1-3-10 sales: The guy in-between

Sometimes negotiations are more sensitive than usual due to many reasons, examples:

-         You may not have enough experience in the field of negotiation, or you will be negotiating with people who are way more experienced than you

-         The negotiation you are about to enter is very intense, heated up, and you may get emotional and that would affect your rational decision

-         You may have issues or the lower-hand with the guy you are negotiating with, like your manager or coach

-         The negotiation may be that intense, long and pain in the ass that the other party may be repelled and walk away even if that would be against his benefit (revise "PITA customers" post in the marketing section, you are the PITA in this case)

So how we resolve that? By putting a guy in-between you and the other party … these in-between guys are called "BUFFERS" and they are usually

-         Experienced in the negotiation field

-         Earn their life form this experience

-         Very experienced and educated and have a lot info about the filed they are experienced in

-         Examples: agents, lawyers, consultants

A buffer is the person that takes the negotiation so that you would not be in the front line

Their jobs mainly are to:

1-    Be better negotiator than you so that they can get you a better deal

2-    Handle the technical parts and provide you with info about complicated aspects of businesses

3-    Slow down the negotiation so that you take your time to decide what is the best for you without any emotional irrational moves

4-    Take the shit and be "pain in the ass" instead of you, people can get mad at him but not you :)

5-    Be a barrier between you and your managers and people more experienced than you so that their position wouldn't have effect on the negotiation

So, here is the buffer, why you may want to use one, and the benefits of using him

Just be extra aware if you hire someone that you don’t know or trust that much (I don’t even recommend that) because

-         Due to money issues, he may have different goals …. For example, you hire an agent to buy you a house and he is commissioned according to the size of the house…. Imagine that what would he recommend you to buy? (Of course on the long run that wouldn’t be smart from him, if you smelled that he tricked you, would you deal with him again, or recommend him to anyone?)

-         So be aware of the incentive structure he is paid according to (what he is being compensated for)

-         One of the ways that would be useful to avoid this is that to give him a flat fee for a deal closure whatever the terms are