a reasonable person, but if they offer nothing, although Keith is an attorney, he will contact an attorney who specializes in construction defect, who will charge Keith and his association nothing except if they collect, and it will cost the contractor a lot. The contractor said, “do what you need to do.” Keith contacted an attorney who filed a lawsuit shortly before the 10-year statute of limitations ran and settled for 1.7 million dollars. His association (Keith was president at the time) netted after costs and attorney fees well over a million dollars.

The reason more people do not try to adopt a win-win mentality in negotiation is that most people are not trained in negotiation, do not fully understand how to obtain a win-win solution, and are sometimes more concerned with the other party then they are with themselves. Also, people may focus more on their ego instead of their interests and focus more on the short run than the long run.

Most people lack training and experience in negotiation. For example, Keith Schulner has a Master of Dispute Resolution degree, taught negotiation to MBA students, and has resolved thousands of cases. Most people have no degree in negotiation and conflict resolution and have much less experience.

Keith has mediated divorces where parties start off more concerned with harming the other side than helping themselves. Keith convinced them that being selfish will help them more than being spiteful.

Because Keith creates win win solutions, people return to him for help and refer others to him so Keith can help them.