Mastering the Art of Successful Negotiations
Being an expert negotiator in any setting begins with developing versatile negotiation techniques that can be adapted to fit any scenario. A panel at GlobeSt.com’s national Women of Influence conference tackled the topic head on.
PARK CITY, UT—During a mega session at the GlobeSt.com national Women of Influence conference here in Park City, panelists discussed how honing negotiation techniques has never been more critical than it is today—especially when having to suddenly pivot to digital negotiations.
Moderator Deena Zimmerman, VP and national retail council co-chair for SVN, began the session by discussing how, for many, pivoting and switching to digital negotiations at the beginning of Covid-19 was hard. “Yes, trying to learn all these new meetings and what to do during the pandemic was difficult,” said panelist Eddy Nevarez, a first VP of investments at Marcus & Millichap. But she added that it really did educated her and became her way of transacting. “Now whenever anybody wanted to have a meeting, they would send a Zoom link or a webcast versus me getting on a plane and flying,” she said. “Everyone wants to do more digital.”
But it worked for Nevarez, who, during the beginning of Covid executed a massive hotel portfolio deal and became the first female at Marcus & Millichap who had made it to the Circle of Excellence—the company’s highest level. “During the pandemic, I was trying to survive and I was just working and said I wasn’t going to fail. I am familiar with the market going down and how it can affect you. I was surviving, working around the clock, had all these transactions under contracts, but you don’t know until a deal is final.”
For Nevarez, she was never thinking of being top producer and what it would mean. “I have had to work hard to earn respect and more than anything, as a woman, it is empowering to break barriers.”
During early Covid for panelist Rochelle Thomas, EVP and general counsel of Spirit Realty Capital, not being able to shake hands with clients really affected people on the business end in how you do deals, she said.
“It is challenging, was challenging, and is interesting though,” Thomas said. “The legal side has a different perspective and I am not sure the impact was really felt.” Attorneys are used to spending hours on a call, just faceless, while negotiating documents, she continued. “When Zoom calls and team calls came about, it shifted the tone of legal negotiations and it wasn’t faceless anymore.”
She explains that because real estate is a relationship driven business, it broke down some of the barriers. “Seeing someone on teams was a huge step up for people in legal.”
One of the rules in negotiating anything, according to Thomas, is understanding motivations. What is the motivations of your counter party and your own/? “Losing real time reaction makes it harder to understand those motivations, but you have to do more upfront work,” she said.
Using Zoom and Facetime and Skype to do tours during the pandemic allowed companies to really invest in certain technology in order to showcase their properties. That was the case for Danet Linares, executive vice chairman of Blanca Commercial. Her firm developed digital books, loaded up the links to its website and to its flyers to showcase what they had.
It really has forced her company to transition, she continued. “Now everyone wants tours, pictures, and virtual tours… It is now like a prerequisite. “It has helped us really improve our tech skills, tech platform, and had helped us also add new marketing tools and lease abstract tools.”
Switching gears, the panel discussed adversarial negotiations and, according to Thomas, when a negotiation starts to get adversarial, you should challenge it. “You have to know your subject matter better than anyone else in the room… Know your asset class, the industry, and know your contracts.”
Linares added that even when you have those “deal bullies” as she calls them, “you just have to say no…you have to be ready to walk away from the deal and stick to your guns.”
Nevarez added that there are no problems, only opportunities to find a solution. “There will always be problems in every deal in commercial real estate with each deal having its own story…You have to know how to navigate that story.”
She adds that you just have to figure out the hat that you have to wear. “In real estate, you have to constantly be creative and adapt to the market. In the world we are facing as investment professionals, we have to adapt and be creative. We have to be the wise person they are paying us to be. Even when things look horrible, there is an opportunity. Don’t say you are going to hang your hat and wait until things are over. We have to always find the opportunity.”
When looking at contract negotiations, Thomas says the most critical thing is to hire and utilize attorneys that know what they are doing in that specific area. “It is even more nuanced than a criminal attorney and a CRE attorney. CRE is broad and a joint venture is very different than a sale-leaseback and what those contracts actually look like is different. You need an expert in that nuanced area.”
During the informative hour, the more than 300 attendees, represented from 35 states around the country discovered what it takes to be a master negotiator in a virtual world, boardroom, and beyond. They were also invited to join the conversation through guided networking rountables (pictured below) to discuss a particular area of negotiations that they would like to refine including: adversarial negotiations; professional development negotiations; contract negotiations; and digital negotiations.
Check out other stories from the event below that you might have missed and stay tuned for more coverage.
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