Customer Reviews

101 Secrets to Negotiating Success

I don't know what discipline the Author got her PhD in, but it certainly wasn't in negotiating.

This book is not completely bad, it is just soooooo ordinary. For that it could get 2 or 3 stars. But I have to deduct one star for the 6-7 pieces of very dubious, questionable and possibly damaging advice. Such as? Such as "Above all else, it is better to lose this deal and keep the relationship, than to lose the relationship and make the deal." This particular sentence (in various forms) was repeated a few times throughout the book, just in case you missed it. While this statement has some validity in some situations, it is completely false in most negotiations. There are ways of making a deal and improving the relationship! But the author does not go that deep. How to do it? Read "Start with NO" by Jim Camp.

Then 1 star has to be deducted for the multitude of old, tired "secrets" such as "Be soft on people but hard on issues" and clichés such as the 4Fs "Feel-Felt-Found-Find".

Cartoons (simple illustrations) are so simple they are meaningless. The book would be better (at least on a first glance) without them. I found them an insult to readers intelligence. They don't look great, they don't bring in any new information, they don't expand or complement the text, they don't help you understand the concepts better or faster, so WHY are they there?

There is also lots of "whiteness" in this book (lots of blank space), 1/3 (vertical column) of almost every page is blank, so that means that instead of 203 pages, this book really only has 140 or so pages. Again, the lack of quantity would not be a problem per se, but the lack of quality and depth is! The book is full of clichés and platitudes. Luckily it is out of print.