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The current Alex Rodriguez story is a great example of negotiating for deals, as his circumstances has taken a series of twists and turns that the majority of negotiations always do. You can check here to get a overall grasp of the negotiations between Rodriquez and the New York Yankees.

What I want to focus on in this post is the importance of a clear goal in negotiations, and the willingness to adjust and adapt along the way.

Any negotiations should be partaken in with everyone feeling they come out a winner. Those willing and able to do this will win more deals than anyone else.

When Rodriguez tested the waters for a contract, he found out that the market he thought was there for his services - wasn't. So he had to change his strategy to fit what the market would pay him. So even in his original goal, he had to adapt to reflect the current market and what it was willing to pay him.

In the middle of that, things became tense between him and the Yankees, so in order to even start negotiations he had to bring a third party in to smooth things over before they could even begin. He did that.

This is important because it shows he was willing to do what it took to get things done, in other words he was committed ... he wasn't playing games. That's an important aspect in any negotiations, that all parties really want to get a deal done.
Sometimes negotiations are entered into for reasons other than doing a deal, like letting the real party they want to deal with see that others are willing to look at them. That isn't the case here, once the market told Rodriquez they weren't willing to pay what he wanted.

Another thing to learn is that Rodriquez, because of his celebrity status, could have let his ego get in the way, and got stubborn and never get a deal done. He didn't do that. Rather he let the people he was dealing with know that he was sincere and they weren't wasting their time by dealing with him.

There is no one way to do any deal. Those that have made them for some time, know that any specific one can be different than others.

The thing that the Alex Rodriguez and New York Yankees negotiations show, is it's more important to understand what you specifcally want, what the market is willing to pay, and know how flexible you're willing to be to get a deal done.

In other words: know what you're willing to give up and what you must have, within the existing market conditions.

What this does is discipline us to go through things before we ever start negotiations, so we have an absolute handle on what we want and what we're willing to end up with. Within that, we then can decide on how flexible we want to be.

In the end, if everybody doesn't win, it's better to walk away from a deal than to agree to one that produces a loser: especially ourselves.

Clarity of what we want, flexibility in reaching it, and creating win/win deals are the underpinning of what creates great deals. Keep it in mind if you're buying a business, working on joint ventures, or working on building partnerships.