Recipe for Negotiating Business Deals Successfully

Dana L. Cradeur
Dana International Consulting (2008)
ISBN 9780980127744
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (6/08)


There are many books on the market dealing with business negotiating and with basically the same information “Recipe for Negotiating Business Deals Successfully” has.  However, this book is different from any other I have read and researched.  This a thin book – less than 100 pages – but it has such a concise “recipe” it outshines other books that take hundreds of pages to explain the same thing.

First of all, Cradeur is to the point immediately.  There are no long-winded explanations but there are direct, brief, and effective statements to follow.  For example, after a short explanation Cradeur gives the following chart (as it relates to cooking chicken soup):

Chef = Negotiator
Recipe = Strategy
Pot = Culture
Ingredients = Elements of the Strategy
Cooking = Negotiating
Soup = The Deal
People Tasting the Soup = Counterparts of the Deal

For those of us that can relate to cooking, we can relate to Cradeur’s chart very easily.  As I look at the chart again, I’m thinking “how simple is this!”  Yes, of course, negotiating a deal is no different than creating a pot of soup.  Yet, as many of us know, we envision in our mind negotiating a deal is and/or will be hard.

Throughout the book Cradeur has illustrations making it even more clear to us of the simplicity.  For example, she shows spices and an onion as the “ingredients that directly influence the negotiation.”  There is a large section in the book identifying the ingredients, e.g. assumption, constraint, vendor lists, competitors, etc.  Cradeur also covers how to add an alternative plan as well as developing a strategy, looking at critical success factors, as well as finally closing the deal.  And, as a bonus she covers how to negotiate with people from different cultures. This addition is extremely important as we move our businesses globally.

Dana L. Cradeur presents readers with a concise, well-developed strategy and steps to take their business to a higher level and be in a place of negotiating with ease and confidence.  “Recipe for Negotiating Business Deals Successfully” truly is “the only book you need” on negotiating deals in your library.

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