The Art of Negotiation.

The Art of Negotiation.

It wasn’t a ‘Battle’, it’s actually ‘Discovery’.

After talking about building meaningful partnerships with landlords in my previous post, now let’s talk about how to negotiate a rental deal that doesn’t just look good on our Excel sheets, but actually survives the next five years.

What Chris Voss (the FBI’s former lead negotiator) shared years ago has been a game-changer for how I view retail expansion. Here are 3 lessons from his playbook that I apply ‘almost’ every time I sit down in the meeting room or a cozy cafe table facing the Leasing team:

1. Tactical Empathy is a Superpower: Negotiation isn’t about ‘beating’ the other side. It’s about demonstrating you understand the landlord’s constraints. If you can articulate their concerns, like vacancy rates before they do, the tension in the room drops instantly.

2. It’s fine to go for a ‘No’, instead of a ‘Yes’: People feel safe and in control when they say ‘No’. Instead of asking “Is this rent acceptable?” which often makes them defensive, we may try: “Is it totally out of the question to look at a tiered rent structure based on our first-year sales?”

3. Ask Calibrated Questions: Avoid ‘Why’ as it sounds like an accusation. Keep the ‘How’ and ‘What.’ My usual Q: “How am I supposed to maintain our brand’s premium fit-out standards with this current capex budget?” It turns the landlord into a partner solving your problem.

Of course, actually there are more than just 3 lessons, but I’ll let you find out and learn yourself.

In the Indonesian retail landscape, you don’t want to ‘win’ a negotiation so hard that you leave the landlord a bad impression. You want a deal that feels fair to both. That way, when things get tough in Year 3, you have an ally, not an adversary.

Note that every mall’s management has its own ‘style’ of negotiating with the tenants, the harder the negotiation, the more we learn.

Learn more about Faizal Harvenda:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/faizal-harvenda