Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life

by Stuart Diamond

TRANSACTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS Transactional relationships are those that have no obvious longer-term element. As you can imagine, they are far weaker than those created by feelings or mutual benefits. Clearly, one should try to make the transaction bigger and the relationship longer when it adds value. Still, many business relationships are transactional, so it’s important to see how one can get more from these. Typically, transactional relationships include “arm’s length” agreements. They include agreements between people who don’t know each other well, often in marketplace buy-sell situations. They also include situations where at least one party doesn’t want to show favoritism (such as with the government or a major company as buyer). They also include situations where money appears to be the only item of importance—commodity sales, financing deals. Some cultural settings have more of a transactional atmosphere than others. Often, societies that use law instead of relationships to bind people together are more transactional.