Executive Personal Assistants and Negotiation Skills

Executive Assistant often has to deal with negotiation in their roles. This is because they will encounter business at a high level and often be responsible for negotiating with suppliers, other department and even customers, whilst their managers are absent.

Therefore, a successful Executive Assistant will need to develop some great negotiation skills, if they are going to succeed in their careers. However, approaching the business world for the first time as a negotiator can be intimidating.

How should I prepare myself?

Think about your skills that you have developed in your work experience and in your wider life. Remember when you are dealing with people skills, such as negotiations, you can draw upon your life experiences. Outside of work, where will you have negotiated?

• Buying your house
• Getting your jobs
• Getting holiday approved
• Compromising with your partner, husband or wife.
• Or even negotiating for cooperation with the toughest bargainers of all,
your children.

The above examples are likely to be encountered by the majority of the population, at one point or another. So when you are preparing to negotiate on a business sense, you should think about all of the strengths that you possess in a negotiation. I would do this exercise and right down a list of your natural attributes.

What makes a good negotiator?

There are many attributes to a good negotiator. Here is a list of the skills that one should possess:

• The ability to prepare and research the subject. This is important because you need a sound base of knowledge to argue your points. It will also help you to understand what the best outcome is for yourself and what motivates the other side.

• The ability to prioritise. We rarely get anything that we want in a negotiation, as there has to be an element of compromise on both sides. Therefore, you need to be able to prioritise your requirements that are fundamental to the outcome of the negotiation.

• Listening. You need to understand where the other side is coming from. A failure to appreciate their point of view, may lead to you failing to come to final agreement.

• Open mindedness and adaptability. You often are presented with potential solutions during the discussion.

Therefore, you will need to be able to take on new ideas and outcomes and see if they can work for you. Often a suitable outcome is presented to you, which you had never expected. If you are inflexible, you will miss these opportunities.

How to Convert Telephone Calls into Powerful Presentations

You can multiply your ability to persuade by 400%, whether your audience is 1 or 100. Web-based presentations add a visual element to teleconferences. Instead of just talking to prospects, you can simultaneously show them and tell them. According to a Wharton Business School study, this dual mode communication makes your message up to four times more effective than using just your voice.
Present from your office:

Web-based presentations can be as effective as in-the-same-room presentations, but are free from the costs and frustrations involved in traveling.

Talk to your prospects using your current telephone or–for large groups –a rented bridge line. You and your audience view your visuals using a standard web browser and Internet connection.
You control what’s displayed on your audience’s computer screen! Your screen contains a menu listing available visuals. You control presentation content, pace, and sequence. You can spend as much or as little time as desired on each visual. You can show all of your visuals, or just those needed to respond to attendee concerns or questions.
No limits on audience size:

No audience is too large or too small for a web-based presentation! You can easily and cost-effectively show and tell 1-to-1 as you speak to individual prospects, or you can present to hundreds at a time.
No advance scheduling:

Your visuals are available 24/7. No reservations are required to present. Convert any telephone call into a presentation by inviting your caller to immediately access your online visuals while talking.
More than one set of visuals can be prepared and ready for instant use.
Preparing your visuals:

Use Microsoft PowerPoint(TM) to create your presentation. Presentations can be as simple or complex as desired.
In addition to creating visuals for your “core” presentation, consider creating “contingency” visuals available for showing as needed. This permits you to customize your presentation on the basis of questions from the audience or callers.

You can easily add and edit visuals. This permits you to customize the title or specific visuals with your client’s name or client-specific contents and prices.

After completing your presentation, upload it to the server where your visuals will be available online to you and your clients, prospects, or employees.
Access:

Only those who know the specific location of your presentation on the web will be able to access your visuals. You can communicate the URL during the phone conversation or you can send it to a group via e-mail before an event.

Unless you are also online, visitors will not be able to navigate through your presentation.
Applications:

Any presentation task you would normally accomplish in-person can now be done on the phone and online:

o Demonstrations. Do a better job of describing the benefits of your product or service by showing as well as telling. Interactively walk prospects through the steps you’ll use to help them solve a pressing problem or achieve a desired goal.

o Previews. Increase attendance at teleseminars and live events by previewing the contents and benefits of attending.

o Proposals. Deliver client presentations in an interactive environment. Use your voice to build enthusiasm and address concerns or questions as they arise.

o Continuous contact. Keep in close touch with clients and prospects while helping them make informed purchase decisions and best use of their purchase.

o Training. Keep employees and your sales staff motivated and up to date on your latest products and services.

It’s all about relationships. Web-based presentations are just another way you can put today’s low-cost technology to work building and maintaining close ties with customers and prospects. At low cost, you can communicate with added impact from your office.

Live Bait Fishing – Proper Tackle And Bait Presentation Is Critical To Triggering A Fish To Bite

Having fished the sport fishing boats based in Southern California for many years, I have learned that bait selection and presentation are probably the two most critical, yet often overlooked, steps in fishing with live bait that can ultimately lead to a successful fishing trip. Anglers who have the good fortune of fishing live bait such as anchovies, sardines, mackerel and squid, can easily better their chances of landing more fish with these simple measures that begin at the bait well or tank.

When selecting a bait from the well, spend some time choosing the hottest, or liveliest bait in the well. The bait should not be missing any scales and check to see if the nose of the bait is red. The nose should always be a natural color and not red. Baits with red noses and missing scales are normally stressed from improper handling, overcrowded tank conditions or disease and do not look or swim in a natural behavior, the key to enticing fish to feed.

After selecting the best bait, bait scoops should be used to remove it from the others. If a bait scoop is not available, the angler should carefully slide his hand under the bait and slowly grab the bait with light pressure by the head, so as to not remove the slime or any of the scales on the body. Quickly bait the hook and fluidly cast it as far from the boat as possible, landing the bait softly in the bite zone. Make sure that your tackle, rods and reels, match the appropriate bait and creates as little excess drag on the bait as possible.

Anglers should always be aware of the fishing conditions that surround them. This includes tides, moon phases, currents, patterns and more. Knowing what the fish and the fishing conditions are doing should determine how the angler should bait their hook. Baits can be hooked in the nose, collar, shoulder and butt, depending on how the angler wants the bait to react. I like to nose hook my baits because I move them around as much as possible, including when I retrieve them. Nose hooking is the only way to retrieve the bait with a natural swimming motion, head pointed towards the angler.

When you collar, shoulder or butt hook a bait, they usually get ripped off, fall off or come back in an awkward spinning motion. I only hook my bait in the collar or shoulder when the surface fishing is good and when I know the bait will be inhaled before I need to wind it in. On the other hand, butt hooking is used when the bite zone is deeper and not on the surface. Normally, butt hooking will force it to swim down and away, the ideal scenario for many fishing applications. The price you pay is that you sacrifice the ability to wind the bait back through the bite zone if it did not get bit in the first pass. When butt hooked, the bait will usually spin and come in backwards, not a very appealing appetizer for a finicky fish.

Also, make sure your tackle matches in size and weight to your bait. Sometimes, fishing conditions demand heavy tackle for small baits and on other occasions, light gear for big baits. Other than these times, your rods, reels, bait hooks, fishing line, weight and sinkers should not create any excess drag on the bait. Spinning and conventional casting combos come in a wide range of actions and line classes in both freshwater and saltwater versions and carefully selecting the proper live bait rod and reel is essential.

With these bait selection and presentation tips, I hope you will someday be able to enjoy the thrill of being picked up by a trophy size fish. There is nothing more exciting than fishing with live bait, the heart stopping sensation when you feel that familiar thump on the end of the line, followed by a thumb burning grab of your line from the now, rapidly spinning spool waiting to be engaged with a flip of a button, turn of a handle or a slide of a lever with the familiar call of “hook up”.