Do America’s business leaders know how to negotiate? Stuart Varney says that retail businesses in America are experiencing an Ice Age. Throughout the 20th century, Americans were considered the most astute business innovators as our culture of free enterprise has led us to create new businesses at a rate that has been truly astounding. The 21st century however, appears to be quite different.

What has happened to our culture of brick and mortar? One word— AMAZON! Find whatever you want in seconds. Just point and click. Voila, instantly the money has been sucked from your bank account and the selected item is now speeding on its way to you to be tracked and monitored along the way from location to location.

That’s innovation. What can be wrong with innovation? The problem occurs when the old world collides with the new world! What am I getting at?

Say what you will about doing business online, the majority of service companies in America are still brick and mortar. People must get up and go to work. While some folks choose to work from home, the majority of us commute to an office and deal with the world from our place of business. Whether we sit in an old style private office or work from a new style cubicle, we still need to interact with our customers and other employees in an environment that is conducive to our business.

So, if your company is located in an office, as a decision maker at that company you will need to negotiate the business terms of an office lease for that facility every three to five years. Unlike the world of point and click, the negotiating process requires a certain set of skills known as NEGOTIATING.

Negotiating is a skill that requires training and practical experience. Malcolm Gladwell in his best seller “Outliers” says that to become an expert at anything requires about 10,000 hours of practice. The 10,000 hour rule is true for the training of musicians, athletes, and almost any profession you can think of. Business professionals are no different. Unfortunately for office tenants, they utilize these negotiating skills once every three to five years. This is why many of my tenant/clients tell me that they feel totally outgunned when it comes to negotiating a lease with the Landlord.

Landlords, by contrast, negotiate office leases every day of the week.  Most of them have their 10,000 hour badges.  This is their business, and many Landlords are highly skilled.

Is there an antidote to this dilemma?  We recommend you hire an expert to represent your interests; a fiduciary who has your best interests at heart. That is what we tenant reps do every day. We represent the interests of tenants and buyers in their negotiations for corporate facilities.

Do you need to even the odds and reduce your stress level when the lease comes due?  Call us for a free no obligation lease review and find out why at Dickstein Real Estate Services “OUR DIFFERENCE IS YOUR ADVANTAGE®”.