Preparing for Your Negotiation

I had the opportunity to sit down with Willie Covington, CEO of Inferno Music Group and EGI Records this past week to gain knowledge of what I should know about negotiations as an up and coming owner of an entertainment company. I was able to gain wisdom on how to prepare for a successful negotiation and was given tips on various topics in the music industry.

Willie Covington has over thirty years of experience in the music industry. His career has spanned from being an artist and songwriter to a manager and founder of his own music companies and publishing houses. His diverse background allowed us to discuss the negotiation process from various different perspectives. Our conversation led to a discussion on deal making. He shared with me how to set my interest or position for a yes in any negotiation.

Mr. Covington spoke a lot on being well prepared for negotiations. He emphasized knowing what problems you might run into with some negotiations. He said, “knowing the value of your product and knowing what you are worth is really your main point of getting to an negotiation.” In negotiations knowing the analysis process is part of the steps of getting to yes.

The process consist of determining the interest or position that you are there for in the negotiation, preparing an effective way to present them, brainstorming your options, knowing your strengths and weakness of what you are offering and having your BATNA ready and in hand for the negotiation. These are some of the analysis processes for you to get to an answer of yes in a good negotiation.

As we continued our conversation we discussed positional bargaining tactics and how it is important to know them. With this knowledge the negotiation could possibly be a win/win situation. This would consist of the use of objective criteria; which would service both sides of the negotiation table. The criteria for this is to know the precedents and traditions, have expert evaluation of the people you want to do business with, and also know your statistics. With these being most of your objective criteria options knowing these steps can also maintain a good chance of a mutual gain in the negotiation procedure.

Now this bought me to ask about how did he ever work toward a deal that gave you and the person you were negotiating with a mutual benefit? This allowed us to go back to a word that I used earlier that was brought up in the analysis process, which is called your BATNA. His response was easy and simple, “leave your options open and don’t take losses.”

With more conversation, I learned that you must realize that you should think percentages not whole numbers.

You must understand that in negotiations having a BATNA, which means that you must have the best alternative to gain a mutual benefit of the negotiation just in case you do not get exactly what you were asking for from the beginning of the negotiation, this is critical in the process. This will allow you to have confidence in what you are there for. It also gives you options and allows you to deal against a very powerful negotiator. Now the name of the game with this is to have more than one way to get to an agreement without taking a loss and hoping to gain a mutual benefit from the negotiation.

I would like for you my readers to know that as you read this and take notes of how to get the answer you would like to hear from any negotiation. You must take strategic measures to get to the answer you would like to hear and the answer you would love to hear is yes. Thank you to Mr. Covington for his time and knowledge that allowed me to write and gain more understanding to how the music industry works. I appreciate what I have learned about the boardroom demeanor to gain what artist, managers, and other up and coming CEO’s of music builders need to know to get where they would love to be in their careers.