At first glance, a hostage situation and a start-up founder’s investment pitch don’t appear to have much in common but professional negotiator Lousin Mehrabi has told Arabian Business that strong negotiation skills are vital for a successful resolution of both scenarios.
Speaking out of her experience in negotiating, Mehrabi said: “Do you realise that when you’re negotiating funding as a start-up, you are negotiating something sometimes as difficult as some crisis negotiations?”
“What differentiates start-up negotiations from a hostage situation is that a hostage-taker is somebody that you probably don’t know and that you most probably are never going to see again. With an investor it’s important to build a relationship, have continuity with this person and stay in touch. A start-up negotiation is difficult because, besides getting to a deal, you have to maintain and develop the relationship,”” said Mehrabi who will be presenting a masterclass on how FBI techniques can help start-ups negotiate with investors during Arabian Business Awards’ AB Start-up Forum on Wednesday January 26.
“The second reason why it’s difficult is that you, as an entrepreneur or CEO of your company, are negotiating directly meaning you are the decision maker and the negotiator which makes negotiations extra difficult. In hostage situations, the decision maker doesn’t interfere with the negotiations. If you don’t separate the two, then you are emotionally and personally involved and your ego plays a role. With start-up negotiations, often that’s not possible which puts them in a vulnerable position,” she added.
As such, negotiating successfully should be a key tool in any entrepreneur’s arsenal.
“FBI negotiators, of course, have a SWAT team behind them, with the guns and everything, but the main weapon they use is their words and their success rate is about 95 percent. How do they do it? What are the skills that they use and how can we use that in business negotiations as well?” asked Mehrabi.
Mehrabi will be addressing this question on Wednesday, advising participating start-up founders and entrepreneurs on how to negotiate better, but offered the following tips in the meantime: “Do not negotiate on the ask but on the need, meaning what is the need behind what they say they want.”
“You need to both dig and realise what the common objective is between the two of you. Once you do, that calms things down and often takes it from a competitive negotiation to a collaborative one. This is specifically important in start-up negotiations because you’re going to continue collaborating with the person so you can’t make this a competitive one,” she added.
“Self-control is very important. I can teach you all the negotiating secrets but when it comes down to it, and you’re there, stressed and emotionally involved, you need to work on yourself to remain calm and control your ego,” said Mehrabi.
“I always say a successful negotiation is where all parties walk away feeling that it was a success. If you feel it was a success but your counterpart thinks it was not, you might think you did a great deal but in the long term, you still lose,” she added.
As the global head of negotiation training for ADN Group, Mehrabi provides master classes and advisory on complex negotiations. For nearly 15 years, she was responsible for sales and strategy within financial institutions such as Citigroup and the New York Stock Exchange-Euronext where she led negotiations for high-stakes contracts.
Mehrabi currently lives in Dubai with her husband and two children.
The AB Start-up Forum will feature two master classes, a Future Falcons pitch contest and an expert panel that will offer practical advice on what it takes to succeed.
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