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Perception – Does Being Right or Wrong Matter?

“Constantly test your beliefs. They serve as the foundation from which you view the world, those in it, and how others in turn view you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Too many times, people get hung-up on who’s right and who’s wrong. In reality that’s not what they’re really interested in. They’re more concerned with getting others to follow their lead. Being cognizant of that should allow you to focus more on the outcome you seek in a situation and less on how being perceived as right or wrong will make you feel. If you do identify your feelings as the source that motivates you to adopt one action over another, examine your thoughts to assess why that’s so; it could mean that you’re less interested in the outcome versus the way you feel about the outcome. If that turns out to be the case, you have a completely different ‘kettle of fish’ to deal with, one that’s in addition to the perception of right or wrong.

Once you can boil right or wrong down to its most simplistic form and still get others to follow you, right or wrong becomes immaterial. Recognize that you really don’t want to be viewed as being right or wrong, what you’re really after is to have others agree with your beliefs.

Going forward, when you’re engaged in dialog with others ask yourself, “Am I placing too much emphasis on being right or wrong?” Understand the source of motivation behind your actions to convince others that you’re right. That will be the real key to the impact you have on them … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

Every negotiator enters into a negotiation believing that her point of view should be accepted by the other negotiator; from her perspective, her point of view is right. If too much emphasis is placed on being right, she may overlook other opportunities to sway her counterpart to the real objective of the negotiation, which is to receive a favorable outcome for her.

Before you can shape someone’s perception, first you have to shape your own. You should have a firm understanding of how you arrived at your perspectives, the value they contain as viewed by others, to what degree they may contain unsubstantiated biases, and how you’ll position them to be viewed as most advantageous by the other negotiator. Once you’ve gathered those aspects, you’ll realize that it’s perception that matters, not who’s right or wrong. That will add a new dimension to your negotiation efforts.

What are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #Psychology #Truth #Perception

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Accounting Body Language Economics Human Resources Investing Management Marketing Negotiations News and Politics Skills Taxes Women In Business

How to Overcome Lost Trust When Negotiating

“One way to overcome the loss of trust when negotiating is not to lose it in the first place.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Trust is the hidden variable when negotiating that possesses silent power in the negotiation. Once trust is lost, a negotiation takes on a persona from which it may never recover. Thus, depending on the severity of lost trust, it may be the death knell of the negotiation.

There are multiple factors that play a role in regaining trust when it’s lost. The implementation of those factors are directly tied to how you wish to proceed from the point of disruption, the outcome you seek from the negotiation, time factors related to future events, and any mitigating circumstances that may cause you to engage/disengage in/from the negotiation.

This article will give you insights as to how you can overcome the loss of trust when you negotiate and turn your efforts into winning actions.

Point of Disruption:

Be observant as to how trust is being evaluated during the negotiation. Such signs will be conveyed through the possible reluctance to believe, follow, or acquiesce to a request and/or concession. Once you sense such hesitancy, address it right then. Don’t let a possible festering thought about trust linger. If you do, you may be setting up the rest of the negotiation to be addressed from a deeper entrenched position on both sides.

Outcome Sought:

Be crystal clear about the outcomes sought by you and the other negotiator. To the degree you have commitments, shine a bright metaphoric light on those agreements and make those commitments known to stakeholders with lots of fanfare. As an aside, be mindful of whom you show the commitments so that they don’t tear them down. In a best-case scenario, you tie/lock the other negotiator to the commitments he states he’ll abide by. Also, limit finger pointing, gloating, and be aware of your verbiage when highlighting agreed on commitments. The wrong word(s), gloating, and/or finger pointing can easily lead to the unraveling of a commitment. To ensure that commitments will be adhered to, discuss with the other negotiator how they will be conveyed when presented to the outside world.

Time Factors and Future Events:

You should always consider the time factor and how today’s negotiation will impact future events. To that end, to restore lost trust:

  1. Sign-off on agreements at specific points in the negotiation and wait to see if deliverables are made
  2. Know hidden power players and their possible reaction(s) about the direction of the negotiation
  3. Have contingency plans in place to persuade power players to positions that are advantageous to you

Mitigating Circumstances:

There are mitigating circumstances that can encompass any negotiation. Such can be caused by the misperception of a word, a misperceived gesture, or just a dislike amongst the negotiators. If you’re aware of any mitigating circumstances that may cause the negotiation to be headed to the negotiation graveyard, consider changing negotiators. New negotiators can see the negotiation through new eyes.

A loss of trust can be a silent death knell in a negotiation but that doesn’t have to be so. The best way to offset its occurrence is to be as forthright as possible as you engage in a negotiation. Of course, that forth righteousness is a two-way street that the other negotiator must also be willing to traverse. Use the suggestions above to offer him the opportunity to do so … and everything will be right with the world.

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #Trust  #psychology

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Don’t Play With Your Emotions

“Exerting greater control over your emotions will allow you to exercise greater control of your life.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

 When you engage in life, don’t play with your emotions. Anytime you’re unsure of which path you should take, don’t play with your emotions. That doesn’t mean that you should consider options devoid of your emotions, it means, attempt to think of your options without the emotional attachment that might saddle itself to those options.

By eliminating the emotional aspect that might go into your decision-making process, you allow your thought process to be driven by logic. After you’ve assessed a situation from a purely logical perspective, you can test your sense of direction by considering the emotions that might be the co-pilot of your decision.

Sometimes people allow their emotions to lead their actions. They toss logic aside. Allowing your actions to be driven by emotions alone can lead you into dangerous situations; “I don’t know why I did it; I must have been temporarily insane.” Those may be the afterthoughts you have if you don’t control your emotions before delving into a situation.

To maintain greater control of your life and those that surround you, always seek to control your emotions. Don’t play with them! Once you learn to have greater control of your emotions, you’ll have greater control of the environments you engage in. You’ll also find that your emotions serve you better. So, always seek to keep your emotions in check … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

In every negotiation (you’re always negotiating), emotions dictate how you’ll engage in the negotiation. Thus, your emotions will drive your actions if you don’t curb them. It may not be very easy to control your emotions at times when negotiating, but if the opposing negotiator senses that he can control you by controlling your emotions, he’ll play you like a drum. You’ll dance to any tune he decides to play.

Before entering into a negotiation, know the hot points that may cause you to lose control of your emotions; your hot points are also called triggers. Being aware of the triggers that may provoke different emotional reactions in you, allows you to prepare the demeanor you wish to display, versus one that would hijack your real-time display of emotions. Such displays can cause you to lose control of the negotiation. By not displaying a demeanor the other negotiator expected, you’ll initiate doubt within him about the strategy he’s employing in invoking such triggers to maneuver you.

Suffice it to say, controlling your emotions allows you to have greater control of yourself and the other negotiator, and everyone knows, he who controls the negotiation has a greater chance of controlling the outcome of the negotiation.

 

What are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #Psychology

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Economics Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Human Resources Management News and Politics

Thank You Generation Z

I work with “younger” people all the time. My interaction with them comes from work as a business coach / consultant, being involved with several entrepreneurial development programs and in doing interviews for a regional business show I host called Tec Bridge Radio, www.tecbridgepa.org.

Why did I title this article “Thank You Generation Z?”. First reason is, I read a great article in Time Magazine (December 25, 2017 / January 1, 2018 edition) by Katy Steinmetz. Some of the comments were that Gen Z – individuals now in their teens and early 20s – have “grown up during mass disruption” and “now they are entering adulthood with a willingness to experiment.” The article also stated, according to a survey that was part of the research for the article, that 78% of Gen Z-ers say getting a four-year degree no longer makes economic sense, and hundreds of programs, from apprenticeships to boot camps, have cropped up to offer an alternative path.”

Is this good or bad for business in the U.S. around the world? That depends on what we learned from the past and what we do today.

If most of us feel a moral imperative to do what is best for our (all of us on the planet) well-being, in the long run, then everything will be OK! What I mean is, if we can at least spend SOME time on what is healthy for someone other than ourselves and if we are willing to listen to all points of view – and maybe Gen Z and Gen Y are the most important voices to listen to, we can act today to help create healthy people, healthy communities, and healthy businesses.

WE created the disruption, WE created the environment where Gen Zers want to experiment, and WE created the environment that has Gen Zers and many others questioning the value of a four-year college degree. Therefore, WE can be pro-active in our approach to the future.

Some thoughts. Read a hard cover book. Read and listen to different points of view on all topics – especially political topics since they tend to deal with immediate gratification (pleasing constituents NOW, instead of a healthy future). Spend time with your children and grandchildren so you can positively impact their view of their surroundings, and finally CARE about the world the Gen Zers are building – we will be living in it!

FOR BUSINESS OWNERS: get 5 people under 25 and 5 people over 40 in a room together. Have them sit across the table from each other. Then ask them, one at a time “what’s going on in the world today?” Have no specific agenda, other than conversation. Might be interesting! Let me know how that went!

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How to Use Reverse Questioning to Win More Negotiations

“The degree of success you experience in life and in negotiations is based to a degree on asking the right questions successfully.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

You no doubt know what reverse engineering is, right? Reverse questioning in a negotiation is the process of identifying the questions you need to ask in order to obtain the answers that will lead to a successful negotiation outcome. It’s also a way to identify how you’ll control the flow of the negotiation.

As a quick example, if you wanted to exit a negotiation paying $1,000 for a product you’d work from the outcome sought back to the beginning of the negotiation; you might also consider working back from that point to how you would position yourself prior to entering into the negotiation. To perform the latter, you’d assess the requirements needed (i.e. how you’d position yourself) to have your persona projected in a certain light/manner.

The following is what the step-by-step process would look like.

  1. Identify the most and least favorable outcome you’ll seek from the negotiation, along with why you’ve identified those points of juxtaposition. As a benefit, having that insight will help you identify exit points from the negotiation.
  2. Assemble a list of questions that might be asked of you as you would go through the negotiation.
  3. Create answers to the questions posed in step 2 that are needed to drive your efforts towards a winning negotiation outcome, while formulating questions you’ll ask to keep the negotiation on track; these will be your defensive questions. Identify points where you can answer a question with a question; remember, the person asking the questions is the person controlling the negotiation. That’s due to the fact, that person is gaining more information.
  4. Once you create and address step 3, create a list of questions that you might ask of the other negotiator that’s separate from the ones you might use to respond to his questions; these will become your offensive questions. Offensive questions are questions that move your negotiation efforts quicker towards the end of the negotiation; they are questions that the other negotiator has to agree with because they’re based on what he’s previously stated as his beliefs or truths; you’ll be weaponizing his thoughts and questions against him. Some of these questions will also come in the form of questions that answer questions.
  5. Assess how the opposing negotiator might respond to your scenario.
  6. Continue going over steps 1 through 5, in an attempt to uncover additional questions that you’d not considered that need to be included in the process.
  7. Once you feel you’ve honed the questions to a point that the other negotiator has to follow a prescribed path that you’ve created for the negotiation, test your hypothesis in a mock negotiation. This will allow your questioning process to become more refined and may uncover better/additional questions.
  8. Once you feel totally prepared to utilize your questions in a negotiation, do so. Engage with the confidence in knowing that you’ve created a stealthy way of capturing better information as you go throughout the negotiation.
  9. Save your questions in a repository to be used for comparison to past and future negotiation situations.

 

The wrong question asked at the right time in a negotiation may do incalculable harm. The wrong question asked at the wrong time in a negotiation may lead to a negotiation impasse. Create and test your questions before entering into a negotiation and you’ll have more of a chance to reach a successful negotiation outcome … and everything will be right with the world.

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #Bully #Question

#psychology

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Accounting Best Practices Economics Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Human Resources Industries Investing Management Marketing News and Politics Skills Taxes Technology Women In Business

Don’t Hurt the Leader’s Position

“A leader is someone that possesses the ability to successfully lead others from the front or the rear. Always know the position of your leader.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When someone is serving as the leader of your team and you’ve agreed to give them your support, follow their lead; don’t hurt them or your team by engaging in intended or unintended subterfuge.

In the daily activities of everyone’s life, everyone follows someone. Thus, those that you follow have influence by the fact that you anoint them as someone to lead you. You embolden them with that privilege by the fact that you follow their edict/mandate/suggestions. That being the case, don’t undermine the leader by:

  1. Going off-point per a strategy that has been discussed and agreed upon (e.g. going around the leader to gain attention for yourself, etc.)

 

  1. Engaging with outside sources that have not been agreed upon – make sure the leader knows what you’re planning to do

 

  1. Creating ad-hoc strategies when you’re in the midst of interactions with those that are not on your team/group

When you subvert the direction of the lead that you’ve granted to someone, you forgo potential opportunities, and diminish your team’s ability to implement the plan that’s been agreed upon; that can be costly in time and opportunities. You may also be cloaking into darkness the light of opportunities that may have shown themselves to you in the future (i.e. if you prove not to be a team player, no one will want you on their team.)

If you’re going to be a team player, play follow the leader by supporting the person that you’ve chosen to follow. Do so to the degree that such returns are beneficial to you and the team. Once you decide that you no longer wish to engage, inform the leader of your intent and disengage. Don’t just drop out without any communication. If you restrict the flow of communications, you don’t know what potential door(s) you’ll close that might have offered opportunities that could lead you to higher heights.

As long as you’ve decided to follow the leader, don’t hurt her. You’ve made a conscious decision to allow her to lead. So, follow her lead as long as it serves you and her … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

In a team negotiation environment, the leader of the team can position and pose as any of its members; it doesn’t have to be the person that projects the image of a leader at the negotiation table. Depending on the strategy chosen by the team, the leader may pose as someone that’s in a strategic position for a particular negotiation. He may also be positioned as someone that a senior person on the team can replace once the negotiation has reached a certain point.

The point is, once you have a strategy in place, don’t undermine it by undermining the person that’s the lead for the negotiation. Not only will you be weakening her, you’ll also be weakening your team’s negotiation position and the perspective beneficial outcome of the negotiation for all of you.

 

What are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to  sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #Leadership

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How to Really Overcome a Bully Before Negotiating

“A bully is a misguided person with perceived power. Extinguish his sources of power and you extinguish the bully.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Do you know how to really overcome a bully before negotiating with him? There you are. You’re negotiating against a bully! He’s someone that’s willing to lie, cheat, and steal to come out ahead in the negotiation. You think to yourself, ‘what can I do? This son-of-a-gun is not playing fair and I don’t know how to overcome him!’ The answer to, ‘what can I do’ was hidden in what occurred before the negotiation began.

The following insights will allow you to position yourself better to overcome a bully’s ploys before you negotiate with him.

Positioning:

In every negotiation, positioning occurs. It’s shown in the way the negotiators perceive each other and themselves. Thus, positioning is important because it determines how negotiators will interact with one another.

If you know you’ll be negotiating against someone that has bullied others in the past, before entering into the negotiation, attempt to discover the demeanor of those individuals. In particular seek to define whether they were perceived to be weak by your opponent due to their short-comings, or if your opponent felt empowered due to some other factor(s) he had going for himself at the time of the negotiation(s). That information will allow you to best position yourself from a position of strength. A bully’s loathing for weakness is the reason he only picks on targets that he perceives to be weak.

Leverage: (ploys you can employ when negotiating with a bully)

  • Using Other people
    • All bullies look up to someone. If you can find a way to curry favor with the bully’s icon, you can supplant his bullying efforts against you. After all, the bully wants an easy target. If the bully’s icon has favored you, that makes you less of a target to the bully.
  • Bully’s weakness
    • All bullies have an Achilles heel. It may be how they wish to be perceived by others. It may also appear in the form of the bully being perceived in one light versus another. Whatever it is, discover it and be prepared to exploit it during the negotiation if such is called for.
  • Bully’s Persona (his vanity)
    • If you’re aware of the pride a bully takes in having himself perceived in a certain light, attempt to alter that light; have it shine on someone or somewhere else. You will have taken away his source of motivation. Hold it hostage until he dismantles his bullying ways. The point is, hit him where you’ll get the most attention and where it will hurt him the most. Remember, he despises weakness and applauds strength.

Be Stealthy:

Every good negotiator gathers information about the opposing negotiator. When you know you’ll be negotiating against a bully, drip misinformation into places that he seeks to gather information about you. The better you can use such information to misguide him, the more difficult it’ll be for him to assess the type of negotiator you are; always be willing to display a different negotiation demeanor based on the opposing negotiator.

When engaging a bully in a negotiation, there are all kinds of mind games that occur. Utilize the insights above and you’ll be in a better mental state than the bully. The better you play the game, the greater the chance that you’ll be able to overcome a bully when negotiating … and everything will be right with the world.

What are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #Bully

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Economics Management Marketing News and Politics Personal Development Technology

Dr. Diane Hamilton Interviews Steve Forbes

As part of my nationally syndicated radio show, Take the Lead, I interview top leaders and successful individuals who share their success stories.  Steve Forbes, the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, was a recent guest on my show.  He and I worked together when I was the MBA Program Chair at the Forbes School of Business and Technology.  To hear the entire interview, you can go to:  http://drdianehamilton.com/episodes. The following are highlights of what he discussed in our interview.

  • Whether leaders are born or made
  • Taking Forbes digital
  • His favorite people he has interviewed
  • Why he ran for the presidency
  • The biggest changes he has seen in politics during his life
  • Predictions for future markets and innovation
  • The three big reforms we need to address
  • The flat tax and whether we will ever see it
  • The Fed and what changes will we see
  • What to look for in employees
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Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management News and Politics Personal Development Taxes

What I’m Thinking

I’m concerned with Inequality. Chuck Collins, great grandson of Chicago meat packer Oscar Mayer has been a great teacher for me. Too many of us only read and listen to Twitter feeds, or the talking heads on radio and TV and never really understand the economics, let alone the human dignity involved in racial, gender, and income inequality. Chuck’s book is “Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good”. Great read. Bill Gates, Sr. is part of the story.

As an executive coach, business consultant and business journalist I work hard to help my clients and Business Builders Show subscribers to go deeper on the issues they face today and will face tomorrow. I recommend they go beneath the headlines to understand what’s really happening in our system of governing. For instance – do you really understand the Estate Tax?

Click here to listen to my latest interviews with Chuck Collins. You can follow him at www.inequality.org.

Love to hear your feedback.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing News and Politics Personal Development Women In Business

How to Read Body Language to Negotiate Effectively

“The better you read body language, the better you’ll be at understanding someone’s mind.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert.

 

“How To Read Body Language To Negotiate More Effectively”

When you negotiate do you know how to read body language? When you read body language, do you know what to observe?

The following are some examples of body language signs you can observe to negotiate more effectively.

  1. Forehead Wrinkles – When someone displays a wrinkled forehead (unnatural wrinkles) it’s a sign of stress. Thus, the absence of wrinkles is a sign of calm and easygoingness.
  2. Eyes (wide opened versus closed and narrow) – Wide-eyes indicate someone’s attentiveness, interest, and open-mindedness. A narrowing of the eyes signals a higher degree of focus on the subject, which is usually accompanied with a furled brow/forehead.
  3. Smile – A genuine smile is denoted by turned up corners of the lips.
  4. Hand movements – Hand movements give insight into the mental thoughts you’re experiencing at the moment the hand gestures are made. Thus, open hand gestures are usually displayed when someone is not fearful. When hand gestures become closed (i.e. kept close to the body, rubbing each other, rubbing other parts of the body), that’s more of a mental display of being guarded, anxious, and/or cautious. When you see such actions in others, take note of what might have brought about a change from open to close. In situations in which you seek to impress others, keep hand gestures more in an open mode and don’t make gestures that might be perceived as manic, indecisive, and/or not in rhythm with the words you speak. Doing so will detract subliminally from your likeability and persuasiveness.
  5. Feet – When the feet of two people engaged in a conversation are facing one another, the individuals are mentally engaged in their conversation. When one person turns a foot away, that’s usually the point at which that individual has mentally begun to disengage in the conversation and soon they’ll exit it in that direction.
  6. Touching – The degree you touch someone and where you touch them conveys a sense of familiarity. Thus, you should be mindful of what someone might perceive as too much familiarity per you touching them too much. To gain insight as to whether you’re touching too much, take note to what degree the person you’re touching flinches and/or slightly pulls away/back when you touch them. That’s a nonverbal sign that you may have overstepped a boundary. Pay very close attention to such feedback. It will be the gauge from which you’ll gain insight per how well you’re being received.
  7. Voice Inflection – Since 80% and more of your message is conveyed nonverbally, take note of how your words can possess different meanings based on the way you announce them. Thus, note the inflection and tonality you convey with them. Ending a sentence on a high note can turn a statement into a question, which could make you appear less authoritative than what you intended.

 All of the above body language and nonverbal gestures impact the perception of the words you use to represent your thoughts. Thus, the meaning of your words can be altered by the body language signals that accompany them. As such, you should be very mindful of the signals you send to make your body language work for you and not against you … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!