Negotiating a real estate or a business contract is not as simple as it normally appears.

It takes years to learn and master the art of negotiations

It requires a delicate balance of emotions, eagerness, enthusiasm, optimism, willingness, openness, strategic moves, knowledge of the subject being negotiated, hopes and fears of possible consequences of failure and success and the skillful use of all these factors to bring in a successful agreement..

Many inexperienced negotiators make serious errors and errors in judgment. These can be avoided by training and experience. Here below are some common mistakes:

Not Doing Home Work: Not knowing the value of the product being negotiated. Once the other party finds that out, it sets the tone for the unfavourable final outcome.

Overbidding: showing eagerness and overbidding right at the beginning. You stop being a negotiator and behave more like the one who is willing to write a blank cheque.

Unrealistic Underbidding; the greed takes over and the negotiator bids too low setting the stage for difficult negotiations and sometime making it impossible to successfully negotiate. The other party sometime gets insulted and refuses to negotiate or takes a much harder position.

Being Impatient: Some negotiators are too impatient. They get rattled too easily and become very uncomfortable with the silence and uncertainty from the other side. They get impatient and fearful of losing the deal and submit a higher offer without knowing the outcome of the earlier bid. The other side obviously takes advantage.

Dictating the terms: Negotiations are mostly a give and take process. It should not be considered as a surrender by the other side. The untimely use of words like ultimatum -final offer -take it or leave it offer at inappropriate time are harbinger of hostile atmosphere and failure.

Talking too much: Many negotiators listen less and talk too much. They get carried away and give away too much information which ultimately compromises their position. Very soon they are like a poker player who has shown all his cards.

Failure to Judge the situation: During the negotiations, there comes a time to be tough, time to appear flexible; time to compromise and time to walk away. Not knowing when to exercise these moves is another major factor of failure. Learning these negotiating moves takes years, nevertheless, experience and having a mentor can help and speed up the process of learning.

Want to be a Successful Negotiator? Have a Mentor, observe and Practice.