Major Posts in Negotiation - Essay Example

Negotiation Post I worked for a relatively large bank some time back and through this experience I was able to hone good negotiation skills which have proven essential in my everyday life. As a bank sales executive, I was given the mandate to handle personal loans. Given the credit crunch that had hit our economy, many individuals were faced with numerous financial challenges thereby opting for loans from banks to cushion them from the difficult economic times. Therefore, the number of personal loan applications had rapidly increased as compared to prior financial periods. This meant that these applications had to be keenly scrutinized so as to ensure that credit facilities were only offered to those individuals with the capability of repaying the loan offered to them. During the course of my duties as a bank sales executive, I quickly learnt that the majority of our customers borrowed long term loans due to the prevailing financial downturn. Therefore, given the bigger size of long term loans compared to short term loans, I had to be extra careful as to which customers to extend the credit and who no to. This entailed observing the credit worthiness of the customers against their information in the credit bureaus as well as ensuring that they had the ability to repay the loans, given their current state of finances. The most difficult part of it all was to negotiate the terms of the loans with the customers and also attaching an asset that would act as security over the duration of the loan. Due to the economic meltdown, most financial institutions had increased the lending interest rates due to the increased demand for credit in the market. Consequently, with the increase in the total cost of borrowing, borrowers found the interest rates to be too high such that most negotiations conducted stalled. In order to not lose business for the bank, I had to find innovative ways of negotiating with the customers in such a way that the bank did not lose on interest but at the same time the customers felt that they had agreed on a good deal. Therefore, during negotiations I often offered customers longer periods of paying back the loans but on the other hand maintaining the interest levels as much as possible. During the economic meltdown period, banks were being faced with huge default rate levels since most borrowers were unable to pay back their loans. Therefore it was made essential to me that all the customers seeking credit had to be vetted and adequate security obtained on the loans they borrowed. I issued credit to only those customers who had assets that were correctly valued to mirror the value of their loans. Although a daunting task at first since customers found ways of putting up undervalued assets, I later found it imperative to ensure that all assets had to be valued by a professional valuer at first before credit was extended to the customer. By so doing, the customers came to me only with certified copies of the valuer’s report showing the correct value of the asset vis-a-vis the loaned amount. This experience of negotiating with bank customers came to my mind while reading Stuart Diamond’s Getting More in relation to what he terms as “getting to know what you are getting into”. Negotiation Post 2 Stuart Diamond reiterates the importance of valuing the other party as well as developing trust in Getting More. This got me thinking of an incidence that happened over five years ago when I was volunteering in an orphanage in my hometown. This orphanage gave orphaned, abandoned and other underprivileged children a place to call home. It had touched my heart since I first set foot and had vowed that I will do my best to contribute to its endeavors in any little way that I could. At the orphanage, there was a young man called Andrew who always came during the weekends to volunteer. I later came to know that he was once in the orphanage when he was 5 years old when his single mother could not afford his upkeep and gave him away to the orphanage. After a few weeks, I came to personally know Andrew and we developed a close relationship. He was nineteen years old and had just finished high school. Although he was a loner and an introvert of sorts, I came to see his deep compassionate side as well as his dedication to the cause of the orphanage. One day, Andrew came up to me looking disturbed and having a distant look in his face. He revealed how his mother took him up again when he was eleven years old but was still struggling with drug addiction and unemployment. Andrew had to look for two jobs to sustain their living and it was not all rosy back home. I thought that I should do my best to help him out given how close we were hence I called a friend who was an hotelier. I asked my pal to consider giving Andrew a good job which he could at least earn a suitable income. Andrew started the job two weeks later but then a month into it; I got a call from my pal telling me that Andrew was in jail as he was a key suspect in a robbery incidence at one of his hotels. I dashed to where he was being held and asked to speak to Andrew. I found out that Andrew had refused to talk to anyone apart from me since being caught. Andrew confessed to me to having stolen $10,000 from one of the guest rooms in the hotel a few weeks before and that he had vowed to himself that he would repay every penny. He needed the money since his mother was seriously ill in hospital and that the money lying there in a briefcase proved very tempting. He also disclosed to me that he had already paid back $1,000 to the owner two days before. I believed him for he was clearly sorry and embarrassed that he had done it. After we talked, I went to see the cops with the same story but they did not believe a word of it. I then found the contacts of the owner of the cash hoping that he would see how desperate Andrew had been. Once I got to his palatial home, I sat down with him and explained the whole story. To my surprise, he indicated to me that he had found an envelope with $1,000 in his mail without any indication where it had come from. He agreed to drop all charges against Andrew to my relief. Apparently, he had never had of such a case before and he wanted to know who this person named Andrew was. To this date, having paid his debt, Andrew is the personal assistant to the real estate tycoon. Therefore, if it was not for the trust Andrew had in me that could not have happened. I showed the tycoon how I valued Andrew and him as well that I could come all the way to his house to explain to him all that had happened. Works Cited Diamond, Stuart (2012) Getting More. Three Rivers Press Read More