Never Split the Difference. Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

In two famous studies on what makes us like or dislike somebody, UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian
created the 7-38-55 rule. That is, only 7 percent of a message is based on the words while 38 percent comes from
the tone of voice and 55 percent from the speaker’s body language and face.

If you can get the other party to reveal their problems, pain, and unmet objectives—if you can get at what people
are really buying—then you can sell them a vision of their problem that leaves your proposal as the perfect solution. Look at this from the most basic level. What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening.

If you’re trying to sell something, don’t start with “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” Instead ask, “Is now a bad time to talk?”

We’ve instrumentalized niceness as a way of greasing the social wheels, yet it’s often a ruse.

Change is scary, and “No” provides a little protection from that scariness. When someone tells you “No,” you need to rethink the word in one of its alternative—and much more real— meanings:
■ I am not yet ready to agree;
■ You are making me feel uncomfortable;
■ I do not understand;
■ I don’t think I can afford it;
■ I want something else;
■ I need more information; or
■ I want to talk it over with someone else.

"No" is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it.

A trap into which many fall is to take what other people say literally.

After all, if someone is talking, they’re not shooting.

The less important the person makes himself, the more important he probably is (and vice versa).

I was employing what had become one of the FBI’s most potent negotiating tools: the open-ended question. The other side can respond to but that have no fixed answers.

The conversation had shifted from how I’d respond to the threat of my son’s murder to how the professor would
deal with the logistical issues involved in getting the money. How he would solve my problems.