The Good Friday Myth

Bob Menard’s You’re the Buyer You Negotiate It! enlivens the business world with an incisive, humorous, and universally applicable negotiation gem. Most negotiation books only consider the sales side of the equation. Selling is only one part of business and not the more profitable part! Other works have painted negotiation in esoteric, academic or legal colors. Menard’s refreshing approach serves up a feast to an eager market hungry to capitalize on the buyer’s profit center potential, even if that profit center is a household budget.

This book weaves a seamless fabric of negotiation principles over a framework of proven procurement concepts. Ample examples illustrate and reinforce the book’s messages of success. Menard combines his experiences with a knack for simple, effective and straightforward expression. This seminal work synthesizes the business experience and innate skill of a consummate professional with a clear, concise set of rules, principles and guidelines that immediately allow a buyer on any level to successfully implement a change in tactics.

He begins by redefining the concept of negotiation from an adversarial “Who can lie cheat and steal the fastest and the most” to more collaborative and mutually productive recognition that the conflict between buyer and seller does not revolve solely around price. Indeed, Menard skillfully demonstrates how to build a negotiation plan around the most important factor in the buy/sell relationship, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Menard places great emphasis on preparation, noting that 90% of the efforts are invested in pursuits such as Price Analysis and Cost Analysis. His chapters on preparation are preludes to the construction of the negotiation strategy. He leaves tactics for last because the strategy dictates the tactics. Menard also includes a handy list of negotiation techniques to avoid.

Many tables and templates are included to help readers internalize the concepts presented in a practical and useful fashion. The appendices provide exercises that readers can use to measure their negotiation skills and apply in practical situations.