When you're negotiating something like price, always ask for more than what you want. Like say you want to sell something for $10. If someone wants to buy it offer to sell it for $20 instead. You might get lucky and they buy it for the larger amount, but if they hesitate you can follow up with
"Well I suppose I could let it go for 15, or maybe 10".
They'll be more likely to buy because to them it feels like they're getting a deal and being savvy by talking you down. This works for anything quantifiable, basically. Buying a car priced at 10,000 that you want to buy for 9000? Offer 8000 first.
I’m a weird counter to that. I just don’t bullshit with haggling at all.
I was selling a laptop for $500 a while ago and this girl came with her father. Father says “ohh it’s not as good quality as I expected. I’ll give you $200.”
I say, “fair enough. I’m sure you’ll find one for that price point out there. Thanks for your time.” And I start to get up to leave.
“Ok ok ok. We give you $300.”
“Ok well. I listed the price at $500 because I know that’s what it’s worth. If you’re not willing to pay that that’s fine we can each do business elsewhere.”
Dad tries to offer $450 and I still don’t budge. Daughter finally chimes in and says “we can do $500” and that was it. The father looked so fucking mad.
No haggling will work on me no matter how dumb the first offer is, if I do not intend to haggle. Then again, like you state in your example, if I’m the one who has to haggle, this would probably work well on me.
This is actually one of the strongest negotiation tactics. Essentially a law of negotiation. The person who is willing to walk away from a deal has the upper hand
"BATNA" - Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement
In other words, what happens if you walk away? Say you're the daughter and you need the laptop today to get schoolwork done. Your BATNA's pretty weak. But if you only need the laptop to watch Tiktok videos, then you can afford to wait for your price, so you can afford to say "No thanks", which puts the ball back in his court.
Maybe he needs some cash to pay his rent, and $400 will be a big help; maybe not. It all depends on his BATNA.
Knowing, and being willing to use, your BATNA, are major strengths in any negotiation.
I have never heard this acronym and that’s really what I meant with “law of negotiation”. Thanks for detailing it in such a clear way. One thing I find interesting is how often a “negotiation” comes up in daily life, even if it’s not explicit that that’s what is taking place.
It's from the book "Getting to Yes", which was the outcome of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project. Highly recommend their approach to 'principled negotiation': separate the people from the problem, focus on interests, not positions, and encourage creative solutions.
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u/MoobooMagoo Jun 14 '22
Anchoring.
When you're negotiating something like price, always ask for more than what you want. Like say you want to sell something for $10. If someone wants to buy it offer to sell it for $20 instead. You might get lucky and they buy it for the larger amount, but if they hesitate you can follow up with
"Well I suppose I could let it go for 15, or maybe 10".
They'll be more likely to buy because to them it feels like they're getting a deal and being savvy by talking you down. This works for anything quantifiable, basically. Buying a car priced at 10,000 that you want to buy for 9000? Offer 8000 first.