It’s a jungle out there! Negotiating is hard because everyone finds conflict difficult. Use these negotiation tools to help get you through the jungle.
Most people, if not everyone avoids conflict. Why wouldn’t we? It’s not nice, tricky to navigate, and we usually end up in an emotional mess. Negotiation is conflict and yet with effective tools we can make our way through this jungle relatively unscathed by using these 3 animals of the negotiation jungle.
The Sheep – If you (ewe!), then I
Sorry about the terrible pun to make this into an animal. The ‘If you…, then I…’ tool is the most taught negotiation tool in the world. This is because it is very simple and very effective.
When we are negotiating it is hard to find a way to ask for a better deal. We want to, but we just don’t know how. Then we end up with lots of ums, arghs, and eventually plucking up the courage to ask for a better price, expecting a ‘no’, followed by us threatening to go elsewhere – not achieving what we wanted.
The If you, then I tool enables you to construct a sentence that asks for what you want and gives them what they want. For example:
If you can accept £500 less for that secondhand car, then I will pay cash today.
The part they want is second, so they listen to the part you want to then they hear their part. Never use ‘If I, then you’ – the reverse of If you, then I. This is because there is a risk that they will cut you off mid-sentence, take what they want, and you never get to say what you wanted. For example:
If I pay you cash…
Always, ‘If you…then I…’. Using You first, and I second will make this negotiation tool work like a dream for you.
The Snake – Big Outrageous Ask (BOA)
Most people simply do not ask for enough when they negotiate. The old adage is worth remembering here, ‘What’s the worse that can happen?’, just like the Dr. Pepper advert from 2008 featuring Jessie Eisenberg. Click the image below to watch the video.
Yes, I get that sometimes it feels cheeky, but the worst that can happen is that they say ‘No’. As long as you are not sacrificing your credibility for the ask, then ask.
We call it the ‘BOA’. Make the Big Outrageous Ask. You never know 1 in 10 might just happen. Consider the negotiation on 4 levels:
- Walk-away: This is the absolute lowest of what I can accept.
- Will: This is what I am reluctantly willing to accept.
- Want: This is what I want to get.
- Wish: This is what I wish to get.
It is the last level ‘wish’ where we want to push it a little more to make it a bigger wish, a BOA.
The BATT – Big Ambitious Team Target
Take the BOA from an individual to a team, and you have BATT. If you gather as a team and ask yourselves what could we really achieve in our collective negotiations for this year, you could achieve much more. What is your BATT?
Know your jungle. Use the animals. Negotiate better wins using these 3 negotiation tools.
Action: For even more useful content on negotiations, check out our ultimate guide on negotiation skills.
