Interview With Cory Gales About Negotiating
Having being the lead sound engineer at
Emmy Award winning studio YA Momz House and hip-hop and rib radio station WAMO,
working behind the scenes of countless projects, Cory Gales is the perfect guy
to ask about negotiations. Everyday he negotiates with artist and clients
seeking to purchase ad space on the radio station. Not to mention, he is also a musician himself. With that said Cory Gales has had the
opportunity to see the entertainment industry from a number of
perspectives. Yet, even
though he is very talented he understands that it is important to know how to
negotiate in order to succeed.
With this in mind he has granted me the
opportunity to explore his viewpoints on negotiating. Overall Cory Gale’s views
negotiating as a chess game. In further detail, he believes that each move is
crucial. Therefore it is important to know what you are negotiating for and use
strategies to win negotiations. In addition he also mentioned that power played
an important role in how we negotiate. In other words know your worth and stand
your ground. As can be seen in his
viewpoint Cory Gales would describe himself as a hard negotiator. Therefore he tends to negotiate on
positional bargaining. Therefore, in most cases there is no flexibility. However it does depend on the
relationship you have with a person because this can lead to flexibility and
allowing yourself to build mutual benefits. Provided that he is a hard negotiator I followed by asking
him “ Are people who are hard negotiators also speaking from there ego”. His
response was “ 90% of the
people in negotiation hold onto their egos.” He also stated “ Amongst the
average people no one wants to be stepped on”. From there he continued to state
that “ Its all a game,
however you have to have standards while playing”.
The next question I asked him focused on
the idea that the other party will not play. In other words the second party
will not negotiate with you instead they are playing hardball. To speak on the subject he stated “ Is
it worth your time. Nothing is more important than my time.” Although this may be true there are
other ways to look at the scenario. For example I explained to him that it
might be useful to look at other peoples interest get them to play. However he stated “sure that’s one option but is it worth
doing”. At that moment I thought
anything worth having is worth fighting for so yes. If we can uncover the other person’s position instead of
attacking it we can find out what they want. As a result once we find out what the other party wants we
can get them to play.
After talking about people engaging in hardball,
we took the time to discuss preparing for negotiations. Cory Gales told me
while preparing for negotiations he reviews company’s backgrounds and 10k forms
and also asks around about them.
In addition he also reviews their Internet presence to see what they are
involved in as of today. He believes its better to come to the table prepared
than empty handed. At the same time states that its great to make offers based
on hard facts and data. Therefore he as well believed that using objective
criteria is valuable while negotiating.
Or else your offers will be unreasonable and prospects wont take the
other party serious.
Finally we discussed people losing their
tempers during negotiations. His views were “70% of people who lose their
tempers during negotiations are just putting up a smoke screen. The guy with a
cooler head will always win”. As a matter of fact his is true. People who lose their tempers during
negotiations are blinded by their rage. Therefore they miss great opportunities
right in front of them. At the same time they embarrass themselves. Therefore
the other party should allow the upset party to blow off steam and not attack
the person back. In doing so this allows each party to work separate of their
personal problems. In addition this may also make a better working relationship
because no each party knows how the other party feels about them.
