This is the full twentieth chapter of my book, and first on the subject of relationships, from my book Awesomeness: An Amateur Potpourri of a How-To-Guide.
See part 20: Avoid Consumer Debt, here.
Back when I was in college, I had a class on negotiations, and one of the main projects was called “collecting no’s.” Basically, we had to get rejected 10 times. Each request had to be realistic, legal and to someone who didn’t know you were asking it as part of an assignment. The goal was to collect at least 10 “no’s” and write them each down and turn in that notebook. The point was that by collecting “no’s” you could break down the fear of rejection.
Salespeople will sometimes talk as if they have to go through X number of “no’s” to get a “yes” based on what percentage of their leads they actually convert. So every “no” — while technically accomplishing nothing — psychologically feels like moving forward.
Such assignments are helpful, but they don’t finish the job by any means. Getting rejected still sucks. But generally speaking, it’s the fear of that rejection that’s the worst thing. I’m not talking about being rejected by a spouse or parent or someone really close to you, but in the smaller things. And with those things, it really shouldn’t matter if you’re rejected. After all, what harm is it really for someone to say no to you?
While it may be easy to tell yourself that, it’s a lot harder to actually feel that way. I certainly have by no means mastered this, but I can say it helps to consciously remind yourself beforehand of how little it will matter in a month. Imagine detaching yourself from the situation and seeing it as a third party, neutral observer. Take the emotion out of it, as well as the potential for hurt feelings or embarrassment. If they get offended or angry or reject you, who cares?
What would that third party observer think? Well, such a person would probably be bored out of their mind. Watching two people negotiate a deal you have no stake in (and aren’t trying to learn from) is about as interesting as watching paint dry.
And, of course, each time it gets easier. So keep at it, and that sense of calm during negotiations will come, at least to a large extent. If you don’t have much experience negotiating, however, you will just have to accept the butterflies. It’s best not to try to overload yourself with various negotiating techniques and what not to do when approaching negotiating early on.
Instead, focus on the key components until you master them. And they boil down to three things:
Ask for what you want
Always be willing to walk away
First build rapport
Let’s start with asking for what you want. I’ve noticed time and time again that most things are negotiable and just asking, “Do you have any flexibility on price?” is all it takes to get at least some sort of discount.
Some time back, my father was trying to purchase a house and had reached his bottom line. Unfortunately, he and the seller were still $10,000 apart. He was stuck at $170,000, and she was at $180,000.
Earlier in the conversation, however, the seller had mentioned how her son needed a new cell phone. Well, my dad just happened to have an extra one (a phone that he was going to give to me, by the way). All of a sudden, a solution appeared.
“How about this? I happen to have an extra cell phone—what if I throw it in if you can come down to $170,000? Does that work?”
And she said yes.
One cellphone for $10,000.
This story obviously highlights the importance of building rapport, but it also shows how critical it is to simply ask for what you want. I’ve heard many real estate investors say that if you’re not embarrassed about your first offer, you’re offering too much. And there’s certainly a lot of truth in that much of the time. But a better way to think of it is this: just ask for what you want.
Yes, the offer was kind of ridiculous, but what was the harm in it? After all, my dad had reached his bottom line. So his choices were to either find a creative (or ridiculous) solution or walk away from the deal.
And that leads us to the second key; always be willing to walk away. Sometime back, I was traveling in South America with a good friend of mine who is fluent in Spanish. My Spanish at the time was no bueno, so I was fairly reliant on him when it came to communicating with the locals.
Anyways, I had somehow forgotten my sunglasses back in the States, and so we walked to one of the local shops to buy a new pair. I picked up the pair and asked how much. “Treinta mil pesos” (thirty thousand) the shopkeeper told me. ¡Un precio para un gringo! My friend said (in English) to ask how much he would come down. He offered a token discount. Then my friend told me to set the sunglasses down and begin to walk away. So I did. The guy grabbed my arm and cut his price substantially. “Ask for more,” said my friend.
At the end of the day, I bought the sunglasses for thirteen thousand pesos, less than half of what he originally asked for.
Such bartering is par for the course in Latin America, but it highlights a major lesson: The power to walk away is crucial. In some ways, by itself this defeats the fear of rejection. If you’re willing to walk away, what can a “no” really do to you? Regardless, it is of the utmost importance to never be a motivated buyer (or seller for that matter).
Any participant who is not willing to walk away is at an enormous disadvantage and will get the short end of the stick almost every time.
The third thing is to build rapport. Don’t immediately go into the negotiating, but first talk to and genuinely be interested in the other person. Negotiations are not battles, either you can find an agreement that works, or you bid each other good day and move on. “Don’t bargain over positions” but rather their interests (not what they’re asking for necessarily, but what they actually want to get out of it) as the negotiating book Getting To Yes puts it.1 By coming at the negotiation as partners rather than adversaries, a wide variety of options can be evaluated and, potentially, a win/win solution can be found.
Negotiating is not an easy thing to master (and I certainly haven’t done it). But as far as the foundation goes, asking for what you want, being willing to walk away and a little rapport building can put you in the top 10 percent of negotiators out there.
1 Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes, Penguin Books, Copyright 1991, Pg. 3
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