Armstrong Williams On The Art Of Negotiation

I recently attended an Influencers Brunch in Washington, D.C. honoring the CEO of Epic Records, L.A. Reid. I attended with the sole purpose of finding someone to interview for my Negotiation and Deal Making Master class assignment. The assignment was comprised of two parts; find someone who negotiates as a regular part of doing business, and build upon my professional presence in the entertainment, media, or sports industry. After 16 years in radio, I know a lot of people who negotiate and could have easily called anyone, but I wanted to be true to the assignment. As the brunch was winding down, Mr. Armstrong Williams stepped on stage to say a few words. My only knowledge of him to this point was based on the work he has done in politics. Armstrong Williams is a political commentator, author of a nationally syndicated conservative newspaper column, author of 2 books Beyond Blame and Reawakening Virtues. He is also the host of a daily radio show on Sirius/XM channel 126 and a nationally syndicated television program called, “The Right Side with Armstrong Williams.” As Mr. Williams spoke to the audience, I learned about his business side. He is the largest black television station owner in the United States. The Washington Post explained it as follows; “there are 12 stations in the entire country owned by women or someone who is not white. Williams holds seven of them.” After hearing him discuss his television stations, I approached him about my assignment. Owning 12 stations means a lot of negotiating had to take place. This made him the perfect person to talk to. For the purpose of this blog, we will focus on the specific assignment; discussing negotiation tactics.

Thinking back to a bad negotiation; whether the reason it was bad was the fault of you or the fault of the person you were negotiating with, what do you recall that made it a bad negotiation?

“Never had a bad deal. Why? Here is the deal about negotiations; the last thing you want to be is emotional. The best deal is the deal you can literally walk away from even if it’s a great deal. When you walk away from it, that’s the power. Most people, because of their greed, because of the stature they want, can not walk away from the deal. They feel that they have invested too much emotion, too much time, but the greatest weapon in a deal is the ability to walk away from a deal and I’ve walked away from many deals.”

Speaking of emotions, what do you do when you are negotiating with someone and they’re emotional?

“I love it. I want them emotional.”

So you don’t walk away? There isn’t a cooling off period?

“No.”

What do you like about them being emotional?

“They can’t think straight. They are not in a business mind. It says a lot about their experience, and negotiating tactics. You are at an advantage when someone is emotional. It’s just like in a relationship; people are emotional because they care too much. The person that cares the least has the power and the control in the relationship. It’s the same concept in business.”

So you like it that way? You’re not going to try and separate the emotion out of the negotiation, you’re going to leave it right there?

"Leave it right there."

Have you ever been part of a negotiation where dirty tricks were used? Deliberate deception, misrepresentation of the facts, psychological warfare?

(Laughter), “Of course, of course. Sometimes you learn new tactics about business. The one thing about dealing with people, who are icons of business, and the new generation that is coming along, you learn things you never knew before. Different concepts about technology.”

At this point, my mind is racing a little because I didn’t quite get the “text book” answer I was seeking. This portion of our conversation went into technology. It was not until the end of our interview this answer would come back to me in a way that made perfect sense.

How have you dealt with haggling during a negotiation?

“I go to Europe and the Middle East a lot, the Arabs love to negotiate. It is an art form for them. So I will sit with a friend who owns a piece of jewelry. I can sit for 4 hours and negotiate over a piece of jewelry because that kind of negotiation is one of respect. What you’re saying to them, because you have spent so much time negotiating, watching me haggle as I haggle, at the end of this negotiation you’re going to buy something. Maybe not that piece of jewelry, but you’re going to buy something out of respect. So that kind of discipline for me, which I have been doing for ages, has prepared me for that [haggling]. Sometimes what happens is, the longer you draw out the negotiations, people get tired, they may have other things that are pressing against them, toward the end of it they become exhausted it’s like working out. The exhaustion forces them to make concessions they never would have made in the first hour of the negotiation.”

Back to dirty tricks. Later in our discussion he made a statement that resonated with me when I went home and listened to the recorded session. He was discussing business failures and when he used the word "failure" he followed it with, “if you call them failures.” I went back to the section on dirty tricks and surmised what Mr. Williams was saying, is that there is something to be learned even when dirty tricks have been used. In order to learn the lesson, one would have to let go of the emotion they feel once they realize a dirty trick has been used on them and learn from the overall experience. In learning from the use of a dirty trick being implemented, they may learn something new and informative from it: it could be about technology used during the process, new information about the market, a new approach to use at a future negotiation, etc. They will also learn that when that trick is used on them again, not to fall for it. My goal in sitting down with Mr. Williams was to complete an assignment about deal making and negotiations. What I left with was much more. I learned about syndication deals in television, having multiple revenue streams, learning from your setbacks, having patience and integrity. As I was wrapping up our conversation, Mr. Williams left me with one more last great thought:

“The most important thing in business is your reputation and respect. People know that I am a fair negotiator and I sometimes negotiate where I take the kitchen, but before we sign the documents I’ll say, ‘look, you need to take part of this back.' For me, I just wanted to see how much I can get to the very end. My moral compass, my ethics and my principles will say I’m exploiting this person. At the end of the negotiation, when I get everything I want, then I give them everything they should have kept back. The things I probably would have done 20 years ago to get to where I am today, I can’t do now. Today, I am in a place of prosperity, and so a person to whom much is given, much is expected to give back. I, as a successful person, and somebody who is wise, blessed and has seen the world, is held to a different standard than somebody who is just making their way. So I can exploit people and take advantage of them, but I’m the person that should make sure that person realizes that not everybody is unethical, not everybody is greedy. You set a standard for them, for themselves going forward because they are the future. You have to grow them too; when it comes to morals, ethics, principles and values, that’s very important.”