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

by Jim Camp

You cannot tell anyone anything. Think about this and be sure you agree with me. You can only help people see for themselves. To test this thesis, a clever client once devised a clever experiment. He was making a presentation to a financial analyst, and he did it twice, in effect—once in the standard didactic way, and then a second time in which he asked questions of the analyst. In the first presentation, the analyst sat quietly and took a few notes, but the second time around he filled page after page with notes as he engaged with the interrogatives from my client. Since that day, that particular client has understood completely the power of asking questions as a way of painting the vision, the pain, so the adversary in a negotiation sees it for his own.