[00:01:28] Mike Lander is a successful entrepreneur, ex-procurement director, and expert negotiator. He's grown companies to over 20 million revenue and 4 million EBITDA. Has negotiated hundreds of deals as a buyer worth over £470,000,000 in total. Has a four-part framework he's going to share with us today.
[00:02:54] At six months old, I was adopted. It doesn't shape your life, but it has an impact on your life for sure. I had very good adoptive parents. If people measure success like that, then I've been successful. Do you measure yourself against others or against yourself?
[00:03:28] Mike O'Brien left school at 16 and went to do an apprenticeship. He was very shy, lacked confidence and didn't have any mentors around him. Made a decision that ultimately led him to create himself. He says it has a big impact on other young people.
[00:08:05] Mike's advice: Help your son find his passion. No expert in any field can help you until you've decided what it is that you want. Takeaways for your audience: Pick a destination of some kind and then go on that journey.
[00:10:09] When Mike went and got his MBA, he was 29 years old. Never too late. That's definitely something that's showing up for me as you tell your stories. It's become the foundation for everything that you've done from that point on.
[00:13:32] So you have developed this strategy for negotiating that can take somebody who's not a natural, and it can give them the framework that they need to be able to negotiate. Here are a few myths about negotiating. Negotiators are not born. They can be trained. 80% of the value of any negotiation is in the preparation.
[00:16:19] So let's get into the framework about how this framework can help people negotiate better deals every time and get better outcomes. I'll go through the four steps first, and then I'll unpick each of the steps a little bit so that people can actually sort of write it down.
[00:18:01] What are your objectives and what are the other side's objectives? Motivations are often the underlying interests behind doing this deal. Brainstorm the worst things that could happen and then write down how you respond. Have alternatives when you're negotiating a deal.
[00:22:25] Write down what your variables are for the negotiation. What's the scope of the negotiation? What's in and what's out? There's the length of the contract. Intellectual property. Who owns VIP? Yeah. Typical last minute chipper technique.
[00:24:25] Every deal's got problems. Well, just write down on a bit of paper your step four prep or what the current issues that we've got. And then when so you've got your four steps all prepped, you go to the meeting and everything gets thrown up in the air. So good, anyone can do it.
[00:26:00] Mike, What I was doing was honestly a lot of these elements because it's very similar to my design process. It's about being able to problem solve when there's so much complexity and dimension. This is something that anybody can learn, and certainly it would take some practice.
[00:31:24] The moment that you're emotionally wedded to the outcome in a deal is the moment of death. If you can let go of your neediness and desperation and be genuinely looking to solve their problem, then everyone's going to want to sign the deal. How do you make the pie bigger for everyone?
[00:34:45] Having an inquiring mind in a deal is really powerful. But you've got to earn the trust of your counterparty to allow you to get to that point. It is important to understand how to sequence things. Asking an invitation is a powerful way to develop that relationship.