To get what you want personally and professionally, you will most likely have to to persuade to some people. In fact, it could be said that your ability to negotiate it is one of the most important skills you can develop when it comes to generating leads and expanding your income.
Negotiating is an art. Everyone can ask for what they want. But… and get it? That’s another story.
In this post we are going to talk about some very effective trading strategies that will help you get what you want.
Just don’t abuse your powers.
Let’s go there.
1. Anchor
Anchoring is a technique based on behavioral psychology that consists of establishing a point of reference with a very high or very low offer, depending on what you are looking for.
The beauty of anchoring is that subsequent offers and the end result are consciously or unconsciously compared to the original reference pointand that increases the chances that the person you are negotiating with (the “other party”) will end up satisfied with the end result (the end result being better for them than your original offer or anchor point).
One of the keys to a good negotiation is that the other party perceives that the final result is good for them and not just for you. Anchoring is a very effective way to achieve this effect.
2. Loss aversion
The loss aversion is another very powerful negotiating weapon.
People are not equipped to take loss so easily. Positioning your arguments with a focus on what can be gained by reaching an agreement is fine, but it is often more effective to focus on what can be lost.
It is not “if we do this we will get that”, but rather “if we don’t do this, we will lose that”. This way of approaching active negotiation the instinct of preservation and the motivation to reach an agreement (or encourage the desired behavior in the other party).
3. Reciprocity
Robert Cialdini, the famous persuasion scholar, found in his research that the desire for reciprocity It is one of the factors that most influences our behavior.
The feeling that “we owe someone something” makes us uncomfortable. There is something in us that pushes us to balance the scales in some way. And this mental dynamic is something you can use to your advantage when negotiating.
The interesting thing about the matter is that this mechanism is activated even in those situations in which you do something for the other party that is not so important to them. The simple act of transferring value to the other person, no matter how insignificant, often creates that feeling of debt. Which puts you in a more advantageous position to get what you want.
4. Calibrated empathy
Chris Voss, the FBI’s expert negotiator in hostage rescue situations, developed a technique for introducing empathy into negotiations, through calibrated questions.
When someone makes an unreasonable request to us, we tend to respond emotionally. And that causes the dialogue to derail, because the parties do not feel understood.
The calibrated empathy technique consists of using questions like: How am I supposed to do that? How can we find a solution that works for both of us?
These types of questions achieve two very important effects: First, it redirects the conversation from a emotional to a more focused logical and constructive. And secondly, since it is the other party that has to come up with answers to those questions, he feels that take back control and lends itself more motivated to reach an agreement.
5. Be willing to break off the negotiation
When we have invested a lot of time and effort in something, we usually suffer from the «sunk cost fallacy«. We don’t want to withdraw, because we have the feeling that we would throw away all that time and effort that we have invested to get there.
That perspective does not help us in a negotiation, because it puts us in a weak mental position that encourages us to make unnecessary concessions.
To avoid falling into that mental trap, you must have other alternatives Y accept them as a possible route you will take if the negotiation goes too awry. That will make you less dependent on reaching an agreement and put you in a stronger mental position.
There you have it, 5 very effective strategies to skillfully negotiate in those situations that are particularly important.
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