Elizabeth Decker, Director of Corporate Systems, Cross Country Healthcare

I've had the great pleasure of participating in not one but two presentations by Mark on negotiations. Mark's passion for making great deals shines through. This was apparent from the first time I met Mark at a local CIO event where he gave the keynote "YOU Can Be the Best Negotiator in the Room; Every Great Leader is a Great Negotiator". I next saw Mark present "Mitigating Risk in the Cloud - Negotiating the Provisions Required in Every SaaS & Cloud Deal." In both presentations, Mark presented real and practical advice to negotiations that could save any deal that you are working on. Why? Because his solutions aren't about playing games that could seriously backfire on you. That's right, no more good cop, bad cop scenarios. I don't want to give away too many details about Mark's presentations; particularly the ending of the story about buying a car with his daughter. I encourage everyone to attend one of Mark's presentations on negotiation because you can't get everything you need to be a Great Negotiator from my short summary. Additionally, you'd miss Mark's engaging way of speaking and humorous activities. Here are my top 6 take-aways from Mark's presentations: 1. Have a plan for the negotiations going in and know how you define success. 2. Ensure you have consensus from all parties on how the negotiations will proceed. 3. If it's not written down, it didn't happen. This can also be a reminder to be careful about what is written in an agreement. 4. Ask the right questions. This is particularly important for agreements related to more specialized products or services; such as the Cloud and SAAS. Know what's important to have covered in the agreement. 5. Don't rely on general statements such as "industry standard" or "best practice". Spell it out! What does that mean to each party. 6. Ensure the agreement covers every aspect of this business relationship; even the breakup.