Art of the Deal - The Rules of Negotiation

I negotiate with hundreds of people a year - both online and offline – haggling, whether it is with customers, suppliers, investors, or would-be employees.

I can humbly say I learned over the years to negotiate like a “true master” though we all sometimes get into trouble - when something careless just slips out.

Ziad K Abdelnour, President & CEO at Blackhawk Partners, Inc., Founder & Chairman of the Board at Financial Policy Council, Inc., Member of the Board of Governors at Middle East Forum (1995)

Here are a few but priceless tips as to what to avoid if you are really keen on improving your negotiation skills.

1. Avoid the word "between." It often feels reasonable—and therefore like progress—to throw out a range.

2. "I think we're close." We've all experienced deal fatigue: The moment when you want so badly to complete a deal that you signal to the other side that you are ready to settle on the details and move forward.

3. "Why don't you throw out a number?" There are differing schools of thought on this, and many people believe you should never be the first person in a negotiation to quote a price.

4. "Fuck you." The savviest negotiators take nothing personally; they are impervious to criticism and impossible to fluster. And because they seem unmoved by the whole situation and unimpressed with the stakes involved, they have a way of unnerving less-experienced counterparts....Business Negotiation Skills

Wall Street elites led to the Great Depression and set the conditions for WWII

Wall Street elites led to the Great Depression and set the conditions for WWII. Desperate and impoverished populations increasingly supported more and more extreme leaders. The conditions are now so ripe for world war that even the leading leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky was quoted in the April 2010 edition of The Progressive comparing modern-day America to Weimar Germany prior to the outbreak of WWII. Research the history of pre-war societies and you will see how our current political environment fits historical precedent like a glove.

After analyzing our current crisis and studying well-established historical precedents, one must conclude that the global bankers have only three possible cards left to play. The first is admitting culpability and working to restore the American economic engine to its free market potential. History has taught us that the ruling class rarely admits error and never concedes power. The second is to foment so much civil unrest and fear that the general population will be clamoring for a global dictator who will provide them food, shelter and security in exchange for their individual freedom and sovereignty. The final play is global conflict where they can try and control the outcome by means of funding both sides......The greatest threat facing the US today is
 

Create Wealth | Create Real Wealth | Tips to Stay Wealthy

One of the rules of the rich is that if you wish to stay wealthy, you need to either buy or create assets that produce value. In other words, you start a company that provides a good or service that people believe they need and are willing to purchase from you because they feel that the value of your product, service, information, or whatever is equal to or exceeds the price paid. This is generation of income. If the amount of income generated by your assets exceeds the amount of your costs, then you have made a profit. An entrepreneur is someone who solves people’s problems on a profit margin.

The key is to select attractive assets that can produce income or appreciate. An asset can either produce current income, appreciate (and depreciate), or both. The choice of which is a decision that is personal in nature, but a good way to establish a baseline is to ask yourself if you were to stop working, would your assets continue to put food on the table and pay your monthly obligations? Having your investments not only sustain you but produce more than you need is one way in which wealth was created for hundreds of years before Wall Street got so sophisticated and abstract that financial games came into the picture.

If you want to make real money, then the first thing I suggest is that you get educated. Making money is an intrinsic activity of all of humanity, and mankind has developed countless ways to do it. There is nothing inherently evil in the process of making money, and the notion is illogical, but that is one of the underlying tenets in our present education system. We are taught from an early age that making money is hard and that those who make lots of money are morally suspect. American culture studies programs at some of the nation’s leading universities have even gone so far as to teach the absurd and illogical notion that the rich became rich because they enjoy privilege earned on the backs of African slaves. Minority millionaires like entrepreneur Herman Cain, Earl Graves, Sr., and Reginald F. Lewis prove the utter nonsense of this notion, yet this is the illogical Progressive philosophy that has permeated our education system.

The truth is that it is not difficult to make money once you understand that money is a tool and that it can be used, through various processes known collectively as finance to create real, tangible wealth. The most difficult thing about our relationship with money is giving up the idea of what that income is or should be and where it will come from. For example, most people would argue that they are on a fixed income and there is only so much money they receive each month. Others say their monthly paycheck is XYZ dollars and they don’t want to get a second job.

In the first example above, the person has defined the boundaries of his income and he does not allow the space for other income to flow. In the second example, the person has defined a limited channel of how and where the money is to appear.

I believe that to create real wealth one must be willing to abandon one’s limited thinking, remove the boundaries around our abundance, and stop outlining how it is to appear in our lives. Remember not to create boundaries and remember not to define the outcome. Most importantly, stop letting people who are motivated by jealousy and envy dictate what your limitations are. Maybe they think that wealth is evil and that rich people are heartless, but they never can answer the one basic fundamental question: if you, Miss Liberal, take away the money from those who make it to give it to those who only choose to take from society, how are you going to force the wealth creators to continue creating what you so freely take? When the wealth creators go away, Mr. Progressive, who is going to pay your bills? After you’ve created a level playing field and enforced economic equality and social justice on everyone, Comrade Communist, how are you going to provide basic goods, like food, and basic services, like electricity and clean water? If everyone is equal and everyone is entitled, what is the incentive for anyone to initiate any activity? The ultimate answer for your utopian dream is slavery and dictatorial tyranny. History has shown time and time again that there is no such thing as all things being equal. That is why Jefferson wrote that our inalienable rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing is guaranteed in life, especially happiness.

Your thoughts?

Ziad K. Abdelnour is President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. , http://blackhawkpartners.com/ , Founder & President of the Financial Policy Council http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/ and Author of Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Economic-Warfare-Creating-Regulation/dp/1118150120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311437307&sr=8-2

Where do we view the Biggest Challenges in the Private Equity Industry for the Years 2010-2012? - by Ziad K Abdelnour

It is a fact that the private equity industry today faces an ever complicated and difficult environment as credit markets are trying to absorb maturing debt from large leveraged buyouts and as a number of the most credible financial sponsors out there are still scrambling to prepare for the re financings that will start coming onto markets in 2012….Read more

Thanks,

Ziad Abdelnour

Ziad K. Abdelnour is President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. , http://blackhawkpartners.com/ , Founder & President of the Financial Policy Council http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/ and Author of Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Economic-Warfare-Creating-Regulation/dp/1118150120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311437307&sr=8-2

There are 2Ways to Conquer and Enslave a Nation. One is by the Sword. The other is by Debt

People can’t afford to pay their medical bills. Millions upon millions of American families have lost their homes, and millions more are on the verge of losing their homes. An all-time record number of children are going hungry. Meanwhile, record-breaking profits and record-breaking bonuses for the bailed out banana republic aristocracy.

Now that you are beginning to grasp the wealth at hand, and the possibilities of how that wealth can be used to evolve society, let’s take a look at how we got into this situation and how exactly it is that they got away with hoarding so much wealth.

To paraphrase a man who fought against the aristocracy, ‘The depravity and amount of suffering required for the accumulation of such a staggering magnitude of wealth, in the hands of a few, is kept out of the picture, out of the mass media, and it is not easy to make people see or understand this.’ Especially when you have an all-encompassing mainstream media propaganda system…Know more

Ziad Abdelnour

Ziad K. Abdelnour is President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. , http://www.blackhawkpartners.com/ , Founder & President of the Financial Policy Council http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/ and Author of Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Economic-Warfare-Creating-Regulation/dp/1118150120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311437307&sr=8-2

Stop Procrastinating and Find a Reason to be Rich by Ziad K Abdelnour

The message about money we’re taught from a young age is work hard, earn money, spend it, and when we run short, borrow some more. Unfortunately, 90 percent of the Western world subscribes to the above dogma, simply because it's easier to find a job and work for money than to make your own way and build your own wealth.

But to those who want to buck the trend, I have 10 ways to awaken your financial genius which I'll share with you over the next couple months.

The first is Find a Reason.

If you ask most people if they want to be rich, they say “yes.” But then reality sets in. They realize it's a lot of work to become rich. There is no getting rich quick. Facing these obstacles, they throw in the towel and take the easy route—getting a job and handing investments over to a pathetic broker.

Yet, there are clearly those in life who don't take the easy route. And there are those who are wildly successful where others aren't. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful? The answer is found in a reason...Know more

Thanks,

Ziad Abdelnour

Ziad K. Abdelnour is President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. , http://blackhawkpartners.com/ , Founder & President of the Financial Policy Council http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/ and Author of Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Economic-Warfare-Creating-Regulation/dp/1118150120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311437307&sr=8-2