Negotiating Tactics
Many problems require negotiation either at the planning and estimating stage or during the construction process. If you face an obvious attempt to lie to you, rip you off or cheat, get rid of the people involved immediately. If the problem is not an overt attempt to undermine you but is the result of uncontrollable circumstance, you’ll want to sit down and hammer out a way to deal with it that works for everybody.
There are three important aspects of any negotiation: Time, Information and Power. All must be dealt with. Each side in a conflict needs one or more of these things to resolve the dispute. You may control the checkbook, a form of power, but a contractor may control your time, another form of power. An exchange of information may be all that is needed to resolve the problem.
To negotiate you must first define the problem to the satisfaction of both parties. You may say you don’t like the quality of a counter material while the supplier may respond that you made the original choice. The actual problem may be a combination of them not informing you of potential problems and you not making an informed decision.
Next someone must make an offer. Stonewalling until you get everything you want is not an effective negotiating technique unless you are 100% certain you are in the right which may mean ending the negotiation and going to an arbitrator (like small claims court). To avoid this, an offer must me made by one party and countered by the other. Your opening offer may simply be to discuss a solution rather than to start throwing around threats. This offer to work it out sets the tone. You’ve said we admit there’s a problem and we need a solution so let’s try to find one that works for both of us. You may offer to pay for fabrication of a new counter if the supplier will replace the material. You’ve met in middle ground and kept things moving forward, saving yourself time in the process.
