Category Archives: Negotiating Tactics

Summary: Moving a counterpart toward an unpleasant outcome, then threatening to push. When both sides in a negotiation have a great deal to lose if the negotiation fails and a great deal to win if…

Summary: Trying to influence a deal point by offering the ideal way to fulfill all of a counterpart’s needs. When your counterpart lays a proposal, solution, or deal point on the table, it’s a good…

Summary: Using negative information about a competitor to affect a counterpart’s decision. Sometimes you can change the power and direction of a negotiation simply by Providing Negative Information. Example A saleswoman is making a product…

Summary: Making an offer and assuming a counterpart will accept it. With this tactic, you make an offer and assume that your counterpart will take it. You’ve undoubtedly met salespeople who, before a negotiation has…

Summary: Doing something irrational to encourage a counterpart to concede deal points just to escape from the behavior. Once in a while it pays to do something crazy—something so irrational that your counterpart will concede…

Summary: Promising something favorable in the future in return for concessions now. One counterpart in a negotiation may promise the other counterpart, “If you can meet my demands, I will reward you at a later…

Summary: Using the argument that “It’s always been done this way.” Standard Practice or Policy is a tactic used to convince a counterpart to proceed in a certain way simply because that way is “policy.”…

Summary: Raising an unreasonable deal point to distract a counterpart and get her to make a concession on another deal point. You place a deal point on the bargaining table that you don’t expect to…

Summary: Making a big issue of something unimportant in order to gain a concession that matters more. With The Decoy, you make a big issue of something you don’t care much about when you are…

Summary: Avoiding immediate agreement to a counterpart’s offer to prevent the impression that the negotiation was too easy. Have you ever felt that you paid too much for something? Chances are you felt that way…