In Singapore I picked the following project for my "non-negotiable" deliverable in the negotiation class: get one of the most expensive restaurant in town to do a home delivery of one meal for one person.

First I put on my best suit and walked into the restaurant and asked to talk to the outlet manager. I explained that we really wanted to show our appreciation of our top notch world famous Brazilian professor. We had decided him to treat him to a very nice meal. Unfortunately, he was very busy and the only evening he had available was an evening when he was organizing a Brazilian BBQ for us so we couldn't bring him to this hotel/restaurant.

I was told: "no home delivey, this is a hotel policy"
That was exactly what I needed - otherwise it would not have been a non-negotiable.

I first tried to understand why it could not be done and it turned out that brand image was the main concern of this guy: what if the food gets there cold, what if it is not eaten within an hour or so, what kind of liability is there, what can they put the food in so that it looks respectable enough...
Then I tried to understand who could really make the decision and had to talk to the director of restaurants. He was concerned about business aspects: normally they'd do full catering services for weddings, etc...and transpose the experience on their premises to an outside venue. He expected at the very very least a purchase worth $1000 to reach his radar screen. I explained it would be only for one person and that I was looking at list prices on the menu as a legitimate reference. He immediately went down to $500 minimal purchase but this wouldn't do as I was really concerned with the welfare of only one person. He then said that I'd have to talk to his boss as I kept asking questions about what concerned him: he summarized it - I am not going to pay a $20 delivery fee when you are going to buy $60 worth of food and to respect our image of superior service, we would not charge for delivery.
The first meeting was in person and lasted for about an hour, the second was over the phone (do not give out contact details until you have theirs) and lasted for over an hour. The last hour took place in person, over the phone and over email with the Director of Catering Services. Each time I met someone in person, I was offered a drink.

With the Director, I pulled out the trump card and talked about many other ways I could help them as I belonged to Insead. The Director wanted information and I provided him with any non confidential information I could find in a timely manner. After a few days of trust building - he also did work on my problem. By positioning the problem as a problem, that we both had to solve and by opening the discussion (and committed to bringing more value for them into the discussion), we managed to keep a conversation going. I tried to help with as many concerns they had as possible and tried to understand what they were really interested in. We solved the remaining problems he could think of

- he did not have a box to deliver things in: we went to a Dehli and used their aluminum box
- he wanted me to have a direct discussion with the chef as some menu items were not going to travel well - we settled on a lamp chop with vegetables
- he was worried about delivery: a taxi driver would run away with teh food, he had no staff available at that time to send to our place. He proposed in the end to deliver the food himself after his work day.
- delivery costs were too high for him to justify this to his boss. I offered to pay for the delivery which I found fair
- for the rest, the business made sense (I would pay menu list price), relationship building was important to both of us, and it would correspond to his sense of service.

He made it very clear that this was NOT their business model and that he would not do this with anyone else. It took me close to two weeks to negotiate this, after repeated meetings during which he also tested my commitment. I had to show tremendous respect for their brand image and be consistent with the message: brand is of value to me, I won't negotiate on price.

This story went around school. In Fontainebleau, the only restaurant that we know of that does home delivery is a pizzeria. As we were planning on working very late on our Financial Statement Analysis project (on Netflix), we decided we wanted another type of food. I decided to negotiate a home delivery with another restaurant. We picked an ethnic restaurant, and specifically Asian figuring that they'd be more open to a flexible commercial approach. We also targeted places which did Take-Away as logistically, they would be more able to respond to our request. After a few unsuccessful conversations, someone was willing to come (and did not make us pay for delivery) as she recognized the importance of having a good relationship with Insead. The owner (a lady who might have felt closer to us) drove herself to school and left her staff alone to deal with sit-in customers. We gave her a generous tip and enjoyed a fantastic Chinese meal!