Negotiation Roles

The negotiation exercises we did in class showed me how hard it really is to engage into a business negotiation that will benefit both parties. For the first exercise I was a seller and thought that it was going to be quite easy to negotiate with the buyers, and at first it was. I believe that in a group there is always one person that is more reasonable and one member who is unreasonable, and in my case one member of the buyers side was unreasonable and would fall under the category of a "bully" in the strategy table. Overall we eventually came into an agreement, but it could have been a lot quicker if the two most predominant negotiators would have kept negotiating, in the way we were. I believe that I fell into the category where I was not a bully, but I was not giving in to the demands of the buyer. 

For the second exercise, I played the role of the observer and it was completely different from that perspective than being on the negotiation side. The group I was observing played the seller role and believed that the buyers were going to give into their demands right away. This gave them the confidence to go in and lay down what they were going to offer. When the negotiation began both parties were not budging on the price and did not come to an agreement. The sellers were very open to what the buyers would say and even offered to take over their marketing campaign, but it wasn't a good enough deal for either parties. 

One thing that I learned from both exercises was that you do not always have to come to an agreement with someone. Also going in with a set game plan doesn't always mean you will come out with what you want. Overall, it was a cool exercise and it made me understand how difficult people could actually be when it comes to negotiation.