Secrets of Power Negotiating, 15th Anniversary Edition

Chapter 28

Don’t Let the Other Side Write the Contract

In a typical negotiation, you verbally negotiate the details, then put it into writing later for both parties to review and approve. I’ve yet to run across a situation where we covered every detail in the verbal part of the negotiation. There are always points that we overlooked when we were verbally negotiating that we must detail in writing.

Then we have to get the other side to approve or negotiate the points when we sit down to sign the written agreement—that’s when the side that writes the contract has a tremendous advantage over the side that doesn’t. Chances are that the person writing the agreement will think of at least half a dozen things that did not come up during the verbal ...