How To Improve Your Negotiating SkillsWritten by Chuck & Sue DeFiore
Negotiation will be an important area for every homebased business owner, especially in lease purchasing. Whether you're dealing with suppliers, employees, or prospective clients, you're negotiating. The following tips will help you to negotiate better.A. Know what you want. Establish a goal and what will satisfy you. B. Develop a plan. Develop a negotiating strategy. Where do you want to start and to finish. Be sure to give yourself maneuvering room. C. Know what person you're negotiating with needs. Remember, all parties must feel that some, if not all, their interests are satisfied. Ask open ended questions to get to these needs and to understand their position. D. Be an empathetic listener. This will allow you to understand other's motivations. E. Address problem. Focus on finding solutions to shared problems. Don't attack person. This is not conducive to working with them. Be courteous and tactful. F. Make person you are negotiating with your friend, especially if they have to persuade others to help you. As a friend, they are better able to sell your ideas and deal.
| | Taking Charge Of Your FilesWritten by Chuck and Sue DeFiore
One of first steps is to box up last years files. However, before you do that be sure to go through your files and clean them out. The files that can take up a lot of space during year, can be easily tossed. For example, your correspondence file, newsletter files, chron files. You can also combine your completed client files for year, both seller and tenant buyers.After you have gone through paper file cabinet, be sure to do same with your computer files. Years ago when computer memory was at a premium, people did not keep all extraneous garbage on their computers, like people do today. Just like your paper files, move files to disks or your zip drive if you need to, or just delete them. You don't need every letter you sent, every e-mail, or all newsletters you've been meaning to read. Also go through your favorites and clean them out. Treat your computer like memory was at a premium and you won't hold on to items you will never use. Unfortunately today everything is in gigabytes rather than megabytes. After you have cleaned out paper files and computer files, next step is to make up your files for this year. Avery Label Pro is excellent for doing up file labels. In fact all types of labels. It allows you to run another set of general files out very quickly. Remember time management and organization are keys to not wasting your time. I'm sure that many of you are thinking boxing up and making up of files is a waste of time. However, when a client calls and you can't find something they want to know, it will become of paramount importance. So, keep your files organized, both paper and computer. Once you have your files set for new year, next thing is to clean out calendar or day planner you use. Change pages. Tip, you can run day planner pages out of Outlook and then whole punch. A lot cheaper than buying pages. This is also a great option for those of you without a day planner. Buy a small binder and make your own. Again, a lot less expensive option. Once your calendar is set up, be sure to pencil in your daily, weekly, and monthly goals, in addition to any standing appointments you have for year. Last but not least, rubber band pages from last year together and add it to your file box. For those of you using chron files be sure to place those in a separate file box, so you can very quickly put your hands on any of last year's correspondence.
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