The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal

By: Seth Freeman, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Seth Freeman

Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Negotiation is a big part of life - from buying a car or a house, taking a new job, or working out a serious conflict. Yet it's easy to believe we're usually at a disadvantage - that others are born negotiators, while we are not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Negotiation is a skill that just about everyone can learn to do well.

Presented by a master negotiator, these 24 lectures teach you how to approach all phases of a negotiation and deal with a wide range of problems. Professor Freeman shows you how to negotiate effectively in both competitive and collaborative situations. You learn the art of handling sharp tactics, haggling, psychological traps, and other challenges, while always being "hard on the problem and soft on the person" - which is the key to achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.

The course is organized around a mnemonic device, developed by Professor Freeman, that can serve in any negotiation situation. Called "I FORESAW IT," this indispensable framework guides you in assembling the strongest possible case, showing you how to evaluate such factors as creative options, independent criteria, and your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Professor Freeman enriches his presentation with scores of fascinating anecdotes and case histories that vividly demonstrate what works and what doesn't when you sit down at the negotiating table.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2014 The Great Courses (P)2014 The Teaching Company, LLC

Let me tell you a story.

What made the experience of listening to The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal the most enjoyable?

It was a great way to remind me to always work on being empathetic.

Who was your favorite character and why?

There are no characters. .. this is a course. .. so I'm going to say Hobbes. The stuffed tiger.

Which character – as performed by Professor Seth Freeman – was your favorite?

I suppose he did a pretty good job as Professor Seth Freeman. I'd give him a solid 7/10. Morgan Freeman might do a better impersonation.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No reaction. I just listened and learned.

Any additional comments?

I wish we could pick which questions to answer. I don't feel these questions do this review much justice. I enjoyed this course and I think Professor Freeman had a lot of good information. I feel like principles in this course are applicable to more than just negotiation.

great information

I wasn't sure what to expect. this book provided a great set of techniques that I can put into practice immediately. the ideas were very well presented. the narrator did a great job

Great listen

Great tips and tricks to try out when negotiating in any situation. I'm going to listen again and write down all the things I heard the first time around and then listen for new things

Incredible and entertaining

Very high yield audiobook on negotiation, packed with lessons. Extremely engaging. I would consider listening to this again for content alone.

Simultaneously useful and ethical/moral

The guidance provided by these lectures grounds effective negotiating in terms that are at once practical and fundamentally moral/ethical -- we are encouraged to view these as being in unity, not in competition. These lectures constitute thoughtful work that makes a much-needed contribution to all of our daily discourses.

Great!!!!

Enjoyed it. I was surprised I found myself using the techniques naturally. I highly recommend this book.

Compelling

Tons of research spiced up with memorable stories presented 0in ver memorable way. Thank you

Definitely one of the best!

The topic was well researched, and the lecture perfectly executed. And with that said I've learned a lot...ready to trash-it-out at the HIGH-TABLE!

A master course on negotiation

Where does The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I love The Great Courses, and this new title has been no exception. I'm a veteran negotiator myself, and studied negotiation many years ago in graduate school, so I wasn't sure if listening to this would add anything new. Of course I should not have underestimated The Great Courses.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal?

A friend asked me if this course was more for professionals or for personal enrichment. I had to think about it. Could the course be equally valuable for both? The answer is a clear yes. For professionals, Professor Freeman provides detailed strategies and tactics for preparing for and conducting complex negotiations ranging from major business contracts to international peace treaties. And yet... he also takes care to apply all of these principles to the simplest of personal situations, with examples such as shopping for cars or dealing with the desk clerk when you check into a hotel and it's overbooked.

What about Professor Seth Freeman’s performance did you like?

Professor Freeman is a natural -- offering the perfect blend of authoritative research and compelling illustrative examples and anecdotes to help make the information both relevant and sticky.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This is a long title -- with 24 lessons clocking in at over 12 hours. The listener would be advised to pace yourself so that you can reflect on each of the lessons.

Any additional comments?

Like most of The Great Courses, this is the audio version of a title that they sell on video format, with companion guidebooks. However, I did not feel like I was missing anything by listening via Audible.com.

Negotiating Through Everyday Live

A person might think this if for business people learning how to manipulate others into buying their product. They would be wrong. Actually this course has benefits for people of all walks of life. Everyone negotiates. We have to. It is part of life. We negotiate our friendships, our marriages, our relationships as employers and as employees. We negotiate our salaries, our mortgages, how much we pay for all sorts of products. And this course is about how to negotiate effectively and fairly. It is good for consumers in that it alerts you to bullish negotiating tactics that strong arm you into buying things you don’t need or paying too much. It also teaches you why it is not best to negotiate in such a way that you get all you possibly could in a deal. It teaches you the dangers of developing a reputation of being greedy, and the benefits of developing a reputation for being generous and fair.
Some of the better things I have learned is thinking through your BATNA, or best alternatives. How to research this and figure out what you can be happy doing without. The importance of third party objective estimates of what a thing is worth, like blue book values when buying or selling a car. Some of the stuff may be things you more or less knew before, but hearing the discussion concerning the phenomena gets you thinking about it in different way, and not only knowing it but understanding it.