There’s several dodgy versions of this we won’t go into. This is from Harvard Law School of negotiation for writing contracts. There’s 5 rules:
1 Define the deal before you set the price
It means don’t predict the future. The most famous version of this was George Lucas negotiating the merchandising rights to Star Wars, where the studio saw no economic advantage. Forget buyer beware, think seller beware. One bad contract wording can bankrupt a company.
2 Know your words’ worth
Understand the difficulty of enforcing a clause. No threat without consequence.
3 Balance precision and flexibility
Be exact and precise only in the areas that you need it, don’t bloat your contracts to cover every possible eventuality
4 Avoid doom and gloom
This is where a good salesperson needs to get in front of their lawyer’s intent to protect and look at the bigger picture
5 Negotiate the relationship
Use language in your contracts that promotes an ongoing relationship, especially in new business negotiation . “At that price, if you sold a million units we would need to pay you $15 Million and we would be out of business”. We need a clause for this eventuality.
