Negotiation TacTricks

#11 Scrambled Eggs; Over-Complexity

Present an offer that is not what it seems and is hard to understand

A negotiator complicates a proposal in order to obscure how it works in practice. ?As an example of its use by sellers, think of mobile phone tariffs.? ?

It is common in the sale of utilities where there is nothing to differentiate suppliers of, for instance, gas or electricity.? The products come from the same source and arrive in the same pipe or cable.? If the prices were simple per unit comparisons, the cheaper product would always have 100% of the market.

Some buyers also favour complex pricing models but I have never discovered a sensible reason for this – except as a job creation scam

Counters:

1. Suggest that the work involved in operating the contract is out of proportion to its overall value.
2. Restrict certain, complicated deal structures at the outset, giving reasons why they cannot be considered
3. Add a management fee to recover the costs of operating the contract
4. Admit that the complexity makes the contract too difficult to understand and operate, and ask for a careful and patient explanation.? The negotiator may be embarrassed into admission that it will be hard to operate – or that that they themselves do not understand it!
5. Ask the other party to create a spreadsheet or other formal documentation to explain how it works