Peculiarities of Negotiations - Assignment Example

Negotiation is a hard test when it comes to business and there is money on the line. The main thing is to not offend the client and get the terms that are best for both parties with your side of the business not going in downfall from the negotiated terms. My personal experience of negotiation that did not turn out that good for both parties stems from working in the freelance business. Freelance business means that I get to particularly pick my hours of working but the downfall is that certain clients end up paying less than the market price just in the lie that since there are no specific working hours and we work from home then it is justified to pay the worker low amount. There were specific experiences that made me realize that my negotiation skills needed work especially in sharing open information with the other party because a lack of communication can not only result the loss of credibility but also a loss of income or money so if you are looking at it from a business perspective it means that there would be a loss in the business or potential investment from the client side.

The client had ordered me to complete a book about science fiction whose word limit was about ten thousand words and the fee was decided to be 100$ for the entire ten thousand book. This was just the plot of the book upon which the entire story would have been developed on. The payment was agreed on mutual terms and so I began working right away. The work delivery was within two weeks which I think was a nice pace and providing if I put in at least three hours a day at the book it would be done on time. I started on it and delivered it on time but then my client needed to review the book plot so that took a week, during that time my payment was not given to me so everything was at a halt. I then received a message from the client saying that the book does not have exactly 10k words as asked for but I do remember giving the plot of the book in the entire word limit asked for. Upon my inquiry, the client ended up saying how word limit counts for solid words and not prepositions or other conjunctions used in the book so technically the book was short of words and I had not adhered to the rules and regulations of the terms set by the client. I was devastated because having put at least 10 days of effort into the book and dedicating at least 2 hours a day to it had drained me. The biggest fault here lay in our communication because for the client the word limit meant something else and for me, it had another meaning. Communication and understanding of both parties are highly necessary during contracts otherwise it can lead to a major loss in my case there was a reduction in my payment and I was not given the amount that I was promised.

The two-day-long correspondence with the client leads to us negotiating a price that did not amount to my work but was not in their favour as well. I ended up withholding the rest of the series I had been working on for them and they paid me half price on a project that I had worked a lot on but the positive point is that I knew my walkaway terms. It was established that poor communication was what led to the break of the deal and a case was not filed from either of the party which I think is an achievement. I could have conducted the negotiating terms better if there had been a better communication system involved with information sharing from the start that would have helped in benefiting both parties. Another tactic that I could have applied in the negotiating terms is priorities because I left a pile of unfinished projects instead of this certain project and had to put double the time into other projects, so one important thing I learned from this failed project was to always get my priorities right and to give maximum time to things but do not forget that other tasks need to be done as well.

In conclusion, the project did turn into a fail but it taught me that I have to work on my negotiation skills and improve it by maintaining an open mode of communication and information sharing.