A discussion about sales, sales tips and advice, and about those who land the deal

While liberals fret and worry over the pending purchase of the already conservative Wall Street Journal to conservative business tycoon Rupert Murdoch, let me briefly point out a great lesson for anyone enjoying a sales career: Negotiations made this happen.

Sales professionals don't like the word "negotiate" because they usually take it to mean "talk-until-my-commission-suffers".

That's the wrong way to look at, in my opinion...

Back to Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal: There were (are) concerns that his ownership of the widely influencial financial newspaper would be a conflict of interest, and that he might sway editorial positions to favor his own.  So, in order to get the deal done, he agreed to a negotiating point: That an independent oversight board be developed to oversee the editorial page content (now if we could just get MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post and The New York Times to agree to the same thing, we'd be getting closer to a level playing field...but I'll leave that campaign to Bill over at ElephantBiz).

What happened?  The deal looks to be done.

The lesson for sales professionals?  Negotiations are a normal part of any sales deal, whether it be for a new copier or a new arm of your mass media empire.  You need to expect negotiations, work to find a win-win solution, and then close the deal.

Rupert Murdoch has accomplished that in negotiating to purchase the Wall Street Journal.  Tweaking the ultra-left in the process is just one of the perks to getting the deal done.