Negotiating TIPs for Fun and Profit

"The first thing you must learn are the three variables of negotiation: time, information, and power. You can remember these easily with the acronym "TIP," so the next time you have to negotiate an agreement, you'll remember the "TIP" to think in terms of time, information, and power...The rule of time is that whoever has the loosest time constraints has an advantage in any negotiating situation...The rule of information is that whichever party has the best information has an advantage...The rule of power is that whichever party has the greatest perceived power has an advantage...The hungry person isn't going to get a good deal when negotiating for food, nor will the person who doesn't know what food is supposed to cost, nor will the person who has only one source for food.

Go for win-win or no deal...
Decide what you want in advance...
Commit everything to paper...If you don't get it down on paper, it's as if it didn't exist.
Never negotiate against yourself...
Everything is negotiable...Well, almost everything...
Realize and accept that not every deal is worth having..."

Read more in this article from Steve Pavlina from which the foregoing was excerpted.