Founders vs. Investors: 9 Tactics to Build Negotiating Power
Christian Glade is a negotiation expert with over twelve years of experience in negotiating multi-million dollar deals in business. He has spent almost five years researching the negotiation behavior of successful entrepreneurs and is the author of the book "Negotiation Mastery in Entrepreneurship." He studied negotiation at Harvard Law School and is the founder of the Glade Negotiation Institute, which supports companies and self-employed individuals through training and consulting to systematically improve their negotiation success. He is also an Adjunct Professor for Strategic Entrepreneurship at Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi.
Successful founders typically secure not only higher valuations but also more favorable terms in financing rounds . One of the key factors behind this is the strategic development of negotiating power —an often underestimated element in preparing for investor meetings.
Negotiating power is one of the "Big Five" success factors in financing negotiations – alongside reputation, professional expertise, negotiating style, and specific negotiating skills. The exciting thing about it is that power in negotiations is never objective – it always exists only in the perception of the other party. You only have as much power as your counterpart allows you – and vice versa. Similar to poker, it's not just the hand that matters, but how it's played and thus how credibly you signal a position of strength.
You don't just have this power, you can build it – with these nine tactics .
businessinsider
