Confessions of a Global Negotiator: A Quick
Guide to the 5 Rules Business Development Professionals Need to Close Great
Deals
1.
What really inspired you to write your book, to force you from taking an
idea or experience and conveying it into a book?
I had two sources of inspiration. A few years back, I put on an
internal leadership workshop at my old company captioned “The 5 Attributes of
Successful Performance at Microsoft.” On reflection, I realized that these
broad qualities applied equally to the specialized focus of my legal and
business career over the past two decades: namely, deal negotiations and
consensus-building. So I took the content from my one-hour talk and started to
expand it into a book that I hoped would be a worthwhile self-help resource for
others. This spark grew as my college-bound son began interviewing for
internships and jobs. I thought back to my own – painful and flawed –
experiences trying to sell myself when I was just starting out. I
realized how I would have benefitted from a pragmatic guide for persuading
others. So I gathered the many profound lessons I had learned along the way,
and got to work.
2.
What is it about and whom do you believe is your targeted reader?
My book is a hands-on cookbook for the kind of preparation, and
emotional behaviors, that you should tap into that will put you in the best
position for success in influencing others – whether you are giving a speech or
presentation, pitching a business proposal, or negotiating a deal. The book has
broad appeal given that our every-day lives are chock full of mini
negotiations. But it will perhaps be most impactful for business development
professionals tasked with growing their business opportunities and outcomes.
3.
What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for readers who finish
your book? What should remain with them long after putting it down?
That the single most meaningful factor between winning and
losing in negotiations – and more broadly in business - is YOU! Your
preparation, your pitch, and your perseverance are the most critical variables
when seeking to influence others. And the great news is you are 100% in control
of them.
4.
What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers?
Don’t go it alone. You should invite others in to help you.
Before I even reached what I felt was a decent draft of my manuscript, I
engaged a number of friends, colleagues and family members to read it,
encouraging them to give me their brutally honest and unfiltered feedback. You
have to fight the self-indulgent tendencies within us all of writing for
yourself, and keep your audience at the center of what you are creating.
Getting feedback from those you trust will help you do just that. Looking back,
my finished product was very different than my rough first draft, all for the
better.
5.
What trends in the book world do you see and where do you think the book
publishing industry is heading?
The advent of self-publishing and social media have dramatically
lowered the barriers to entry for authors. Anyone, anywhere with a story worth
telling can publish their work and spread the word without the blessing of New
York publishing houses or the costs associated with old-school marketing. This
is game-changing for would-be authors and the audiences they aim to reach. Of
course, this only goes so far. In the end, like with any industry or product,
the reader rightly demands quality. That has to be your number one priority,
the North Star that you ruthlessly follow and return to throughout the process.
6.
What great challenges did you have in writing your book?
Given the demands for immediacy by today’s consumers, and the
endless sources of competition for their attention, I set out to make this a
pithy guide of pragmatic and immediately-implementable tips that could be read
and digested during a long haul flight from the US to Asia or over a weekend.
You’d think limiting your word count to about 30,000 words (150-175 pages)
would be easy. But going through the arduous redlining process to stay true to
my ambition for brevity, sharply illustrated for me the precise meaning of Mark
Twain’s quip: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”
Writing a book is hard. It takes energy, focus and persistence. It’s a journey
like none other I’d ever experienced before with many ups and downs along the
way. It’s humbling, pride-inducing, defeating, and exhilarating, all in one.
But it is unreservedly worth every second of it!
7.
If people can only buy one book this month, why should it be yours?
I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had roles that have
allowed me to work in virtually every region of the world and in so doing to
have observed and learned from some of the most effective communicators,
presenters, and negotiators in business. Having, and ultimately embracing, an
opportunity to distill 20 years of life-lessons into a guide that I believe
will profoundly help others in an area as central to our everyday lives and
relationships as negotiating and consensus-building has been a great privilege
and honor. It’s the guide to my 25-year old (or even 40-year old) self that I
wished I had earlier in my career. I can only hope folks enjoy reading it
even half as much as I enjoyed writing it, as it was an absolute blast.
Nick Psyhogeos is the Founder and CEO of Global
Negotiations, LLC (www.global-negotiations.com), a consultancy
dedicated to improving results for corporations and employees in their
negotiations. Nick has 25 years of negotiating experience across three
continents as a trial lawyer, business leader and most recently as the head of
Microsoft’s patent licensing practice where Nick and his team closed more than
200 patent licensing deals with some of the most prominent companies in the IT
industry. A Boston native, Nick now lives with his family in Seattle.
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Brian Feinblum’s views,
opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his
employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him
at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the
third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and
raised in Brooklyn, now resides in Westchester. Named one of the best book
marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs
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