selling

The following items are tagged selling.

Negotiation lessons from the M&A world

Posted by & filed under Sales Negotiations.

Adapted from “What to Do When the Table Gets Crowded,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, May 2008.

Negotiators often have to deal with more than one party to reach their goals. These situations pose unique challenges, yet most negotiation advice focuses on talks between two parties.

Where can we turn for guidance? For many years, Harvard

Is it really worth that much?

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

Adapted from “Trying to Make a Sale? Avoid These Common Pitfalls,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, April 2010.

Why is it that even in sluggish markets, some homes are plucked off the real estate listings within days or weeks, and others sit for months, even years? Location and curb appeal have something to do with

Sizing up the competition

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

Adapted from “The Ins and Outs of Making Sealed Bids,” by Guhan Subramanian (professor, Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter, July 2007.

Imagine you’re bidding for a house against another “very interested party,” according to your real-estate agent, and the seller wants a sealed bid from you by close

When Negotiation Trumps Procurement Auctions

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

Adapted from “Negotiations versus Auctions: New Advice for Buyers,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, August 2007.

Economists have long advocated auctions as an effective means of increasing value. Yet recent research contradicts this conventional wisdom. In fact, as compared with negotiations, auctions can actually raise prices in procurement contracts. Suppliers tend to prefer negotiations because

Build Your Bargaining Endowment

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

Adapted from “Want to Pull Ahead of the Competition?” by Michael Wheeler (Class of 1952 Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter, October 2005.

What happens when lots of other people are selling what you’ve got, or many others are bidding for what you want? One solution to distinguishing yourself

Selling an Asset? Choose the Right Type of Auction

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

Adapted from “On the Block: Choose the Best Type of Auction,” by Guhan Subramanian (professor, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School) and Richard Zeckhauser (professor, Harvard Kennedy School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter, December 2004.

Suppose you’ve weighed the pros and cons of selling an asset via auction or negotiation and decided an auction

Why Classic Cases?

Posted by & filed under Daily, Negotiation Skills, Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (Pedagogy @ PON).

Why are some negotiation exercises still used in a great many university classes even twenty years after they were written? In an effort to understand more about the enduring quality of some classic teaching materials, we asked faculty affiliated with PON to explain why they think some role play simulations remain bestsellers in the Clearinghouse

Clearinghouse Customers Speak!

Posted by & filed under Daily, Negotiation Skills, Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (Pedagogy @ PON).

In an effort to understand more about how the PON Clearinghouse does and doesn’t meet its customers’ needs, we interviewed a number of long-time Clearinghouse clients. We asked what teaching materials they found most valuable and for what reasons. We also asked how they found out about the Clearinghouse and what additional teaching and training

Why it Pays to Save Face

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Adapted from “In Negotiation, How Much Do Personality and Other Individual Differences Matter?” First published in the Negotiation newsletter.

When you criticize a negotiator’s arguments or question her motives, you risk threatening her “face,” or social image. Such direct threats to self-esteem can trigger embarrassment, anger, and competitive behavior in your counterpart, according to research

Let Them Compare and Contrast

Posted by & filed under Daily, Negotiation Skills.

Adapted from “Will Your Proposals Hit the Mark?” First published in the Negotiation newsletter.

In negotiation, it’s always better when someone accepts your offer rather than rejecting it, right? Actually, rejection can sometimes be the most effective way to get to “yes.”

Let’s look at another story about consumer behavior, as described by Itamar Simonson of Stanford’s