Issue
3 Volume 1
August 2004
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The Young Shark's guide to Negotiation III If the other party is happy to arrange a meeting to discuss the proposal, you should give them some idea of what you want to talk about. The sales technique of stating that you have some vague "opportunity" you wish to discuss arouses suspicion and does not constitute good negotiation. It also unsubtly informs the other party that they are about to endure a sales pitch. Balance is the key, you need to tell the other party enough to interest them but still have enough in reserve to counter any doubts they have. 2. Who gets to talk first? In formal debating, the first speaker defines the terms. This is also true of negotiation. Aim to get to your proposition as soon as possible. Having said that, remember firstly to be polite and secondly to make sure that the other party is aware of the advantages of your proposal. An extreme of the second consideration is the sales technique used by some telephone salespeople who ring you up and proceed through a lengthy spiel before they get to the part where they tell you how much they want you to pay. This method is very irritating and makes many people suspicious, particularly if they are unable to convince the salesperson to get to the point. If you have your position clear in your head before you start and are able to state it clearly and concisely, you can avoid this extreme. The advantage of politely taking control of the conversation is that you get to state the position and they get to respond, you then have the opportunity to respond to their response. The situation is similar to the advantage that a tennis player has when they serve. On the other hand, any potential advantage would be lost were you to talk over the other party. Remember, stay polite! 3. How much chat is too much? The answer to this question depends on the situation. Some people like to have a lengthy chat while others to get to the point quickly. You need to make a judgement in each individual case. Be prepared for both. It's a bad idea to interrupt someone telling their favourite anecdote, no matter how boring you may find it. On the other hand, embarrassing silences and fidgeting indicate that you should already have got to the point. 4. Talk to the boss You can't negotiate with someone who does not have the power to make a deal. Always try to talk to the person who can make the decision. The old expression is: "Talk to the organ grinder not the monkey" and there is a lot of truth to it. Unfortunately this is not always possible and you would almost certainly do yourself no good by quoting this saying to an underling! The difficulty of dealing with a subordinate is that they then have to convey your arguments to someone else. A "Chinese whispers" effect can occur and your carefully prepared position may get to the ear of the decision maker in a garbled version. Dealing with subordinates who have limited power also makes the back and forth aspect of negotiating extremely cumbersome. 5. Get it in writing Another old expression is that a verbal contract is not worth the paper its printed on. Legally this may not be strictly true but a written contract certainly goes a long way to avoiding later arguments about what was agreed to. If someone claims that they are to be trusted and fully intend to honour the deal but are not prepared to put it in writing, you should at least ask yourself why. One way to short-circuit this reticence is to come prepared with a simple contract stating the basis of the agreement. This need not be a complicated legal document but simply a record of your agreement. Adjustments can be made and initialled as the negotiation proceeds. This will also help focus the negotiation. 6. What about contracts? If the negotiation involves a contract that the other party wants you to sign make sure that you understand it before you sign. Some music industry lawyers will tell you that the contract is "industry standard", remember that in the music industry the standard deal varies from bad to appalling. Seek as much information as you can - the Musicians' Union is usually helpful in this area. Don't underestimate your own ability to comprehend a contract. With time and effort nearly everyone can get to the point where they at least know what questions they want to ask. If the other party tells you that a clause means one thing but the wording of the contract doesn't make it clear, ask them to change it. If they won't, it's a pretty strong indication that what they are offering is what's written in the contract and not what has been said. Make sure you really understand the implications of every clause. Thinking up an actual situation and applying the contract to it in your mind is a useful exercise. Get an understanding of the contract as a whole, individual clauses may imply one thing but when read with other clauses the meaning can change drastically. It is never wise to sign a document you don't completely understand. Most music industry
contracts contain three types of clauses:
(b) The "we really don't want to change this but we can talk about it" type.
(c) The "forget it" type.
And finally, three golden rules when dealing with contracts:
7. To sum up Every negotiation is different. The ideas in these articles are only a guide and will not all be relevant in every case. The principles of Preparation, Logic and Manners are probably universal. If you can't live with the end result of a negotiation, don't agree. If you don't have a point in your mind at which you will walk away from the negotiation, then you haven't thought the situation through far enough and you are in a weak position.
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Britney sells out
to Britney Spears By Kristal Nacht Britney Spears' latest album, Droplets: Duets with My Closest Friends, has left fans nonplussed and has infuriated music industry moguls, many of whom are calling the collection a sellout and a blatant and cynical grab for artistic integrity. The album features Britney teaming up with the likes of Ray Brown and the Winton Marsalis Big Band on That's Why the Lady's a Tramp, with Jose Carreras on an operatic duet from Delibes' Pearlfishers and with Kurt Elling on I Remember Clifford.
Prominent Wild On E presenter Brooke Burke commented: "Well, sure, maybe Britney gets off on hauntingly beautiful melodies and spine-tingling harmonic movements that take up your soul into realms of incandescent and only just bearable rending sublimity; but, what about the rest of us? Can you dance to it? Can you make luurrrve to it? Maybe it'll live on forever and enrich the lives of innumerable generations yet to be born; but, really, is this the way we want to see the music industry develop, an industry that pours out its very life blood every day to ensure the continuous flow of mass-produced pap for an ever-pubescent audience? I don't think so!" JP Morgan music-industry analyst Kyle Spud echoed Burke's comments and added: "There's no money in not producing repetitious garbage." He has put a "hold" recommendation on Burke's boobies and a "sell" on Britney's spears. Meanwhile, Britney
said in a statement to the National American Annual Conference of Accountants
held in Portland at the weekend: "Artists have got to live on after their
deaths, too, you know." Virtuosic passage John Loddsley By Borge W. Geush Loddsley's talent was apparent early in life, although at first it was mistaken for a medical condition. His life was transformed when, desperate and suicidal at the age of sixteen, he came across the archaic and almost disused arse-trumpet. He eventually found a teacher in 70-year-old Walter Bleckett, from whose withered cheeks still came passages of remarkable virtuosity and pungence, thanks to careful attention to diet. At the age of twenty-one, he released his ground-breaking (or rather wind-breaking) smash hit album "Petomania". This success was cemented by his second album "Ars Longa".
Unfortunately, Loddsley went off the rails at this point, falling in with the notorious Haemorrhoid Ring, a gang that hijacked shipments of salve and sold them on the black market to customers too embarrassed to ask at the chemist. But a stretch in prison doesn't seem to have harmed Loddsley. If anything it seems to have cleaned out his pipes, because his current release "Blow it out your Ass" has a new more sonorous quality, with noticeable depth and bottom end. Stand-out tracks include "Baked-bean Bacchanalia" a 19-minute excursion remarkable for its vibrant energy, leaving both audience and (no doubt) performer spent. Another remarkable track is the experimental world/fusion "100-year-old egg and Stilton". I was fortunate enough to experience this live at the Hammersmith Odeon, and, although the piece is very quiet, the big room was filled with its intensity - in fact, I noticed a couple of patrons so overwhelmed that they had to leave. Although the recorded track cannot reproduce all the nuances of the live performance, it provides a suitable memento, and I particularly appreciated the scratch-n-sniff feature. Two earplugs and four nosepegs
Squirrel
squeezing Fade & Fail By Kristal Nacht Frankly, this recording is an embarrassment, as I am sure will agree all true lovers of dusk squirrel-squeezing. Which is not to imply that it does not have its virtues (which it doesn't). Admittedly, the bagpipes are not everyone's bag of pipes, but the substitution by Francis Fade of live squirrels with flutes up their nethers is scarcely an improvement. Nor does Raeleen Fail's replacement of snaredrum with rabbit snare really give much of a lift to the songs. Even the choice of songs is questionable. A beautiful old hornpipe like Smack Granny in the Granary has seldom served as an overture to Colin McDunghill's admirable orchestral suite Smack Barney in the Barn. Really, an unheard-of faux pas, in this reviewer's contention.
On the technical side, Fade's squirrel control, especially on the exhale, could be smoother and, although Fail manages to elicit some good percussive effects from the rabbit snare, the thud of the hammer against the captured rabbits is a wee bit sickening. The single bright point on the album is an unrehearsed moment in which Fade's squirrel breaks loose and Fail cracks it lovingly over the skull with her hammer. That single moment shows the duo still has it. We look forward to their next sally with trepidation but some hope. "A disappointment," said Eltham train driver and rodent clasper Ivor Tool. "It seems they've confused novelty for innovation and originality this time round." No earplugs and your money back
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Whether
you are dealing with a new phase or a brand new negotiation, the start
point is the first contact. This could be a telephone call from you to
the other party, perhaps simply trying to organise a time and place to
meet. You must be ready to move immediately into full-on negotiation at
this point. Have your position fully prepared (see Part 1), the other
party may want to negotiate immediately rather than wait for a physical
meting. Negotiation gets serious as soon as one party decides it is. If
you are not ready to engage at this point, you may lower you power position
drastically.
