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Win Win
Early the next morning, player agent Mark Malkovich called to discuss our open offers, seek clarification on some fine print, and also haggle over the final dollar amount. One of our primary negotiating tactics, was to always make our opening offer about 10% less than what we were actually willing to pay. That way we had room to maneuver, to make concessions and let the other side leave the table happy with a 'win.'
In this case, we budgeted 660k for each contract. So our starting offer was 600k to which the agent responded by asking for 640. We counter-offered at 620, and after thinking about it for a minute or two, the agent said he'd meet us in the middle at 630. To which we replied: "Done deal."
Both sides were happy and we'd even saved ourselves 60k to help pay other players. Best of all, we had Larionov and Krutov back for another three years, which is a definite win-win!
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