The Brilliant, Kind and Straight Shooting ATB Partner Jim Vass. He have given me amazing advice over the years – including on making deals great for everyone!
Very early on in my own business I was very lucky and honoured to get some great Mentoring Advice from Jim Vass of ATB Partners. He is quite an amazing man that I met the first week I started going out Networking.
Over the years I have been lucky to help him with events, learn from him and even work with his great team of people at ATB Partners.
One insight (of many) that I got from Jim Vass was his way that he would negotiate deals. Be it he was selling or hiring a supplier – he would always say:
“Make sure there is a drink in there for the other guy”.
Basically, it was his clever Greek Way of talking about the concept of making it worthwhile for both parties. I got a taste of this recently actually. A great colleague of mine and I were approached for our respective services.
From the first moment we put forward what we do, how we work and our “Flexibility” to work in a deal. The party that approached us had a very different viewpoint. They explained what they were asking for and that they were “Reasonable” and “Happy to work with us”.
As the discussions proceeded, what happened was that we were flexible and trying to find something workable, however the “Other Side” wasn’t flexing at all. We would explain our own requirements in the deal and the answers all came back not so much working with us, but more “Well, you should just do it for these reasons”.
As the discussion proceeded…Well it didn’t really. It was more someone just asking us for what they wanted, trying to convince us why we should do it and they broke Jim Vass’s rule ultimately. They were looking after their own interests and they weren’t looking after us and our requirements.
This resulted in the deal not moving and the reality was that otherside only had to move a bit to make it work for us. Although we are still open to what they have to say in case of a better offer, I felt they were approaching their business from a “Win / Lose” type of mindset.
The problem with this approach is that it’s unsustainable. Let’s say we agreed to it, it wouldn’t last – and in fact, we would have lost a lot of time and money putting us in a “Very Unhappy” position. Basically – it would have ended with us buring time and probably a falling out.
Why? It’s because the deal wasn’t being build in a “Win / Win” manner.
My advice and thinking from this one? In business always approach every deal from a “Win / Win” viewpoint as Jim Vass directed. You never take advantage of anyone and by such virtue you never allow yourself to be taken advantage of.
Hope that helps and life in Sydney Huh? Always lots of fun x x
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