Feminine gamification viewpoint: sleazy deals

Feminine gamification viewpoint: sleazy deals

In recent months I have had a few instances where whilst doing business in each occasion males where the lead party on the other side, I have felt manipulated, pushed and very much told my way or the high way from the other side. I appreciate there is always more than one way to come to a business agreement, being overly pushy, rushed and outright aggressive is a sure fir way to make me run a mile.

I have had as a result of me questioning their approach directly had insults flung at me ranging from irresponsible to incompetent and then some other unsavoury ones. I have to say thankfully these situations only happen maybe once or twice every second month, in my view that is not a lot, yet still too often. I also wonder if other people have experienced the same or whether it is because I am a female business owner?

Negotiations for most experienced sales people are a game and game strategies will differ. If I look at what is globally playing out in the political world, all tactics however unsavoury, far removed from the truth and other game strategies are being used everywhere. Those that don’t seem to get lost in the noise and battle tactics of the others. I see it as a dangerous trend for both business and politics.

I think as gamification designers we have to be mindful of encouraging more and more competition, which is how our world is often seen. There are so many other great techniques available, where collaboration or win/win scenarios rule. It is clear that the appetite for winning in business and politics is favouring the win/lose outcome and winners are bragging so much that they are willing to instigate hate against them or anyone of a different opinion.

The sleazy business deal started with a very aggressive sales pitch, not dissimilar to the Brexit political campaign, not quite built on solid facts. I didn’t enjoy the sales experience and told them to slow down and let me consider everything, in order to do this I had to sign contracts first. It felt wrong and I should have kept walking the other way. I didn’t because something in what they proposed I was interested in. When I looked for a project plan and action steps, they very much weren’t provided again very like Brexit politicians, making a lot of wild promises some based on utter lies,which they have since even admitted to, and without any plan. If you tried this as a GP or other science based professional you would be stripped of your license to provide the service. Sad to see these rules don’t apply to politics.

So I guess I learned a few valuable lessons albeit very expensive ones. First to keep walking away when it feels wrong and secondly always look for a plan of action before you sign anything. It is how I do business, we do provide a plan with high level steps and deliverables, which we then fine-tune to ensure we can deliver everything.

From a Brexit perspective I think the whole of the UK is in a sleazy business deal and again without a very clear plan. Since the vote outcome, I have filled out numerous questionnaires for associations lobbying on behalf of small businesses. What it reinforces each time with me is that 90% of my business comes from the EU 5 to 7% from further afield and only 3 to 5% from the UK itself. If tariffs or additional paperwork is introduced in order to keep the 90% of my business, it would be less expensive to set up another office inside the EU. In fact some of the 90% is based on EU funded projects, so that is guaranteed to fall away. It is a worry I didn’t really need to add to the business, but I do have a strategy on how to deal with it, for now it is wait and see what happens and keeping outgoings to a minimum to ensure long term sustainability.

My question to all of you is, have you come across these sleazy deal tactics and what is your game plan when you do?