Vertical Pulse

Secrets of Power Negotiating for Salespeople

I recently read Secrets of Power Negotiating for Salespeople by Roger Dawson. I found this book to provide excellent insight into selling and negotiating. Among the kernels of wisdom imparted by Roger Dawson are the following:

• You should ask for more than you expect to get because a) it gives you some negotiating room; b) you might get what you are asking for; c) it raises the perceived value of your product or service; d) it allows the counterparty to retain his ego when he believes he will win a concession; and, e) you can create a climate where the buyer feels that he won.
• Never say yes to the first offer or counter offer from the buyer. It automatically triggers two thoughts: "I could have done better" and "Something must be wrong."
• When a buyer hesitates to make a purchase by claiming that they need the approval of a higher authority you should a) appeal to their ego; b) get their commitment that they will recommend the purchase to their higher authority; and c) go to a qualified subject to close. An example of the latter is "We will assume that you will sign the contract unless your lawyers veto it within 24 hours."
• While the value of a material object may go up, the value of services always appears to go down. Never make a concession and trust that the other side will make it up to you later. Always negotiate your fee before you do the work.
• Never offer to split the difference between the offer and the bid. Forcing the other side to do so gives you room to offer to split a narrower range of differences. For instance, if the bid is $10,000 and the offer is $14,000, the buyer is better off forcing the seller to offer $12,000 and then the buyer can offer to split that difference and pay only $11,000.
• When asked for a small concession by the other side, always ask for something in return. Doing so elevates the value of the concession so that you can use it as a trade-off later. Most important, it stops the grinding away process.
• When you have to make concessions, it is best to make the initial concession reasonable - maybe half of your negotiating range. Then, each subsequent concession should be progressively smaller. This is because you are communicating that the other side is not going to do any better.

The Kurds and Kurdistan

I recently heard Kevin McKiernan discuss his journalistic coverage of the Kurds and Kurdistan. Mr. McKiernan has covered the Kurds for many years, has conducted extensive research into Kurdish issues and is a preeminent authority on the Kurds.

Among the interesting points that Mr. McKiernan made are the following:

• The Kurds are striving for their independence and autonomy. As such, the Kurdish Parliament has passed legislation that states that Iraqi forces wishing to enter the Kurdish providence must seek permission from Kurdish authorities. Tourists arriving in Kurdistan have their passports stamped "Kurdish Iraq", not merely "Iraq". Only Kurdish flags fly in Kurdistan, not Iraqi flags.
• The Kurdish economy is extremely strong. There is almost no unemployment. Many (skilled) laborers arrive in Kurdistan from all over Iraq, Turkey, and even Jordan in search of job opportunities. World-class resorts and a 27-story building are being built in Kurdistan.
• There are - or are expected to soon be - flights from many European cities directly to Kurdistan. This will eliminate the need for transferring in Baghdad.
• The Kurdish government is very progressive: there are four women cabinet ministers and the government is very sensitive to environmental concerns.
• The Kurdish diaspora is very large in Australia, Europe, particularly in Germany and the Scandinavian countries. In the US, the largest concentrations of Kurds are found in Nashville, TN; Fargo, ND; and, San Diego.

Hitler's Prisons: A Book Review

I recently read Hitler's Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany by Nikolaus Wachsmann. This was a highly academic treatise on the intersection of the appearance of legitimate law and incarceration in Nazi Germany. The book discussed the political dissidents' incarceration in "regular" prisons, not concentration or death camps.

Among the interesting points in this book were the following:

• Crime appeared to be pervasive in the Weimar Republic, which was unencumbered by the stricter censorship of previous decades. In Berlin, at the time the world's third largest city, the press was informed of every murder that took place. The police believed that they would be successful in solving crimes by involving the public. During intermissions cinemas even showed photos of wanted criminals.
• Political violence was not hidden from the public, as were most other crimes, but often took place in broad daylight. Many Germans witnessed the street battles for themselves, which strengthened their conviction that crime and disorder were on the rampage.
• All forms of non-conformist behavior could be interpreted as attacks on the state, including complaints about living conditions or jokes about Hitler's sex life. Most of the defendants before German courts, who were overwhelmingly male, had not set out to take a political stance against the regime. In fact, the defendant's tongue had often been loosened by alcohol: almost one-third of all defendants tried by the Frankfurt special court for "malicious attacks" had been denounced for remarks they had made in a pub.
• In 1933, individual German states outlawed the Jehovah's Witnesses as "enemies of the state", with a national ban following in 1935. Having sworn the oath of loyalty to Jehovah, the believers refused to acknowledge the claim to total control of society by Hitler and the Nazi dictatorship. The believers did not practice the Hitler salute, boycotted political demonstrations, organizations and elections and the men also refused to serve in the German army after general conscription was introduced in 1935.
• Cases of castration in Nazi Germany were openly discussed in newspapers and in legal and medical journals, which sometimes even carried "before and after" photographs of castrated men. However, at the time, castration was not viewed as inhumane punishment. Denmark introduced voluntary castration in 1929, with Norway in 1934, Holland in 1938 and Sweden in 1944. Finland and some states in the USA allowed compulsory castration for sex offenders. 
• The Nazi leadership despised homosexuals because they "had upset the sexual balance-sheet of Germany" by failing to produce children. In all, some 10,000-15,000 homosexuals were taken to concentration camps. By contrast, around 100,000 served time in penal institutions.
• It is estimated that 360,000 individuals became victims of the Sterilization Law in Nazi Germany, the great majority of them before the outbreak of the war.
• In Nazi Germany, inmates were often held by the police for prolonged periods of time before their trials began. Similarly, prisoners were often handed over to the police by the court system after their sentences expired. It was common for judges - whom the Reich Ministry of Justice described as soldiers on the home front - to alert the police before a prisoner's sentence was to expire so as deprive prisoners of freedom. When the military authorities believed that their prisoners might benefit from resistance fighters trying to free them, the military handed such prisoners over to the legal system for safekeeping.
• Hitler himself had ordered in October 1940 that concentration camp inmates and convicts be used to neutralize Allied bombs which had not been detonated.
• After World War II, East Germany did a much more thorough job of purging former Nazis from legal positions. The strategy for the more aggressive purging of former Nazis in East Germany was to position itself to characterize West Germany as a bastion of Nazi holdouts and a fascist state that embraced Nazi ideals. Of around 1,000 East German judges in 1950, only one had been a member of the Nazi Party. To fill the gaping holes left by the mass dismissal of Nazi officials, the authorities in the east trained so-called people's judges in crash courses.

Saddam's Secrets: A Book Review

I recently read Saddam's Secrets: How An Iraqi General Defied And Survived Saddam Hussein by Iraqi General Georges Sada. Saddam's Secrets is a biographical book about General Sada. Reading this biography provided a glimpse into life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein as well as a sketch of Saddam's megalomania.

Among the most interesting points in the book are:

• During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, 147 bridges were demolished by coalition bombers and missile strikes. In 2003, by contrast, not a single bridge was destroyed.
• Saddam was intent on attacking Israel with chemical weapons in 1991. However, such plans were not carried out because it became apparent that Israel possessed such sophisticated technology that such an attack would have been futile. For instance, Israeli aircraft had very advanced radar with the capability to see more than 125 miles in any direction whereas the Iraqi planes could only see for about 15 miles. Also, Israeli laser-guided missiles could lock on Iraqi fighters while they were still 65 miles away and fire at them at a range of at least fifty miles.
• Of the 606 Kuwaitis captured by Iraq during the Gulf War, 605 were killed by Saddam.
• Saddam placed military bunkers under civilian shelters so as to preempt any attacks on military command and control centers.
• During the five months preceding the commencement of hostilities in the Gulf War, the United Nations Security Council put forth 12 separate resolutions condemning Saddam's actions and calling for immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. His refusal to cooperate with those demands led to the formation of one of the most formidable coalitions in military history, representing 31 nations from five continents. Ten of these nations had predominantly Arab or Muslim populations.
• Of the approximately 360,000 Iraqi soldiers on the battlefield during the Gulf War, 28% of them (nearly 100,000) were killed in action, and as many as 200,000 sustained serious injuries. In addition, coalition forces captured 60,000 prisoners, and by some estimates there may have been as many as 150,000 deserters. As for casualties on the other side, 390 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen died in combat, while 458 were wounded in action. Among coalition forces, there was a total of 510 casualties.
• Saddam was making a fortune by evading oil sanctions. (According to a report of the Independent Inquiry Committee of the United Nations, headed by Paul Volker, more than 2,200 companies participating in the UN's Oil-for-Food program paid at least $1.8 billion in kickbacks to Saddam.) One method was by swapping oil with Iran. Thus, when inspectors checked the properties of oil being shipped in the Gulf, they would determine that the oil came from Iran. Iran was able to ship out Iraqi oil with ease because no one checked their oil shipments since they were not subject to sanctions.
• In 2003, when the terrorists came and bombed 18 churches in Iraq, many Assyrians left the country. Within three months, between 35,000 and 50,000 Christians left Iraq.
• Saddam had Chinese technicians working on nuclear bombs in China on behalf of Iraq. Saddam took advantage of an irrigation dam collapse in Syria in June 2002 to spirit WMD out of Iraq. There were 56 sorties of commercial airliners that whisked away WMD to Syria under the guise of humanitarian relief.
• A law in Iraq stipulated that at least one close relative must remain in Iraq when another relative was traveling or living outside of Iraq.
• There was a law in Iraq that held that everyone must watch Saddam's speeches on television. Some Iraqis were murdered by Saddam simply for turning off the television when he was making a speech.
• Before the coalition invasion in 2003, Saddam distributed more than eight million AK-47s to the popular army, and another four million were stolen from the military arsenals. Saddam released 150,000 criminals from Iraqi jails in 2003 to destabilize Iraq.
• In addition to the killing of many Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War and many Kuwaitis during the Kuwaiti Invasion, Saddam killed more Baath Party members than any other person. Saddam killed more officers of the Iraqi Army than any other person or nation. Saddam killed more Tikritis than any other man. Saddam killed more clerics of all the major Muslim denominations and tribes than any other man.

Two other books about Saddam Hussein that I found very informative are: a) I Was Saddam's Son by Latif Yahia and Karl Wendl which discusses Saddam and Uday Hussein's sadistic behavior; and b) Saddam: King of Terror by Con Coughlin which discusses Saddam's rise to power.

Glass

I just learned that glass can be recycled an infinite number of times.

Making Innovation Pay - A Book Review

I recently read Making Innovation Pay: People Who Turn IP into Shareholder Value which was edited by Bruce Berman, President of Brody Berman Associates. Making Innovation Pay is a collection of essays written by some of the best minds in the field of Intellectual Property. Leading IP practitioners (such Marshall Phelps, Ronald A. Katz, Joseph Beyers and Peter Detkin), IP strategists (such as Dan McCurdy and Alexander Poltorak), IP negotiators (such as the Honorable Bruce Lehman) and IP lawyers (such as Raymond P. Niro and Ronald J. Schutz) contributed their best ideas for monetizing and leveraging IP into value for the enterprises that create and own intellectual assets.

Among the most interesting points raised in Making Innovation Pay were the following:

• An independent inventor's very lack of portfolio patents for a defendant to counterattack has become a new source of leverage.
• Some companies with large IP portfolios are segregating their assets by placing them into a special-purpose entity remote from easy counterassertion.
• When buying a patent, the purchaser should make sure that: a) the seller has all of the rights to the patent in terms of joint ownership issues and the licenses. A company will receive a better price if it can show it has all the rights to the patent being sold; b) Make sure all of the maintenance fees have been paid; and, c) Make sure the chain of title is clear and correct. The patents should not be pledged as collateral. The Patent Office should have the correct information on file.
• One of the most valuable aspects of patents is that they can ensure freedom of operation and/or reduce risks when navigating new and improved product offerings through densely populated patent minefields.
• In addition to having multiple patents to assert, it is a significant advantage if there is a continuation application pending. A continuation patent application is based on the original patent and is entitled to the same filing or priority date. Having a continuation patent application on file allows the patent holder to do two important things: 1) the patent holder can draft new patent claims with the benefit of knowledge of the infringing product or method, and 2) the patent holder can send to the USPTO any prior art that the alleged infringer claims would invalidate the patent.
• Running an IP licensing function as a separate full P&L is fraught with problems. A far better approach is to centralize IP operations and have the licensing revenue flow back into the appropriate business units.

The above are some of the issues that will be discussed at our next Maximizing Returns on Intellectual Property Portfolios Conference which will take place in San Francisco on January 16-17, 2007. More information is available from Naomi Barazani at 609-919-1895 x100 or neomi@incrementaladvantage.com.

To find out more on IncreMental Advantage's Intellectual Property Conference Series, visit www.incrementaladvantage.com/conferences.