(Continued from page 29) Here the buyer will almost agree to a deal, but then says, “oh by the way, I just have to check with the decision maker." Then he comes back and says, “they can't accept this, you'll have to do better.”

This is either simply a ploy, and they really can make the decision, or they are working jointly with the other parties who are supposedly in authority, something that you will find out how to differentiate in the negotiation seminar. But either way it still a ratcheting game.

You either say no, “that's it, I can't go any further." Or you say, "the only way we can do that is to change something else in deal." If they really don't have the authority, you are now negotiating, not with the principal, but with an agent. Obviously, one of your information to find items is going to be, who is the decision maker.

If you're not dealing with the decision maker, you may want to try to move the negotiation to the decision maker. Unfortunately, this is sometimes impossible, they just won't let you do it. In that case, use the buyer very carefully as an agent.

For example, you will find out in the negotiation skills training session that one way to deal with this may be to have the buyer get various points agreed to by the person or group with authority on a step-by-step basis. This will be resisted in a lot of situations, but you might be able to move it forward with statements like, "well it doesn't make any sense to go further until we know whether the decision maker likes this piece that we just agreed on, because if they don't, we will need to go back and reconfigure other things."