“In business as in life – you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.”
~Dr. Chester Karrass


As a professional negotiator for many, many years, I made mistakes using tactics that didn’t work. But I also discovered many more that did. I was very pleased to discover that Dr. Karrass, the expert in negotiations, happens to agree with me!

Negotiations can be terrifying, intense, intimidating – or they can be simplified. Whether you are negotiating for a personal item, time, a raise, an automobile, a house…… or a large contract with an intimidating vendor, all of these scenarios have a similar thread: both sides have something to win… and to lose. Obviously, both sides want to come out winners, so how do you do that?

Below are 10 things to consider when entering into any negotiation:

1. Don’t be afraid to negotiate, even if there is a great distance between what the two parties want. And don’t be intimidated by status or authority – remember your “opponent” is human first.
2. Don’t be intimidated by facts or statistics. Strive to understand them and use them to your advantage.
3. Do not be intimidated or forced to act by a last and final offer. There’s always room for negotiation and remember that if it isn’t good tomorrow, it probably isn’t good today.
4. Having said that, do not negotiation for the sake of negotiation. When you feel you’ve reached a good conclusion for yourself and it’s fair for the other party, it’s time to go home.
5. Develop a strategy:
a. Gather information about the product or service: what is it, how and why is it important to both you and the provider, how does your added volume impact the industry and/or provider
b. Strive to know the motivation – both yours and the other party’s
c. Ensure you are negotiating with the decision maker – and that you have a decision maker on your side of the table
d. Define reasonable targets and goals for yourself
6. There is always a story to negotiations so be prepared to listen carefully to what the other party needs – and try to get the best deal for both sides.
7. Time = money. The more time you spend in your due diligence and discussions, the better deal you will realize. Take time to plan and prioritize your agenda.
8. It pays to be skeptical. Remember that everyone is in the negotiations to get the best deal for themselves and often things are less credible than they seem.
9. You have more power than you think – consider your value to the opposite side.
10. To get a win-win deal, both parties have to leave the table feeling that they’ve made a fair trade. Negotiate with integrity and good judgment.

Negotiating in good faith, creating this Win-Win outcome for both parties can actually generate new opportunities in what the parties can do for each other. And as entrepreneurs everywhere – isn’t this what we all need and want to be successful?

This article was written by Cybertary's founder Patricia Beckman and I thought it so informative I wanted to share with you.


Luck Meets Preparation: Be Prepared for the Wild Magic of Growing a Successful Business
By Patricia Beckman, Founder & CEO, Cybertary

I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity

- Oprah Winfrey

I am a great believer in luck, and the harder I work, the more I have of it

- Thomas Jefferson

Because the Cybertary business has seen successful fairly quickly, I get a lot of questions from new entrepreneurs like, "How did you do it?" or "What's your secret to success?" At first, I found myself stammering a little for an answer that felt authentic. It's not that I had any doubt about the hard work I had put into the business, it's just that there was this critical bit of "magic" that happened along the way as well - and both have been instrumental in Cybertary's success.

BEING PREPARED CAN BE THE BEST GROUNDWORK FOR GROWTH.
I do not have a magic formula that will work to quickly grow every business; however, I do believe hard work, preparation, and even a little "doing nothing," when necessary, prepared me for the fairly rapid growth of my business. Good business sense means knowing when to be hands on and when it pays to just sit back and let the magic of good business preparation take its course. For instance, with Cybertary, much of our success came out of simply sharing our creative business model, which helps professionals maintain a better work/life balance. There are plenty of working mothers and others seeking this kind of more flexible model for work. More than anything, we just needed to present this option to this audience. The interest and need was already there. It was like the famous line from Field of Dreams: "Build it and they will come." You don't always have to be "doing" something to be working toward your success. Sometimes the "doing" is the "letting happen."

AN OPEN MIND CAN LEAD TO OPEN OPPORTUNITIES.
You never know what opportunities for growth and future success will present themselves or when. It's okay to keep an open mind and even to veer off track when a good opportunity presents itself. I started Cybertary as a solution to my own work/life imbalance crisis, with no intention of becoming a nationwide VA franchise. However, people presumed Cybertary was a franchise based on its appearance, which opened my eyes to possibilities and ultimately led me to launch the business model as a franchise opportunity for other working mothers and professionals seeking to leave the inflexibility of the corporate world.

THINKING BIG CAN PAVE THE WAY FOR BIG GROWTH.
Even if you're a small business, set every goal, make every plan and solve every problem as if you are a larger business. Build the infrastructure for growth so that your systems are ready when the big opportunities for growth come. At Cybertary, we documented procedures and created our Intranet system long before we needed all of the functionality that we had. Now that we are poised for a national structure, our systems are able to accommodate it, and we are not stagnated. Thinking big from the very beginning helped operationally, and the positive thinking and belief in the possibilities ahead surely didn't hurt either.



SPENDING UP FRONT CAN TRULY CONVERT TO EARNING WELL IN THE LONG RUN.
The old adage is true...you have to spend money to make money. In order to grow your business, you may have to invest in it. Cutting corners on your business is like cutting corners on your opportunities for success. Invest logically based on predefined priorities and budgets. Don't spend impulsively, but INVEST. For Cybertary, we invested in exceptional people, superior marketing systems, great websites, and some of the best online and software technologies, to name a few. This superior foundation has served us very well.

TAKING CHANCES AND FOLLOWING YOUR HEART CAN TURN INTO REWARD.
The bigger the risk, the bigger the chance for failure...but also the bigger the chance for success! My husband and I have invested unmentionable amounts of time and money into the growth of Cybertary, but we do so confidently knowing that we will get back our investment several times over. We follow a very strict business plan and budget to keep Cybertary on course to help us meet our personal dreams. So go with your heart - don't find yourself years down the road saying, "Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda." Go out and do it. Now. Grab the brass ring. Someone else will if you don't.

MAKING MISTAKES IS PART OF EVERY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS STORY.
The best part about making a mistake is that it means you've learned something you can apply the next time around. Mistakes make you smarter, as long as you learn from them, and they're critical in the art of running a successful business. I made a mistake, well, actually two mistakes with the Cybertary.com website. The first "low bid" version of our site required an external consultant for website maintenance who, in turn, had an excruciatingly slow response time. The second version would not integrate with our internal database. We are now on our third complete overhaul of the Cybertary.com website after realizing that we needed a structure that was easier to maintain ourselves and that seamlessly integrates with our Intranet to expand as our business grows. This was a very expensive and time-consuming lesson. However, we have learned quite a bit about website options and structures beyond the HTML basics, which have opened doors for other billable Cybertary services. Even if a mistake seems devastating when it happens, odds are it can serve as a wonderful and maybe even prosperous opportunity down the line. Live and learn. It's the only way to get wiser.

KEEPING YOUR VISION IN FRONT OF YOU CAN KEEP YOU ON TRACK.
Your business plan will probably change and evolve. And often. Keep your plan up to date and in writing. Keep it in front of you so that you can keep your end vision and the logical steps to that vision in focus. I review the Cybertary business plan regularly, and the extra hours I get to spend with my family serve as an everyday reminder that keeps me trudging forward even on those days when I feel a little lost. Having that extra time and flexibility for my two daughters is great incentive for reprioritizing to make this dream job work for me. This was my vision when I started Cybertary, and that vision and its rewards always keep me on track. Since my daughters were the inspiration behind the Cybertary Vision, I keep their pictures proudly on my desk as another source of inspiration. When I started working toward the Cybertary dream a couple years ago, I had no idea all the places it would take me. To some it might seem a bit "chaotic," but I like to think of it as being open to the bigger dream and to the magic that we get to experience sometimes when we follow our hearts. I planned well and worked really hard. I took all the necessary steps to build a substantial business opportunity for others and myself. I took chances. I made mistakes. But I stayed on course, and I stayed true to my vision. I got really well prepared and then...then I got a little lucky too. So what's my secret? Work hard. Prepare hard. Let go. Let grow. And then, be ready when the magic happens!