By definition, lumber traders earn their living through negotiation. Most days, the process is more nuanced than “buy low – sell high”!

Trade deals involving negotiation are making news on many fronts these days. Online articles readily offer varying principles, guidelines, and rules for effective negotiation. One such report in the Harvard Business Review offers what the author terms “four ‘golden rules’ to be the most helpful towards productive negotiation outcomes.”

Some have been known to describe successful outcomes around strategy of ‘winning versus losing’, or characterizing established trade deals as “the worst ever”. However, experienced lumber traders know that successful long term customer-supplier relationships, as with international trade deals, are built on effective “win-win” negotiations.

Current NAFTA negotiations are taking shape around what has been described as a list of ‘demands’ from the parties involved. While noises and threats of cancelling NAFTA eminate from some quarters, serious folks tell us to keep focus on the real work of negotiations that recognize there are benefits to be gained for all in working toward effective updating of the deal. Thus the ‘golden rules’ as spelled out in HBR that parallel different stages of a negotiation are interesting to view in the light of negotiations underway on many fronts.

1. The background homework: This serves as a good reminder that any beginning of negotiation calls for need to understand the interests and positions of the other side relative to your own interests and positions.

2. During the process, don’t negotiate against yourself: It’s pointed out that this is especially true if you don’t fully know the position of the other side. This is a recommendation not to give in too early on the points important to you. Wait to better understand which points are more important to the other side.

3. The stalemate: We’re told that there will often come a point in a negotiation where it feels like there is zero room for either side to budge. Both sides are stuck on their position and may have lost sight of the overall goals of the negotiation. If you recognize that you’ve reached this point, see if you can give in to the other side on their issue in exchange for an unrelated point. My Dad relates the story of how my parents negotiated the sale of their first home in Prince George 52 years ago, when a transfer back to Vancouver by his wholesale lumber employer, Ralph S. Plant Ltd, necessitated sale of the home. When negotiations seemingly reached a stalemate over price, Dad recognized that the unfinished basement in the home had been mentioned as one of the sticking points. The prospective buyer, a self-described handyman, was satisfied to point of successful closure on the sale with offer from my Dad to include a trailer of fine Carrier studs, sufficient for completion of the home’s basement.

4.To close or not to close: That is, whether you drive too hard a bargain, cannot reconcile on key terms, or feel that the deal is just too rich for your blood, it’s suggested you “make the offer you want to and let the other side walk if they don’t want it.” This is not to say to be offensive or to low ball, but rather, to be honest, straightforward on what you are willing to do, and explain that you understand if it doesn’t work for them and that it is the best you can do.” No doubt this rule garners respect among all parties involved, including buyers and sellers of wood.