Learnings from the book “Never split the difference” from Chris Voss

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– A deadline push people to make things. While it is useful in Marketing because people might think “I’ll buy later then”, in negotiation, a deadline will push you to take steps that you necessarily do not want. Be careful to not be under the influence of someone putting a fake deadline. A real estate agent once told me that his offer “Couldn’t last long” so that I would decide fast. Problem was that he was supposed to serve me, not the other way around.

– Mirroring: Mirroring is the technique of repeating what someone is saying to let the person say more. In negotiation, is it important to have the more information possible. By pushing people to say more, you understand the situation better and can come up with a better answer.

– Give the no to your counterpart: No means having the power. Haven’t you ever asked a friend “Let’s do this cool stuff” and he answered “no” with no reason? In reality, this “no” would mean that he does not have the control and he wanted it. By pushing people to say “no”, you make them gain the control back. I experienced it by asking my prospect “Do you think what I said was bad/dumb?” and then they would generally answer “No sorry I just didn’t not take the time to answer”.

For instance, while negotiating an increase of salary with your boss, you could definitely start with “You do not want me to leave the company?”, if the person doesn’t want to fire you, then they would answer “no directly”, then it’s a ground for your negotiation as they want to keep you.

– Always listen actively what other people say.

-Slow down the pace of speaking. Otherwise you will not be able to understand what is said.

– Get your answer by asking the counterpart how to do. If the counterpart wants you do something that seems impossible, the best way to do it is to ask him or her how to do so that he can either understand the complexity of the situation or provide you the answer.

I am really interested by your service but I only have 500, can you do it for this price? And how am I supposed to do that?

– Label people’s emotion by saying “it seems, it sounds like, it looks like”. By putting words on what they feel, you will be able to obtain a lot of information. A little bit like a therapist couch. It helps also to understand a situation from someone else’s perspective. It also helps to understand the obstacles a person can face. Labelling is an invitation for the person to reveal himself. It helps deescalating bad situations. The goal is to, in case of negativity, recognize it and assess it without judging it.

– Accept negative statements. For instance “I don’t want to sound harsh” is worse than “I will be harsh now but” because it’s kind of hypocritical if people figure out that you will be harsh.

– People think a yes is the best way to get answer but sometimes others are forced to say yes to not chock the other person.

– When doing a calculation in a negotiation, provide so-called complicated and even numbers. They appear like you made a savant calculation to come up with such a number and hence, you would be taken more seriously. An example with a real estate agent, he provided me with the number 169 753 instead of 170 000. This made the effect that he knew his price and that he had a way to calculate in a smart way.

– Provide boundaries. Again, a real estate agent once told me that the price could be between x and y. What it did is that, I was focusing on y, the higher, while he was assuring his ass with x. Which means that he could only provide x and he would be right, while I was whishing for y.

The same thing with delivery, if you say that you will deliver in 2 weeks, customer expects 2 weeks or less. Deliver later and they will be sad. If you say you deliver between 2 weeks to one month, deliver in two weeks or a little after and they will be ok. They expected 2 weeks but got a little bit later as you already said.

– Get the “that’s right”. That’s right means that the person you’re negotiating with acknowledge the way you analyzed the situation. He/she agrees on your view. It’s not “You’re right”, it’s “that’s right”, it’s objective, it’s not about your judgment, it’s about the situation. Hence, if you have a that’s right with you, it means that the conversation has advanced into the way you interpreted it and the person with whom you talked will have no choice than to agree.

Example : A friend of mine is well paid but making a lot of hours, in his negotiation, he could think of a way to tell his boss that maybe he’s well paid but at the end, with all the hour he puts, his ratio is not that high. His boss could then either say “That’s right” and he could validate this position as a “You agreed that I was doing a lot of hours compared to my pay, wouldn’t it be fair to increase it if I provide a good work?”

– Make pauses : Sometimes it’s also good to pause during your conversation. Some cultures do not like when people pause as they feel uncomfortable, but showing that you are not uncomfortable during your pauses also shows that you have control as other people might rush to kill this pause.

– Paraphrasing what other people say. To be sure that you have the full understanding of what others say, you should paraphrase what they are saying and ask if you understand them fully.

– Do not compromise. I don’t really like this one but let’s go. Sometimes, being hard and holding what you want is the best way to get what you want. Compromising leads to weird situations while being hard makes it either or. It’s easy to compromise and to avoid conflict, it’s hard to hold your position.

– Make something fair for both parties. Deal get destroyed because of a lack of fairness. One part feels as if they are being robbed and then the relationship explode. Find this fairness between you and your counterpart. Ask also your counterpart what do they feel about it and if they feel it’s fair.

– We think we use logic to take decision while we just use emotions.

– Tell them that you’re doing that so that we can both win, don’t think it’s a boxing game, it’s a game where we just can both win.

– The loss aversion makes that people prefer not to loose rather than win. Someone would not sell rather than selling at lost. An example, you would rather throw and object rather than selling it for a tiny small price to someone that can benefit it.

– Don’t let them say prices first, let them tell you what they think the price could be. That’s called anchoring. When someone provide a frame of reference, it is possible to know what are their expectations. Let’s say you sell your service 10x, but someone has a budget of 20x, if do not anchor what they have in mind, you cannot guess what is their reality/expectations.

– Give them the illusion of control. By giving the control to the other counterpart, you can get the outcomes they want. For a salary negotiation, something like “How am I supposed to stay motivated at work, and be productive?” would be a kind of good base to get an answer from your boss. Use questions with those words : what and how.

– Rule of three : Getting the other person to agree three times.

– When refusing an offer (to not compromise), say that you can’t do something and hold your position, even if you would like to. Then, the other person will, if really wants, try to find solution to go to you.

– There are three types of negotiators (haven’t ben deep into this subjects) : Analyst, accomodator and assertive.

– We all have a Black Swan and that’s what we need to find I negotiation. Black Swan are deep desire, something that let us do what we do. Something that make us wake up in the morning or make the choice we make. You need to find them to understand your counterpart point of view.

For example, I was dealing with a real estate agent and the deal included my older brother. Despite being younger, I like to be considered as equal as my brother. When real estate agents think they need to give him more attention due to his stronger temper, mine awakes and they can be sure that they are on the verge to lose due to the fact that my Black Swan awakes. I am not saying that I am destroying all the deals I have because of jealousy, I am saying that there is something inside of me that can make me behave one way or another depending on how you treat me. A good real estate agent would either behave normally, either try to understand our relationship to run good negotiations.

By finding the Black Swan, you could get leverage. Hence, a client that would like a video because he loves cinema and want to kind of make a movie out of his life is a pure example on how to negotiate a video-editing service for instance.

Steve Jobs Iphone and Ipad were black Swans.

The leverage that you can gather with a Black Swan should be positive, meaning make the other counterpart feel well, not worse.

Find the hopes and dream of the person to find the black Swan