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

What One Should Have Learned as a Child but Didn't

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

It confirms that treating people with respect and kindness is still valued. Sometimes it feels as if one is alone when believing in, and practicing, such values.

What other book might you compare The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal to and why?

The Art of War. Many of the same principals apply.

What three words best describe Professor Seth Freeman’s voice?

EngagingExpressiveKind

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Unfortunately in a negative way. When discussing confrontation in lecture 24, it struck me - in my "professional" interactions with management over 33 years - how most high tech manager's behaviors are in direct opposition to every one of the points Prof. Freeman makes about appropriate and constructive confrontation.

Any additional comments?

I work with the quantitative aspect of corporate mergers and acquisitions. This lecture series provides context that greatly helps with that work. There are many "well DUH!!" moments until one realizes that these common sense suggestions are frequently, and often violently, violated.

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.

My wife cried with joy when I used a tactic...

What did you love best about The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal?

I implemented one of the negotiation strategies with my wife one day when she had an issue with my mother. This tends to be a touchy subject in most marriages. I executed Dr. Freeman's advice to a T. We had the discussion (which would have usually lead to an argument with me defending my mother's position) in the morning and went to work. Upon arriving home, she brought be aside and talked to me for 45 minutes with tears in her eyes about how much she appreciated my approach and that I made her feel like the situation had gone away. That said, even if you are not in business, this book is sure to help you in your every day life.

Dr. Freeman did a great job putting the lecture together and tying everything together with real life scenarios. He is, in my opinion, the perfect mix of academic and professional who has experienced, first hand, negotiation situations in his previous roles as a corporate attorney. In addition, he provided compelling evidence, and as the best professors always do, provoked a critical thought process in the listener. The teaching execution was excellent and it was both insightful and entertaining to listen to!

What other book might you compare The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal to and why?

Some of the studies mentioned were also mentioned in "Transformational Leadership" another great course by Dr. Michael Roberto. The two books, however, had different perspectives on the research and were complimentary to each other.

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

Dr. Freeman was a great performer.

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

I implemented one of the negotiation strategies with my wife one day when she had an issue with my mother. This tends to be a touchy subject in most marriages. I executed Dr. Freeman's advice to a T. We had the discussion (which would have usually lead to an argument with me defending my mother's position) in the morning and went to work. Upon arriving home, she brought be aside and talked to me for 45 minutes with tears in her eyes about how much she appreciated my approach and that I made her feel like the situation had gone away. That said, even if you are not in business, this book is sure to help you in your every day life.

Great Courses is Using Tracking SpyWare

What disappointed you about The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal?

I own about 400 Great Courses. Recently my anti tracking software found that when you try to read reviews of courses on their webpage my anti tracking software reported that a third party tracking spyware controls your access to other be able to read other customer reviews. Either you allow it to track your tastes or you block it and can not read the reviews. Most customers do not use anti tracking/spyware so they would not know about being the tracked. I also do not know what other info such as my address, email, credit card etc. Great Courses has given this spyware access to, yet alone whether they are sharing it with other third parties. I always believed that GC/Teaching Company was a high class company and would not lower itself to secret spying by third parties. How much money or low cost services are they getting from the spyware company. Oh sure, they will claim that it's to make my/your shopping experience better...Bull! If so why is it secret or why is there no optout option.

Looks like the Great Courses is also lowering its standards in its course selection. Call me a snob but I do not consider a course in Mediteranian Cooking, home gardening or photography Great Courses on an intillectual level of their courses up to ayear or two ago. They may be interesting, and even I might want to learn more, but they are pop culture or trading school material but not Great Courses as the name and past history implies. I suggested to them that they spin of another company and say call it Learn a Hobby or Knowledge for the Masses. A spin off would be less likely to suck monetary and human resources from the mission of presenting high leverl college and graduate level really GreatCourses.

Back to the spyware tracking issue. I am sick and tired of spyware that invades my privacy without leaving to me the customer the right to know that it is happening or how the collected info is used. I know that many people have given up caring or believing that they have anything to do about it. They can! The Senate and the Federal Trade Commission are planning regulations similar to what th EU has. Turn yourself into being a regular pain in the axx... If enoughof us did we hold the key to stop it as we control where we make our purchases and how much we spend where. We need though to be consistant and frequent in our contacts and criticism.

I hate the idea of having more regulations especially types that are not often not consistantly enforced, however, the business community seems to lack any self control and are brigging it on themselves. So write this company if you give-a-hoot and especially call or write your Senator and the Federal Trade Commision, offen on this subject.

This course like most great courses is no doubt good or better but unless GC wants to use reviews in the manner that they do now, they will have to share the wealth with me for an honest and detailed review and comments. I prefer that they stop these secretive practices and I will wave my interest in getting paid as I really appreciate other customers opinions and woud be more than willing to contribute my 2¢. Pun intended.

Any additional comments?

GC needs many more high class visuals for nearly all of its courses to justify its high upcharge for video formats over audio alone. Audio posts reviews at its s discretion I wonder if it can accept hard criticism from a very good customer and will publish it.

Everything you need to win arguments w/ girlfriend

And I negotiated with my neighbor to take down his fence that he built on the edge of my driveway. This audiobook has paid for itself.

Narrator pauses at awkward times which made me think someone was calling or that someone texted me.

Didn't find this compelling

I only made it partway through this before returning it. I didn't care for the narrator's style. It is delivered like a self help infomercial. The material was so-so. Most rather obvious as in "be soft on the person but hard on the issue". Most people with any amount of life experience intuitively know these things. I was hoping for more specific tactics and situations. Maybe that was to come but I couldn't take the cheesey sales pitch delivery any more.

Outstanding review, new ideas and insights

I have been involved in sales my whole career and have studied negotiation techniques. This course is the best summary I can remember studying.
Professor Freeman starts with the most basic and continues to more complex tying the ideas together with real life events. The best part is that he points out how true, long view negotiations must be built on honesty and mutual respect. Tricks and lies have no place here.
Although I am retired and basically am out of sales, I will keep this lesson in my Kindle library for reference for negotiations are a part of everyday life.

great info, poor presentation

I definitely wish I had found this book many years ago. it is extremely useful my only complaint is the narrator makes a lot of mistakes that were left in, trips over his words Etc. highly recommend giving it a chance regardless.

Too Broad + Technical Glitches

What disappointed you about The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal?

The points were too broad. Covering multiple types of negotiating made it feel less relevant and interesting. You have to do a lot of outside thinking to be able to apply the points given to your specific needs/interests

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator either stuttered frequently, or there's a technical glitch. Either way, it was distracting

Excellent Courses

Would you listen to The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal again? Why?

Yes, it's perfectly in depth and covers all the required aspects of negotiating. Most other, shorter titles, focus on one method, or one context, this course give valuable insights in to many techniques, scenarios and possible uses.

What did you like best about this story?

Quality of the material - it's pitched at a great, aproachable level for me.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

Honestly, all of it. I probably took away a lesson / learning from each section.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

hmmmm, I gained some insights as to how my 2 year old is winning more battles than I'd like.

Any additional comments?

Listening to it if you're interested in negotiating. Once you listen to it you'll be glad you did.

Helped me improve

If you could sum up The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal in three words, what would they be?

This was a useful book, it gave me a hand full of techniques and new views. As a result I recommend the book.

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

Detailed example of why someone would be aggressive in rejecting a deal.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

was okay

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

none

Any additional comments?

I feel that the book by Mark Goulston, "Just listen" would be far better than this book. IT's scientific explanation and breakdown of why people react the way they do and linking it to the 3 parts of the brain and how they touch the primal, emotional and logical sections taught me more about negotiation than this book. The core thing I took away from this book was how to think about win win situations. Getting to the core of the objective of different people.

Best audio book I've ever listened to

There are some kernels of gold among a sea of audio books, with this book alone, it not only let me negotiate my phone contract but give me an outlook towards my future.

Thank you dear author

The tips in here actually helped me!

I saved a few hundred at least and also learned to make more money on the receiving side of cash deals.

Ok

Not the best but not the worst either. So things seemed pretty obvious. Will probably listen again to be honest

Some very good points but goes on too long

Presented well, I've learnt some good ways of approaching negotiations and what to watch out for but fell like towards the end the book itnwas being strung out abit and could probably be a few hours shorter.
would still recommend as worth while.

great speaker but content a bit drawn out.

Nice to hear all the stories but very easily summarised and you could save goes by going to the summary few lectures if you already know a bit about communication skills.

Great course.

Great course. Great teatcher. Absolute essensial for a lot of what life trows at me. Only wish i had heard it sooner.

Brilliant course

The course structures and summarises the field and lecturer adds great personal insights.
Enjoyed it.

Enjoyed learning negotiation skills

You learn lot about how people feel and what they care about in lifes day to day dealings, how best to negotiate a win win deal.