Dear startup members,
We want to hear from you again to better serve you ahead of our weekly office hours tomorrow Wednesday (RSVP below) - please share your news and needs here (confidentially) so that we can better support you.
Thank you,
André
Quantum Things
The art of negotiating is an important life skill but in business, it's an absolute necessity for success. Poor negotiation skills can make a difference between gaining and losing partners and key customers. For most of us negotiating is just not fun. Add to it current lockdowns, social distancing, restrictions on one-to-one meetings, and having to rely on video conferences and virtual meetings and it becomes a nightmare.
According to Leigh Thompson, Professor at Kellogg’s School of Management, negotiating virtually is harder than negotiating in person because we have to use a different approach entirely. What works in person usually doesn’t work in a virtual context.
Give time to build rapport and ease into the conversation. There is an urge to get down to business immediately unlike in a face to face meeting where it is compelling to do a lot of socializing before we talk business. Socializing helps people get more comfortable with each other, develop more trust in the other party, and help reach consensus.
You have no opportunity to use body language to your advantage. The only way to influence the other part is with the substance of what you say and how you deliver. Trust will be quickly established if what you say portrays that you know what you are talking about. Demonstrate your professional competence, your subject matter expertise, and also your human side.
Insist on having a video conference if that can happen. Visual helps form a preliminary impression between parties. Depriving it takes away the human factor. If the video won’t work then put a mirror in front of you as you talk so that your voice gets moderated by what you look at and that emotion gets across to the receiver. Stand up if you can. It helps with your voice projection, and builds confidence which the other party is sure to feel.
Match the language of the other party. Find certain words the opposite party uses more frequently and feed those words back in affirmation of your counterpart’s views. This literally gets both of you into a mental alignment.
You can listen to the full podcast here.
OneQuantum News
Sign up for the OneQuantum Startup chapter office hours this week and also add it to your calendar so you never miss out.
Denise, Tommaso, and Andre have a very popular video podcast, that reaches about 15K people. This is a great opportunity to build your profile. If you like to be a guest speaker then send us an email (farai@estrapadus.com)
If you missed our first startup event you can catch it here
HOT CHIPS is known as one of the semiconductor industry’s leading conferences on high-performance microprocessors and related integrated circuits. Quantum computing made its debut at Hot Chips this year thanks to Jim Clarke of Intel.
Junki Kim from Duke University will present a new quantum hardware design at the OSA Quantum 2.0 conference.
Signing off
Please don’t forget to sign up for the OneQuantum Startup chapter office hours this week and make it a point to add it to your calendar so you never miss out on great discussions, presentations, and networking opportunities.
If you are not yet a member, we would love to have you join us.
See you all next week!
Your Farai