Negotiating for a Week

I heard good things from Jim-the-janitor about professor Rob Thomas' The Art and Science of Negotiation elective. He said the elective was much better than the others, and I figured, this guy is bringing water and soda and sugary goodies into these classrooms every hour - he knows what he's talking about.

Jim was right - the class was awesome. While most of my cohort was planning to travel to far off lands filled with Malbec (Argentina) or debt (Dubai) for their elective requirement, I was sitting in the beautiful Gainesville, having home-made dinners from one of the best chefs I know, going on roller-coaster rides in a BMW X5 M Series that growls when you walk by it, and learning how to negotiate a good price for avocados at Publix. I spent the week with two of the class' finest - Jason and Daniel.

Jason brought a giant tent that he pitched just outside of Daniel's house, and I, being the woodsie New Hampshire guy that loves to camp and poop in the woods and take advantage of free showers at Hough Hall, promised I'd join him for the week.

The week was pretty intense - the whole time, I was reading, preparing for role play negotiations and studying for quizzes. Thomas does a fantastic job, though. His nonchalant, engaging way about him makes you interested in what he has to say, and his dirty little awkward jokes always keep you on your toes, wondering when the next one would spill from his mouth. I'm not one for dirty jokes, but I am one for quirks that make lectures - or anything for that matter - more interesting.

I learned that negotiating is about finding a win-win for each party. This was of course disappointing in that the first thought that usually comes to mind when hearing the word "negotiation" is "Screw the opposing party." I pictured role plays where I was Jack Donaghy and Daniel was Tracy Jordan, and I told him if he didn't accept my pay decrease, he'd be fired.

On the contrary, the negotiation role plays were almost always about finding a middle ground. The lectures were also drenched in coming up with the best solution for two parties who want something different. In fact, I thought the class applied to a whole lot more than basic business negotiations. I now know how to get my daughter to eat her peas, I know how to coerce my wife to have a sip or two of wine when she's pregnant (and she is), and I now have confidence to step into a Publix and get avocados for dirt cheap (although my social guard still won't let me do it).

I lasted one night with Jason in his tent - I just couldn't resist Daniel's abode. I had practically half the house to myself, which included a sink to brush my teeth, a water thingie coming out of the fridge to get my routine glass of water in the middle of the night, and tons of pillows. I love pillows.

Pontificating on Meal Vouchers

In my wallet, I have nearly $50 bucks of on-campus meal vouchers. One of the perks of paying $40,000 for the Working Professional UF MBA is that an $8.99 meal voucher is waiting for you when you arrive to Gainesville every month. I just love getting to class, seeing a pile of small envelopes - each with one of our names - and fishing through to find my vouchers. Additionally, if there were one or two envelopes of vouchers still hanging around by 11:00am, I'd take 'em. Nah, I wouldn't take them, I'd pressure other people to take them. Nah - I wouldn't pressure other people to take them, I'd just dream about taking them, think about it for a long while, then finally decide to take them. I'd walk over to the empty pile and realize someone else already took them. Ugh - I need to get better at life.

Saving up meal vouchers is the natural progression of life in the Working Professional UF MBA program. In the beginning, it's like, "Schweeet! Free meal." You can go to the on-campus Starbucks and grab a dried-out sandwich, or head over to Panda Express to fill your stomach with gourmet sodium. 

But as you get sick of walking over to a cafeteria or a cafeteria-of-chain-fast-food-restaurants, you long for something more succulant. Something fresh and amazing, perhaps a place where you're herded like cows through a rat race of who-can-mak-a-burrito-faster. Chipotle filled this void and was right next to the business school. Other, better places were Burrito Brothers (sweet potato burrito is unreal) or Bistro 1245 (grilled three-cheese and butternut squash soup is to die for), but right next to Hough Hall.

So, instead of using our $8.99 vouchers - our "free" money to satisfy our tummies - many of us went out and spent $10 bucks of our own cash on something more fulfilling. When I taste the warmth of that butternut squash soup on a cool, Sunday afternoon in January after having sat through four hours of lecture, I get renewed... and fatter (pretty sure the only ingredient in that soup is cream).

This spending behavior left many of us with extra meal tickets, or shall I say Starbucks SWAG tickets. We quickly found out we could use these vouchers for whatever goodies Starbucks had to offer. I now have mugs I don't need, I've bought more Kind bars than I know what to do with, and I've chewed on $2 sleeves of cashews that are perfect for my drive back to St. Augustine. 

Now, even despite having purchased all of these little Starbucks goodies, I have $50 bucks. What to do what to do.

Gucci Belts and Venture Finance

Venture Finance was engaging. With his designer shirts and big ol' Gucci belt, Professor Rossi paces around the front of the classroom in an attempt to get more steps added to his pedometer. Enthusiasm sweats from his brow.

I was pumped about venture finance. At the time, I was working for a private equity firm so I had a natural interest in a non corporate-finance finance class. Also, it seems that private equity is popping up everywhere, so the timing of the class seemed fitting. 

The Handsome Flying V's Final Presentation

We learned about angel investors, private equity funding, bootstrapping, having your "skin in the game" and lastly, how to succeed in life. "How to succeed in life" (my coined term) was my favorite part. In the last class, Rossi puts finance to the side for a bit and presents corporate brands that dominate. He highlights Apple (of course), Southwest, Harley Davidson and Disney. I'm a branding strategy guy, so the conversation was music to my ears. As Rossi put it, "it's all about the experience," which I couldn't agree with more.

At one point, he described a Gator football game, of which I attended two this past year (SC and LSU). Dang those games are such a blast (even for someone who can't name but two players on the field). Rossi asked a question, "Why do we opt into standing in the scorching sun for four hours, screaming next to sweaty drunkards, dealing with overloads of traffic, buying $5.00 bottles of gatorade? Especially when your couch is so much more comfortable? Why would nearly 90,000 crazies do such a thing every Saturday?" Of course, it's about the experience. 

Rossi showed us how to gauge the health of a company through their financial statements, and he taught us how to ask the right questions to understand the most important part of a company - the people. But outside of the people, the class really came down to understanding and quantifying risks. Risks are everywhere and management risks, sales and marketing risks, development risks, and commercialization risks are the foundation of valuation. 

We got a double whammy of risks in this Term 2 - while Rossi was busy caressing his Gucci belt, we were also learning how to not be like the former BP CEO in Risk and Crisis management, taught by Professor Florig. 

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For the finance final, every team had to put together a valuation and presentation for Zipcar, the hippy, Boston-born car-sharing club. If you want to learn more about it, let me know - you learn a lot about a company after sitting through 14 presentations on them. No question, our team's presentation was the best. Brad, our New England accented sports fanatic, thought it'd be fun to have a cocktail party in the front of the classroom. We popped open a fake bottle of Sam Adams, and we were off. Rossi was speachless, and awarded us an A.

Cocktail Party Final Presentation

I was glad the term was over because it meant a party was due. Derrick, in his infinite wisdom, opted for a keg of magic juice (or whatever drink name would imply a sugary liquid that goes down too easy and effects your brain too quickly). We partied at the top of the Holiday Inn, sun shining strong, Five Star pizza trying to soak up that sugary goodness, and stories of the semester floating around the pool. We were halfway through this MBA venture and our risk of making it through were slowly being mitigated.

New Balance Sneaks and the Application Process

As a marketer, part of your job is to try to think like other people. It’s a fun exercise. Instead of going into Factory Brand Shoes looking at a pair of white, New Balance old-person sneakers and saying, “Who would buy those?”, you start saying to yourself, “I bet about 30% of men over 65 would be interested in sporting those around The Villages.” 

Just about everything is a brand, and everything has value to someone (except AOL, Kmart, the majority of the airline industry, and anything not Apple). MBA programs have brands, and I’ll never forget the inspiring introduction Alex, Director of the MBA program, gave about this intangible value on the first day of orientation. The University of Phoenix is the Honda Civic of the MBA system. Wharton is the Bentley. The University of Florida… I would put them at the BMW X5 M (color: Monte Carlo Blau Metallic). 

The Economist ranks the University of Florida's MBA program as having the 3^rd best MBA faculty in the world, US News and World Report ranks the UF MBA as one of the country’s best valued programs, and UF’s online MBA is ranked by The Economist as one (of two) of the world’s best programs. Either someone at UF is paying an editor at The Economist a lot of moolah, or this program is legit. I won’t get into how these ratings are achieved, frankly because I have no idea, but I promise you – it’s a laughable process.

Nonetheless, an MBA from the University of Florida has a good brand, especially amongst Floridians. 

The UF MBA application process is like any other admission process, I’d imagine. Enter in a bunch of fields into an online form that you’re nervous will not save your entries, and then write some essays. Oh yah – UF also requires you to take the GMAT. I remember listening in on a virtual recruitment session, and Andy, the SNLish, sometimes-sounds-like-he-just-woke-up-but-seems-like-a-really-cool-guy Director of Admissions said that one of the only ways to get out of the GMAT is to be a doctor. 

After googling ways to become a doctor and ending up on WebMD wondering if I had Fibromyalgia or Rheumatoid Arthritis, I realized that taking the GMAT was inevitable. I studied hard, took a few practice tests, and took the GMAT twice. When I take tests - especially multiple-choice - I sweat profusely, my mind goes blank, and then I sweat profusely some more. Then I shake, throw up (added for drama), cuss at myself, and I’m back in the game! This phenomenon is called test anxiety/panic disorder (just WebMD'd it), and I struggle with it like you wouldn’t believe. It’s funny, I don’t get anxious or stressed out about much, but testing makes me ill. Inevitably, my GMAT scores were not a selling point for my admission. In fact, the reason I took the GMAT twice was because UF asked that I try a second time to improve my scores. I was thrilled (and somewhat unsuccessful).

I was a little nervous about the essay too, because I knew it would have to overcompensate for my back-sweat that made its way onto my GMAT scores. The essay question was open: 

Describe how you would like to see your career develop. Explain how your academic background, prior professional experience and the Florida MBA degree will help you achieve your career goals.

I went into our guest room, dusted off a binder filled with my "career goals," and started typing away at my essay. I wrote about drinking too much wine, moving to Florida, and wanting to become a professor. Here’s a two sentence excerpt from my essay:

After nearly three years of marketing wind energy and carbon credits, my wife and I sat down on a cold, overcast and ugly Friday night at our favorite Italian BYOB in Philadelphia. We popped open a bottle of Pinot Noir, ordered the Antipasto, and had one of those talks that changes everything.  

Two things – (A) when it comes to wine, I really like Pinot Noir (if you haven’t noticed) and (b) I tried to be a tad fun in my essay. I pictured myself as an admissions team member, looking at hundreds of applications and being bored out of my mind, only wanting to think about whether I was getting Sushi-2-Go or a Chipotle burrito for lunch.

Alas, after the essays, the sweat I lost from both sessions of the GMAT, and thinking that the ‘save’ button on the online entry form was going to magically turn into a "Timed Out" screen, I got my little email from the admissions team welcoming me into the MBA program. That night, I stopped at a shady little liquor store near my house, picked up a four-pack of Burton Baton, an oak-barrel aged IPA, and clinked glasses with the wifie. Life was going to change for a little while.  

Next Post: The Beginning of Orientation