Turkey: Let's Make a Deal!
From ExecutivePlanet.com
What you should know before negotiating
Always come to Turkey knowing two things. Your success is defined by your ability to build effective personal relationships combined with a clearly outlined and well presented proposal.
Business is personal. Although this is changing with the influx of big multi-nationals and a more corporate culture in some of the larger companies, many businesses are still family owned and run.
Turks will want to do business with those they like, trust, feel comfortable with and with those that can provide a long term relationship. If they feel you are hiding something or there is an element of suspicion about your motives, you may not get very far.
Building a relationship with your Turkish counterpart[s] is therefore critical. The first meeting should be solely focused on getting to know each other. Once a relationship has been established, you can safely move on to business matters.
As well as looking to the person, Turks are also astute businesspeople. Ensure your proposal clearly demonstrates the mutual benefit and profitability of any agreement or partnership.
Turks are primarily oral and visual communicators, so in addition to written statistics, projections and the like, try to present information vocally or with maps, graphs and charts.
Decision making can be slow. It is most likely that you will meet and negotiate with less senior members of a family first. Once you are seen as trustworthy and your proposal financially viable you will then move on to meet more senior members. A decision is ultimately made by the head of the family/company.
When negotiating, the Turks will start at extremes in order to gage your response. Prior to negotiations know your target figure and work slowly towards it through meaningful concessions. When conceding, ensure you present this as a favour and a decision made out of respect and liking for your counterpart[s]. Try to concede only once you have gained agreement on a reciprocal concession on a separate or related issue.
Do not use deadlines or pressure tactics as the Turks will use this to their advantage and reverse the tactic by threatening to cancel agreements or end negotiations. Be patient.
It may not always be necessary to focus on financial benefits when negotiating. It is just as useful to point to areas such as power, influence, honour, respect and other non-monetary incentives.
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