The Negotiation Guru

We never treasure things we obtain easily. This applies to all parts of life. We only treasure things that we cannot have and don’t see much value in things we get too easily.

To illustrate this point:

2 years ago, I was given the task of being the baby-sitter for the day. I had to take care of my niece. She was 6 years old then. It’s amazing how much i can learn about human psychology just by playing with my niece.

Kids love attention. And this can be irritating at times when you have other things to attend to. Imagine you are rushing your report which will be due the next day. And a kid keeps coming to you, demanding for attention. What will you do? Naturally, we will find something that will hold the kid’s attention, at least for a while. I gave my niece a soft toy to play with, hoping that it would hold her attention. After 5 minutes, she threw the toy on the floor and bugged me for another! I reckoned that if i were to give her another toy, the same thing would happen again. So, i decided to give value to the next toy i was going to give to her.

“This toy is really precious to me. My best friend gave it to me and I REALLY love it. I can’t let you have it.”

I did this for like 10 minutes. She grew impatient and started throwing tantrums. I simply ignored her. Then i said, “Alright, if you can be a good girl for 15 minutes (pointing to the clock), I will let you see my toy.” She agreed immediately.

In negotiations, similar situations happen all the time. We have something that the other party wants. Learning to hold back and create value for that thing (even if its free), we will be able gain leverage. Always give weight to everything they ask for.

We often hold back on the concessions we are willing to give until the other party agrees to giving us something that we value. Augmenting the attractiveness and value of a particular offer is a powerful tool to use to get what we want from the negotiation.

Never give away concessions too easily. Let them work for it.