Negotiation is not inventing something, it is playing the cards you already hold

✦Negotiation is not inventing something

This is the line from episode five I keep turning over. I asked Junwoo Kim what he bases salary and terms on, and he answered this way. Translated from the Korean:

I do not think negotiation is bringing something out of nothing. I think it is a fight over which card you play from the ones that exist.

He is a FIFA licensed agent. His job is putting deals together with clubs in Europe and the Middle East. This is not from a book on negotiation theory, it is the working order of someone who sits at the table, so I am keeping it as he said it.

This note takes only the negotiation part of that conversation. The industry is sport. The method travels. I do the same thing over an SEO proposal.

✦The answer already sits in a range

The most common illusion going into a negotiation is that if you speak well enough the other side will come around. It does not work like that.

The outcome usually lands somewhere inside a range that is already set. Within that range it is a game of matching cards to decide whether you finish at seventy percent or at forty. It is not drawing a picture from nothing. It is closer to this:

When you draw a picture, at least knowing where to put the eyes and where to put the nose. If you assume the eyes, nose, and mouth are sitting there beside you, you are in a position to draw that much.

This framing is useful because it redirects your preparation. Instead of polishing the words you will use to persuade, you start counting what cards you hold and what cards they hold.

✦Walk in with the evidence

So what are the cards made of? Numbers. The example he gave went like this.

Our player scores ten goals, and a player at another club who scores eight is paid this much. That is the basis for the request. The other side accepts, or explains the club's circumstances and declines. When declined, you change direction, raising the bonus instead or adding a guarantee for the following year.

Three things show up in that.

• You need a justification

  Not give us more, but this condition warrants this level. The comparable is what creates the case.

• A no is a fork, not an ending

  When one item is blocked you move to another. If the total will not move, the bonus. If not that, next year's guarantee. That movement is only possible if you brought several cards.

• Set your own line first

  Negotiating on a player's behalf, he takes their view in advance and fixes how far he will go before walking in. Not at the table.

✦Get it in writing before the meeting

He also described how his working method changed. Early on, when a call came at four in the morning, he set his alarm as loud as it would go and took it. Now it is different.

Once you reach a certain point, buying time becomes the competitive advantage. Meeting face to face with nothing drafted, and then having to do that work at that point, is just another thing that takes time.

So the order goes like this. Receive what the other side wants and needs by email or messenger first, review it and prepare the material, then set a date and meet in person or on video.

It sounds plain and the effect is large. A meeting without an agenda spends the whole meeting deciding on the agenda. When an SEO enquiry comes in I ask for a written description of what is stuck before the first call. Same reason.

✦The meeting is where you sign

This part was the most practical. Once a certain amount of network is built, the work runs in writing and the meeting becomes the signing.

When you meet in person, both sides get a result they are satisfied with as they sign, and making it official is often a kind of celebration.

His comparison was good. When you contract on a house, you settle the terms and then go to stamp the paper. You do not sit down at that table and ask for another fifty million won off. Almost nobody sees the paper for the first time in that room.

So if a negotiation gets overturned in the room, the preparation was incomplete. The real negotiation finished earlier, in writing.

✦They do not know what they want either

The remark at the end of the conversation mapped directly onto my own work.

Sometimes you do not know what the other side wants, but there are also cases where they have not sorted out what exactly they want either.

So getting them to explain what they want is itself a stage of the negotiation. It is not guessing what the other side wants. It is helping them organize it.

The same is true for me. What is actually needed behind a request to improve rankings only emerges after a few conversations. That is why I keep asking questions at the enquiry stage.

He added one more thing. Working within what you can actually handle matters too. Trying to manufacture something new instead of playing the cards you hold makes it complicated and lowers the quality of the result.

✦Negotiating across borders

There was a stretch worth reading if you take a lot of cross border meetings.

• English mostly works

  Official languages differ by club, but there is usually someone on the working level who speaks English. The level varies, and it is enough to run the business.

• Korea became an icebreaker

  Thanks to K pop, dramas, and cosmetics, opening a conversation with Korea has become easy wherever the meeting happens. He said visiting guests now have an Olive Young stop built into the route from the airport.

• Time zones get solved with rules

  He used to take every call that came at four in the morning. Now he sets the windows when calls happen. With deals tangling three continents, you cannot survive without rules.

• You go and make the opportunity

  Early on he would look up agents in a country while travelling there for a holiday. He searched LinkedIn and emailed club general addresses asking for a coffee chat. He was turned down often.

Which means creating a counterparty is inside the scope of negotiating.

✦In short

Negotiation is not eloquence, it is the order of preparation. Work out the range the outcome will sit in, gather the numbers that make the case, get the agenda in writing, and use the meeting as the place to confirm. Then help the other side organize their own request.

The episode where the same guest talks about how he decides which market to enter is in the note on market entry. Choosing who you negotiate with is choosing a market, so the two read well together.

How I work is on the services page, and the other episodes are in the episode list.

✦Common questions