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

by Chris Voss

Again, the kidnapper dropped his demand, to $25,000. Now that we had him in our sights, we had the nephew make his first offer, an extreme low anchor of $3,000. The line went silent and the nephew began to sweat profusely, but we told him to hold tight. This always happened at the moment the kidnapper’s economic reality got totally rearranged. When he spoke again, the kidnapper seemed shell-shocked. But he went on. His next offer was lower, $10,000. Then we had the nephew answer with a strange number that seemed to come from deep calculation of what his aunt’s life was worth: $4,751. His new price? $7,500. In response, we had the cousin “spontaneously” say he’d throw in a new portable CD stereo and repeated the $4,751. The kidnappers, who didn’t really want the CD stereo felt there was no more money to be had, said yes. Six hours later, the family paid that sum and the aunt came back home safely.