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March/April 2016 43 Wonderful means fruits and vegetables that stay fresh up to twice as long, and keep their smells to themselves. The Franke Air Purifi cation System fi ts instantly in any walk-in refrigerator, plugs into a standard outlet and safely eliminates the airborne ethylene and microbes that cause odors and hasten spoilage. All of which, as you can see, make your walk-in refrigerator a very happy place to be. Cut down on deliveries and reduce food waste, all while improving food quality. Discover how: frankeamericas.com/get-fresh WONDERFULLY FRESH AND ODOR-FREE MAKE IT WONDERFUL you'll be more fl exible under time pres- sure. Another thing that the principle of time pressure tells you is that you should always tie up all the details up front. Don't leave anything to, "Oh well, we can work that out later." A matter that seems to be of little importance up front can become a very huge problem under time pressure. I remember being in Kalispell, Montana, to do a seminar for the Montana gradu- ates of the Realtors Institute. These are the highest trained residential real estate people in the state. We were doing an all- day seminar on Power Negotiating and during the break an agent came up to me and said, "Perhaps you can help me. I have a huge problem. It looks as though I'm going to lose a big part of my com- mission on a very large transaction." I asked her to tell me more, and she said, "Two months ago a man came into my offi ce and wanted me to list his $600,000 home. Well, I had never listed anything that big before, and I guess I didn't express as much confi dence as I should have, because when he asked me how much commission I would charge, he fl inched, and I fell for it. I told him six percent. He said, 'Six percent. That's $36,000! That's a lot of money.' So I said, 'Look, if you have to come down much on the price of the property, we'll work with you on the commission.' That's all I said, and I never gave it a second thought. "As luck would have it, I ended up not only getting the listing but I found the buyer as well. He didn't have to reduce the price very much, so now I have almost the full $36,000 commission coming into my offi ce, and the property is due to close next week. Yesterday he came into my offi ce and said, 'I've been thinking about the amount of work that you had to do on that sale. You remem- ber you told me that you'd work with me on the commission? Well, I've been thinking about the amount of work you had to do, and I've decided that $5,000 would be an adequate commission for you." She was practically panic-stricken. This illustrates that you shouldn't leave anything to "We can work that out later" because a little detail up front can become a huge problem later when you're under time pressure. That story also shows how we always think we have the weaker hand in nego- tiations—whichever side we're on. In fact, the real estate agent in Montana was in a very strong position wasn't she? As I explained to her, she possessed a written contract for the six percent. If anything, she had verbally modifi ed it with a vague comment that wouldn't hold up in court anyway. So, in fact, she had all the power but didn't think she had any. However, why expose yourself to that kind of problem? Tie up all the details up front. When the other side says to you, "We can work that out later, it's not going to be a big problem," alarms continued on page 48