Start with No: The Negotiating Tools that the Pros Don't Want You to Know

by Jim Camp

It is absolutely imperative that you as a negotiator understand the importance of this point. You do NOT need this deal, because to be needy is to lose control and make bad decisions.

How vulnerable are you to predators when you lose control...

Every animal trainer knows the same thing: with a predator, it’s all about power.

Many negotiators are the same way. Many win-win negotiators are the same way.

With experience they have learned that neediness can have—will have—a dramatic, always negative effect on their behavior. You must overcome any neediness at the negotiating table.

The very term “sales” is being replaced in many fields by “business development,” because the image of the salesperson is that of the huckster on the street, almost.

After all, the buyer can go elsewhere, in most cases, but the poor seller needs this deal. The self-image of the individual in the selling role traps him or her in a neediness mode and often leads to bad deals. Tough negotiators are experts at recognizing this neediness

in their adversaries, and expert in creating it as well.

Then, when the neediness is well established, they lower the boom with changes, exceptions, and a lot more—demands for concessions, all of them.

but when they were selling vitally needed horses to the explorers, they pitched their teepees and settled in for the long haul.

(The journals of Lewis and Clark are excellent reading for any negotiator, because these two great Americans encountered dozens of unusual negotiating situations.)

We use the word “need” much too casually. The only things we truly need are the basics of physical survival—air, water, food, clothing, shelter—and everyone reading this book already has these.

Sometimes neediness is blatant and easy to spot, as in that flying story, but more often it is subtle and insidious. The trained negotiator sees neediness of all sorts all the time, in big ways and in little ways. It is so easy to slip into such a state, often without even being aware of it.

The trained negotiator sees neediness of all sorts all the time, in big ways and in little ways. It is so easy to slip into such a state, often without even being aware of it. Think about something as simple as a greeting. “Hi, I’m Frank Jones.”

“Hello, Mr. Jones.” Such subtle subservience puts you at an immediate disadvantage. You have conceded that Frank Jones is top gun in this room, and he knows it. You’re ripe for the picking. So call him Frank instead.

Talking can be an overt showing of need. This is why “No Talking” is one of my rules—an exaggeration, of course,

Okay, thought his shrewder adversaries, we’ll be happy to let you feel important as we skin you alive. This is a common issue that hard-driving, alpha-male types have to deal with daily: They want to know it all, or, short of that, they want to be seen to know it all. The adrenaline kicks in, the neediness becomes a biochemical fact, then the neediness becomes a biochemical addiction. It’s true.

One of the most effective life insurance salesmen I ever saw was a man in a wheelchair who could not speak. He used a marker and a board to communicate, patiently writing out his questions. I would not wish this man’s disability on anyone, but his only means of asking questions was a terrific advantage in his profession, as he was the first to acknowledge, because it’s hard to be needy while sitting in a wheelchair calmly writing out questions by hand. (His most effective question, by the way: “If we lose you, where will your family live?”)

A cold call is just another negotiation—no more and no less—and by the end of this book you’ll understand how to handle a cold call according to the same rules and habits as you would handle any other negotiation.

When emotions run hot and heavy in negotiations, the high-pitched voice is a sure sign of need. The rushed delivery is another sure sign. While needy negotiators raise their voices, negotiators under control lower their voices. So lower your voice in times of inner turmoil. Slow down.

“Why would you want to spend so much money on them? A lot of money for grandparents.” She would have shown no need while building my need. She’d have laid a guilt trip on me—Money’s not a factor when it comes to my grandparents!—and I’d have paid 1,000 piastres, or darned close to it, because I really loved my grandparents.

Build up your adversary's need

Fear of rejection is a sign of neediness—specifically, the need to be liked.

But can your adversary in a negotiation really reject you? They don’t have any such power. Never, never allow them to believe that they do.

The serious negotiator understands that he or she cannot go out into the world spending emotional energy in the effort to be liked, to be smart, to be important.

Feelings vs faith

In labor-management relationships, a key tactic of management is to find union members who want a boost to the ego and can therefore be made to feel needy. Such members can be manipulated until they are double agents for management, in effect, passing on contrived information, telling their own union members, “Our committee is getting us killed. I’ve got buddies in management. That’s what they tell me. They might shut this plant down if we keep on like this.”

I’ve seen negotiating team members undermine their own team in a host of ways. They leak valuable information, bring back false information, break their team’s resolve, urge unnecessary compromises—all

because their neediness to be smart, to be liked, to be important, is turned against them by the clever adversary.

We finally found out that their CEO was wary precisely because the company that was now my client had compromised too much.

Likewise, the trained negotiator has no needs, because it just doesn’t matter. There are other deals. Turn the page on this one. Let it go.

I mentioned in the introduction one of my ironclad rules: “No Closing.” The context was a discussion of the dangers of win-win,

how win-win implicitly urges you to focus on what you cannot control—the end—while losing sight of what you can control—the means. Now I’ll add the point that urgent closing betra...

No, you don’t. But maybe your adv...

You had a vision of neediness, which makes anyone feel uncomfortable emotionally, and which also serves as a warning to look closer at this deal.

More bad deals are signed and more sales are lost because of neediness than because of any other single factor.

As a negotiator aspiring to excellence, you must, at all costs, avoid showing need. In order to avoid showing need, you must never feel it. You do not need this deal.

It will be their loss, not mine, if any of these deals falls through. Either way, I’ll sleep tonight and I’ll eat tomorrow.

Camp-trained negotiators never show need, only want. “Need” is death, “want” is life. Believe me, this different attitude will be instantly perceived by the folks on the other side of the table. Confidence and trust go up across the board. Control and discipline go up for you.

but I can’t say this too often: Overcome all need.

The Columbo Effect The Secret of Being “Not Okay”

He always presented himself to his adversaries as a little less competent than they were, a little less perfect—or, usually, a lot less perfect. He could get people to talk to him because he made them feel superior and therefore comfortable. In the lingo made famous by the book I’m Okay, You’re Okay, he seduced them into feeling okay.

When we’re called upon to show ourselves, do we expose our weakness? Never. We expose our strength. Maybe our strength is our knowledge, or physical beauty, or charming personality. Maybe we are cunning and fearless, or quick of wit. Whatever our strength, that is what we build on. That is what we show the world. This is what we need to show the world.

The wise negotiator knows that only one person in a negotiation can feel okay, and that person is the adversary.

By letting your adversary be a little more okay, you start to bring down barriers. By allowing him to feel in control, you, like Columbo, are actually in control.

can emulate Columbo’s unokayness to even a small degree, in your own way, you will exponentially increase your negotiating success.

If he likes to show off his glibness, let him. If he can’t resist the opportunity to play to his charm, let him. If he likes to demonstrate his extraordinary grasp of the finest points of federal maritime law, let him. The trained negotiator is more than happy to let the adversary show off in almost any way he wants to, because that adversary’s greatest strength will eventually become his greatest weakness.

“You have done such a great job negotiating, and we are so incompetent and so weak in negotiating, that we have been a poor supplier. We have put you in a terrible position, and we apologize for that. We take responsibility for our ineptness in negotiation.”

They’ve called my negotiators names and accused them of unprofessional behavior, real in-your-face tactics. (Sometimes these fellows will be your best friend and wine and dine you, then turn on a dime and intimidate you with bluster.) Do my clients get needy? Do they get defensive and then aggressive and fight back against this behavior? No. They listen calmly, they take notes, they make a concerted effort to be not okay, and then they ask quietly, “What would you like us to do?”

I’m asking you not to be afraid of candor and honesty,

She got the deal because the purse episode broke through the final barrier in the negotiation, allowing decisions to flow freely. This is not trivial gamesmanship. This is honesty, the honesty of unokayness that breaks down barriers.

And here I am suggesting that you get to the top by presenting yourself as less okay! In the context of a negotiation, yes I am. I’m not saying you show up with a stain on your shirt or blouse. Just a little something that’s less than perfect to inject a little humanity, a little vulnerability, a little unokayness. The truly skillful, successful negotiator gets his or her strokes at home.