ABSTRACT
Asking questions and answering questions can also help build a relationship. Fundamentally, negotiations should lead to a successful business transaction or avoidance of a bad one. But just completing one transaction is not the greatest success. The negotiation partners could benefit from building a relationship of confidence and mutual accessibility that leads to more transactions in more areas of business – that is real success. Open questions usually start with words such as what, when, why, how, where, who, which and usually result in a multi-word or sentence answer. Sharing information is the most common way of building relationships through reciprocity when working with companies culturally rooted in the “western” world. “Each side of the relationship should be developing plans that incorporate the other’s interests into those plans. Without doing so, a long-term relationship entails the disadvantage of closing off options, without accruing the benefits of the longer term commitment”.
