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The most important lesson I learnt about negotiation

As a kid you probably experienced this situation before with an adult:

Adult: “Time to go to bed.” (goal: adult wants kid to go to bed)
Kid: “OK in 15 mins.”
Adult: “No. 5mins.”
Kid: “10mins.”
Adult: “Deal. 10mins.”

Let’s face it, to the adult those 10mins will probably not make a massive difference – because the kid will be in bed (which is the ultimate goal).

However, the kid feels over the moon they managed to haggle a good deal to play for 10 more mins! Despite originally not wanting to go to bed at all, they now completely forget about that point. They feel they are winning!

That is crazy? Right?

This week we had Dan Oblinger from Leadercraft, a professional hostage negotiator and negotiation coach for businesses teach all our agencies the following:

“If you keep taking things at face value, you will never give the other side an opportunity to feel like they got a good deal – you ultimately make them feel bad.”

The tip to avoid this:

Don’t take any offers at face value. If you give a discount, ask for something non-monetary in exchange down the line.

The very reason we’ve been conditioned as kids, is the reason we are now happy if we get the £500 item for £300, although the seller was happy with £100 but just started negotiating at £500.

The same theory applies to your clients, landlords, etc.

Happy Easter folks, go negotiate how many chocolate eggs you can get!

Access the full video with all negotiation tips.

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