“That's exactly how it was, I'm telling you…” Why you need to record your negotiations

"That's exactly how it was, I'm telling you..."
A few words about the distortion of information, or why you need to record your negotiations.

"Three old ladies in a queue.

• Dearie, is this the queue for the surgery?\
• How much is the celery?\
• And is the salary any good?"

That is how gossip is born. It is a joke, of course, but if you think about it, isn't that exactly how information is passed on "by word of mouth", from a report about a recent party to a brief retelling of a work meeting.

But when we are talking about a party, hearing some interesting detail that never actually happened some time later can even be funny. When it comes to business, however, that kind of distortion of information is, frankly speaking, no engine of progress.

There is even a law for this – the law of information distortion, the essence of which is that as data is passed along, its meaning changes considerably. And the more links and channels of transmission there are, the more the final version differs from the original meaning.

There can be a great many reasons for this. From the low qualifications of employees to their emotional tension and even to different interpretations of one and the same message. But it is always (always!) connected with the so-called human factor.

Just imagine! You invite colleagues and partners to a business meeting, you prepare, you dance with tambourines for them, you dazzle them with statistics and other figures. And what is the result?

It seems to you that you were brilliant, that you told them everything you knew and showed your product from its very best sides. But as a result the customer did not hear even half of what you wanted to tell him.
And not at all because the customer is such a bad one, but simply because at the moment of your presentation he was thinking about how in the evening he would once again have to crawl through the traffic jams to his dacha. Or about the fact that it is his and his wife's anniversary and he still cannot think of a good present for her. There is no end to what an ordinary person's head can be busy with!
Even if he is in the mood for work, he is still unable to take in and remember 100% of the information you are trying to get across to him. And out of that "not one hundred percent" of the information he took in from you he will convey even less to his own management, and not in the same way (the law of information distortion in action). As a result, only the tiniest crumbs will reach the person taking the decision, possibly misunderstood, possibly recounted incorrectly.

And it is by no means necessarily the case that the customer is such an unprofessional, thinking about other things during the meeting. Perhaps he really is doing well, is tuned in to communication and perception, but somewhere he did not quite understand something, was too shy to ask again or simply could not interrupt your monologue in time, and then forgot what he wanted to clarify. And once again the same result: not all, far from all of the information necessary for business has been taken in by the customer. And in exactly the same way he will not convey all of the information to his company.

He could, of course, write a letter with questions, call back, look at the presentation, meet once more, after all. But firstly, that takes time, and secondly, nobody usually wants to look like an idiot and admit that they are unable to understand and remember something the first time round. Yes, that is exactly how it is. Even when it comes to work.

All the more so since there are now plenty of ways to avoid this. And one of those ways is the ability to record your negotiations so that you can then send the recording to all the participants of the meeting.
Here there are nothing but advantages.

Well firstly, a recording can be watched again an unlimited number of times, until everything becomes clear.
Remember school: any more or less serious topic was repeated several times over the course of the year, and not because someone was "off sick" for it, but because a person, as a rule, is not ready to absorb and remember all the necessary information at once.

Secondly, a recording rules out any moment of misunderstanding and distortion of data.

Thirdly, after watching the recording you can unexpectedly hear something new, something that escaped your attention during the meeting.

And it is also a saving of precious time, an opportunity to come back to a question at the moment when this is most convenient and relevant and, of course, no need to ask again, thereby admitting that you are incompetent in something.

You have to agree, that is already a lot!