Mastering Negotiation: The Key to Better Business Decisions

Negotiation is a part of daily life—whether you're deciding where to eat with your family, settling a business deal, or navigating disagreements with a partner. But what separates effective negotiators from those who struggle? According to Doc Danny from the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, the answer lies in one powerful skill: the ability to see beyond your own perspective.

In a recent episode, Doc Danny shared valuable insights from his experience mediating conflicts between business partners. These aren’t just surface-level disagreements—they’re often about the future direction of a business, with both sides feeling deeply invested. Here’s what he’s learned about navigating these tough conversations.

Why Perspective Matters in Negotiation

When you're directly involved in a conflict, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. Your own ideas seem right, and it becomes hard to understand why someone would see things differently. This myopic view can lead to poor decisions, strained relationships, and missed opportunities.

Doc Danny emphasizes that understanding the other person's "why" is crucial. What’s motivating them? What outcome are they hoping for? Their perspective isn’t always rooted in logic—it might be influenced by personal goals, experiences, or even biases. Recognizing this helps you approach the situation with more empathy and clarity.

The Anatomy of a Business Conflict

Consider a scenario Doc Danny often sees: two business partners disagree on whether to focus on a digital model versus a traditional brick-and-mortar setup. Instead of digging in and defending their positions, both partners would benefit from asking:

• Why do I feel strongly about this?
• What is my partner hoping to achieve?
• Are there underlying goals (like work-life balance, scalability, or personal passion) influencing their stance?

By zooming out and analyzing motivations, it’s easier to find common ground—or at least a solution where both parties feel heard and respected.

Negotiation Isn’t About Winning

One of the biggest mistakes people make in negotiations is treating them like a zero-sum game. It’s not about “I win, you lose.” The goal should be a win-win outcome where both sides walk away feeling satisfied. This is especially true in business partnerships, where resentment can fester if one person feels steamrolled.

Doc Danny points out that even if you’re technically “right,” the way you present your case matters. Strong arguments are built on understanding—not just facts. When you take the time to understand the other person’s perspective, you’re more likely to influence them effectively.

Avoiding Bad Decisions: The Hidden Side of Negotiation

Interestingly, Dr. Danny notes that one of the most valuable things he does in his mastermind groups isn’t helping people make the right decisions—it’s helping them avoid the wrong ones.

For example, he’s seen business owners rush into opening gyms without fully understanding the business model. On paper, it seems like a natural extension of their current work. But without proper research and preparation, these ventures often fail. The same principle applies to partnerships, marketing strategies, and major investments. Avoiding costly mistakes can be just as impactful as scoring big wins.

How to Become a Better Negotiator

1. Zoom Out: When tensions rise, step back. Look at the situation objectively, as if you were an outsider.
2. Ask “Why?”: Dig into the motivations behind the other person’s viewpoint. What are they really trying to achieve?
3. Practice Empathy: Even if you disagree, validate their feelings and show that you understand where they’re coming from.
4. Focus on Win-Win Solutions: Aim for outcomes where both sides feel like they’ve gained something.
5. Learn from Mistakes: Study both your wins and your losses. What worked? What didn’t? How can you improve next time?

Final Thoughts

Negotiation isn’t just a business skill—it’s a life skill. Whether you're dealing with a business partner, a client, or a family member, the ability to see beyond your own perspective can transform the way you approach conflicts.

As Dr. Danny says, “Avoiding bad decisions is just as important as making good ones.” By mastering the art of negotiation, you’ll not only make better decisions—you’ll build stronger relationships and create more opportunities for success.

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Podcast Transcript

Danny:  Hey, real quick, if you were serious about starting or growing your cash based practice, I want to formally invite you to go to Facebook and join our PT entrepreneurs Facebook group. This is a group of over 6, 000 providers all over the country, and it's a pretty amazing place to start to get involved in the conversation.

Hope to see you there soon. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skill set in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matta. And over the last 15 years, I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT. I've been an active duty military officer, physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice. I've sold that cash practice. And today my company physical therapy business helped over a thousand clinicians start growing scale their own cash practices So if this sounds like something you want to do listen up because I'm here to help you

Hey, what's going on? Dr Danny here with the PT entrepreneur podcast and today I want to talk a little bit about negotiating and really taking the time to try to view an issue or a sort of sticking point from somebody else's perspective. And I bring this up because recently I've actually been brought in as a mediator for a few of the businesses that we work with for business owner.

Issues in terms of things that they disagree on big, bigger issues that they disagree on. And and these are partners that they just are not necessarily working well together at this point, or their view is that the business should go. In different directions, right? So for me, what's interesting is I don't have any skin in the game in these businesses.

My perspective is very neutral. I don't, financially benefit from one decision or another. So I can look at this very in a very neutral manner. And see it from both sides. But what I've noticed is when somebody is in it it's very hard for them to see someone else's perspective for what it actually is, both for, the legitimately good parts of it and just for the silly parts of it.

And I'm saying both sides can be both right and silly at the same time. And this is a very interesting observation that I would say I've realized now having done a handful of these. And I want you to understand how do you avoid, how do you avoid this myopic view of whatever it is that you're getting involved in?

Because I think a lot of bad decisions are made when people decide to dig their heels in and just do something the way that they think it should be done and not. Actually look at why someone might think differently than them. And you have to look at this for a few different in a few different ways.

Number one, What is the motivation number one of that individual? Why do they feel differently about that? What experiences do they maybe have or what? Outcome do they maybe want and why is that important to them? So if let's say somebody wants to take a business and focus more on a digital part of it versus a brick and mortar part and two business owners disagree why would that be right?

And you know for you can say all right why would somebody want to make this more, remote? All right maybe they're trying to create more of a remote lifestyle for themselves and brick and mortar doesn't line up with that So well, did you guys talk about that before you started your business?

Maybe they see they view it as an opportunity to create work life balance for staff because they can do some work from home. Maybe they view it as a better continuity channel. Maybe they have a better understanding of continuity numbers than you do. Maybe they view it as a more scalable option.

Maybe they just like doing that. And their bias because of that, all these things can be true or not true. It just depends on the context in the situation. But if you find yourself in a situation where you are negotiating and everything's a negotiation, by the way, where you and your, significant other want to go to dinner on Friday night is a negotiation.

Whoever is better at selling it wins. And when you can understand the other person better, the likelihood of you getting the outcome that you want actually increases dramatically. Not only that, but it helps create a much more of a win situation versus I win, you lose, which is how most people view decisions, how most people view, negotiating in any capacity.

But if you can find a solution that creates A answer where people feel like they have both won. That is. Especially with a business partner, you're going to have to continue to work with that is best case scenario because people don't forget things and the way in which you talk to them and treat them and Especially if you just try to steamroll business partners I think it's a bad idea long term and not necessarily listen to what they have to say now you very well might be right And if that's the case Then you need to make a strong case as to why and really put a lot of time and effort into thinking through whatever the decision is you're trying to make.

But if you are stuck in a situation where you see this coming to a head, where it's, you're going to disagree on something, your best bet is to zoom out, take a step back, look at the situation for what it is, not what you think should happen, but why do you think that, why does the other person think that?

And then try to come to some logical conclusions as to what might. Honestly be a win-win situation for both parties. Because the other thing is this, business partners dissolve business partnerships dissolve and that's natural, that happens. But man, it's messy. It's messy, it's hard to remove a business partner.

Your operating agreement can have very specific language in it about how those things happen. And you obviously started working together for a reason. So it, what is it that. Got you that point, right? Maybe you need to revisit that and see, if you can get back to some of the initial energy you had together, the initial excitement you had together about working on a project and you got to understand too even if it's not a business owner, this really could be any.

Person in your network. You might have referral partners, local other business owners that You may not see completely eye to eye on but it makes a meaningful difference to your business to be You know in good standing with with these folks and I think by and large the best Course of action is to really to zoom out.

Think about what is it this person wants, why do they want it, what drives them? What do you know about them that could lead them to want to do this? Try to understand that more than anything, and just under trying to understand somebody in its own right is a great exercise to make sure that you're not making bad decisions or you're jumping to conclusions.

And this obviously could apply to many things, but. In business in particular, it's just so important to not make the wrong decisions because you could make all these right decisions along the way. And you make one or two massive wrong decisions and all of a sudden game over and we see this happen.

Constantly. And I would say in our mastermind, one of the things that we help people with most is not making bad decisions. Like most people know when they should do something like they're like, Oh yeah, I should do that. I should do that. Like it's pretty clear. But sometimes when it gets very gray and nuanced and also challenging to know if you should do the right thing or not, or if you're impatient and you try to do something completely different or change the business in some way.

That makes a meaningful difference, but maybe you don't understand. And I'll give you a good example. Oftentimes we see people think, Hey, how hard could it be to run a gym? I work with a lot of people that come from gyms and then they bolt a gym on to what they're doing, like a full on, large scale member gym where they buy one and they think they can run it better.

And it is a whole different animal and it typically doesn't work out great. If you don't spend a lot of time learning that business model as well. For us, it might be, Hey, are you sure you want to do that? Is it, is that something that really aligns with what you're trying to do? Instead of, take a big loan out to buy this business or to start this gym up, maybe you should focus on your clinic, get it to a better cashflow because you can learn a little bit more about this business model before you go ahead and jump headfirst into this this other business.

Cause that as an example, I've seen take four different businesses out, in the last 12 months. So it's just one of those things that. You have to understand making a mistake. Is catastrophic in some cases and avoidance of mistakes is just as important as wins. Being able to understand the other person, be able to zoom out, being able to really look at why somebody wants something and understand them and their rationale for what they're doing.

That is incredibly important. And if you can learn how to. Practice that how to get good at trying to understand other people. It'd be far better at negotiating and making more of the right decisions.

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