| Negotiation tactics 07:09 - Aug 19 with 1095 views | LegendofthePhoenix |
Why do deals take so long to do?
Several years ago, I attended an intensive 3 day negotiation skills course. It was led by a hugely experienced top negotiator (she had been the top negotiator for Chanel) doing deals for billions.
The crucial bits seemed (as far as I can remember) opening gambit has to be bonkers. If selling, you state a ridiculously high price. If buying, you go in with an absurdly low offer. And you have to absolutely mean it and rigidly stick to it, then when it is rejected, you just turn your back and walk away. You let them know that you have other much better options.
It's a cat and mouse game, you employ different people with different skill sets for different parts of the negotiation. The woman assessed each of us for character traits, to establish which bits of negotiations we would be best suited to. The traits were Tough, Numbers, Dealer, Warm. By using people at different stages you can work towards achieving a deal.
These are big numbers we are talking about with players. It's no surprise the deals take a week or more, sometimes they will be working on deals for several weeks.
I've a feeling Palacios gets done. |  |
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| Negotiation tactics on 07:16 - Aug 19 with 1028 views | bluefunk |
Purely going by the information we get fed on transfers, the Palacios deal seems like a classic example of one that’s going to get done eventually. Two sides apparently well apart, a player that wants to move, posturing from the selling side, buyer trying to dampen enthusiasm. See also Enzo from Chelsea to Man City, Isak last close season. |  | | |
| Negotiation tactics on 08:10 - Aug 19 with 732 views | USA |
| Negotiation tactics on 07:16 - Aug 19 by bluefunk |
Purely going by the information we get fed on transfers, the Palacios deal seems like a classic example of one that’s going to get done eventually. Two sides apparently well apart, a player that wants to move, posturing from the selling side, buyer trying to dampen enthusiasm. See also Enzo from Chelsea to Man City, Isak last close season. |
Money, Agents want it. They’rebiggest deal makers and blockers. An absolute scourge on the game. |  |
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| Negotiation tactics on 08:50 - Aug 19 with 610 views | RIPbobby |
Interesting article. I have always thought if you put a woman(buyer) up against man(seller) you will always get a better deal. The man would always give in the the woman's demands, even if she said exactly the same thing at the same time as an alternative man buyer. |  | | |
| Negotiation tactics on 08:52 - Aug 19 with 604 views | Wakh |
| Negotiation tactics on 08:10 - Aug 19 by USA |
Money, Agents want it. They’rebiggest deal makers and blockers. An absolute scourge on the game. |
Two sides to that. In my sport agents are initially great. They take a huge work load off you and independently support and advise the player. When the player becomes desirable to other clubs they naturally become a nuisance by doing what they are employed to do. Agents are essential and there are many good ones. I mean I recommend players to agents.
Football is no different but the numbers are bigger. My agent in my playing days was great. He took all the conversations I didn’t want to have myself. Most of the conversations were not about moving clubs. He also negotiated some great sponsorship deals that I couldn’t do easily myself. He also had access to all the legal/accounting stuff. He was invaluable.
As I say, in football the sums are huge and they milk a lot of money from the game but the way the games has gone has fuelled that and made their role even more important. | | | |
| Negotiation tactics on 09:05 - Aug 19 with 568 views | dirtyboy |
The subtle difference being with player transfers, there's a chain of events that have to be in place first.
Selling teams don't want to let a player in a particular position leave until they have a replacement lined up, obviously this is all within the constraints of the transfer window.
The selling team may need £x to acquire the replacement, plus obviously, they want a profit on their investment, so that negotiation has to travel across the entire chain in some instances.
So that's the buying/selling needing time, then you have legal teams/agents working on aspects of contracts, back and forth there too for personal reasons, although much of that is agreed in the background beforehand.
Ultimately, it's hard to get things done early unless things slot into place early on and teams have targets in place soon.
If a club gets a bid for a player they've not necessarily wanted/expected to sell, that obviously it's a protracted and complicated affair.
FWIW I say Palacios gets done, whether it's us or a last min dive bomb by another team. |  | | |
| Negotiation tactics on 10:33 - Aug 19 with 417 views | Guthrum |
| Negotiation tactics on 09:05 - Aug 19 by dirtyboy |
The subtle difference being with player transfers, there's a chain of events that have to be in place first.
Selling teams don't want to let a player in a particular position leave until they have a replacement lined up, obviously this is all within the constraints of the transfer window.
The selling team may need £x to acquire the replacement, plus obviously, they want a profit on their investment, so that negotiation has to travel across the entire chain in some instances.
So that's the buying/selling needing time, then you have legal teams/agents working on aspects of contracts, back and forth there too for personal reasons, although much of that is agreed in the background beforehand.
Ultimately, it's hard to get things done early unless things slot into place early on and teams have targets in place soon.
If a club gets a bid for a player they've not necessarily wanted/expected to sell, that obviously it's a protracted and complicated affair.
FWIW I say Palacios gets done, whether it's us or a last min dive bomb by another team. |
Plus - something we haven't been used to - with overseas players there's a layer of bureaucracy with international clearances, permits and the like. Which also takes time to be processed. |  |
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| Negotiation tactics on 13:55 - Aug 19 with 234 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
As a complete know-nothing on it, I would suspect there are lots of different approaches employed by different people.
Ultimately, there will be a price the buying club is prepared to go up to and one that selling club is willing to get driven down to. If those don't match up there won't be a deal.
The skill is in finding the right price without overpaying or accepting lower than you could have got. The other part is in being creative with things like clauses, etc.
It's a bit like buying and selling a house. If you go in too low you may well miss out to another buyer. If you hold out for too high a price, you may well fail to sell. Then you have the whole complication of whether there is a chain or not, etc. I suspect that may play into some transfers too. |  |
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