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**Are your team members giving away value because they want to be liked?**
**Do technical experts in your business struggle to hold their ground?**
**Could poor negotiation habits be quietly eroding your margins?**
You’re already negotiating, whether you realise it or not. If every negotiation leaks value, how much are you losing?
In this conversation, Elise Margow, an experienced lawyer and commercial negotiator, shares real-world insights on how business leaders and technical teams can stop losing value in negotiation. CEOs of mid-sized businesses will walk away with a clear view of how negotiation weaknesses show up in everyday deals, and what to do about it.
What You’ll Learn:
== Why most professionals give away value in everyday negotiations
== The myth of “natural negotiators” and what to do instead
== A better way to prepare than relying on BATNA
== How silence and curiosity unlock true priorities in deals
== How to coach your team to negotiate without fear
Highlights
00:00 Key Principles of Negotiation
09:17 Case Study: Selling a Business
19:23 Case Study: Family Business Negotiations
32:44 Negotiating Business Partnerships
34:47 The Importance of Practical and Logical Business Foundations
35:35 Preparation and Long-Term Planning in Business
36:46 Having Difficult Conversations Early
40:01 Real-Life Business Scenarios and Lessons
41:09 Strategies for Negotiating with Powerful Entities
47:44 The Importance of Professionalism in Business Negotiations
54:51 Common Pitfalls in Negotiation
58:24 #CriticalFewActions™ for Senior Leaders
The #CriticalFewActions™ You Can Do Today
When I work with successful business leaders, I often find they underestimate the cost of poor negotiation. They focus on product, service, and delivery; but they ignore how much value slips away when deals aren’t handled well. Here are the key insights:
1. Confidence in negotiation.
Many leaders avoid pushback out of fear of conflict.
**So:
• Prepare by understanding the other party’s interests, not just your fallback.
• Role-play internally before a real negotiation to clarify your message.
2. Listening for values.
Focusing only on price leads to fractured relationships.
**So:
• Ask, “What’s most important to you?” before discussing terms.
• Let silence do the work. Don’t rush to fill the space.
3. Your company’s culture.
Avoiding negotiation can feel like avoiding conflict, but it’s actually self-protection.
**So:
• Normalise assertiveness: it's about value, not aggression.
• Practice negotiation with your team just like any other skill.
If you found this conversation valuable, please Subscribe / Follow, leave a comment, and share this episode with your peer business leaders. Your support helps us reach more CEOs who want to improve organisation performance and value.
Sponsor: The CEO Masterclass in Strategic Planning and Implementation
Are you a business owner or CEO striving to elevate your business to new heights? But right now… you’re not hitting the targets or objectives your business needs to achieve. Or maybe you’ve hit a roadblock you can’t move past, a major challenge with no clear solution, and there’s no one in your world you can talk to about it.
This isn’t another generic leadership course. It’s a highly focused, small-group programme where you’ll work alongside your peers, on your business, break through barriers, and implement real-world strategies. Not just to solve the problems holding your business back, but to accelerate your growth faster than you thought possible.
Find out more: https://criticalfewactionspodcast.com.au/EliseMargowSP
### Final Thought
Negotiation isn’t about winning. It’s about not giving away what you don’t need to. You can be respectful and assertive. If your team sees you negotiating with confidence, they’ll follow your lead. And that could be the biggest value gain you make this year.
### References
* **Harvard Business Review** — *Research: Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them*
[https://hbr.org/2018/06/research-women-ask-for-raises-as-often-as-men-but-are-less-likely-to-get-them]
* **Michael Wheeler** — *The Art of Negotiation* (Harvard Business Review Press)
[https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=44891]
* **Roger Fisher & William Ury** — *Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In*
Book: [https://www.williamury.com/books/getting-to-yes/]
* **Chris Voss** — *Never Split the Difference*
YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@TheFBINegotiator]
* **Michele Gelfand et al.** — *Conflict Cultures in Organisations: How Leaders Shape Conflict Cultures and Their Organisational-Level Consequences*
