brick by brick
There are no unilateral concessions at the negotiating table. When you make various concessions, you must also ask the other party to make various concessions. The latter is your purpose. Competent negotiators are good at making timely and appropriate concessions, and are also good at putting pressure on each other to force them to make concessions.
So, how can we make concessions to you better?
The ideal method is a gradual nibbling strategy. There is no doubt that what you want from your opponent is a great benefit, but you can't take it from your opponent at once. You must do it quietly and try your best to get it from the other side. If you want to take advantage, you will get it every time, bite by bite, and finally get it all. It's like cutting sausages. If you want to get a sausage and your opponent holds it tightly, you must not snatch it. You ask him to give you a thin slice first, and the owner of the sausage won't care, at least not very much. The next day you ask him to give you a thin slice, and the third day is the same. In this way, day after day, piece by piece, the whole sausage is yours.
The nibbling strategy has many advantages. Every time it asks the other party to make a little concession, the other party is psychologically easy to accept, and inadvertently, the other party makes a concession. Even after many concessions, I still haven't achieved my scheduled plan, but I have gained great benefits from these concessions. Even this way of urging the other side to make concessions can often break through their own expectations, and the concession result of the other side is often unexpectedly good.
The following is a dialogue between buyers and sellers, from which we can better understand the performance of nibbling strategy.
"You charge 750 yuan for this machine. We just saw the price of the same machine in 680 yuan.
Do you have anything to say about it? "
"If you really want to buy it, 680 yuan can make a deal."
"If I buy in bulk, I always buy 35 sets. Aren't you the same?"
"No, we give 60 yuan a discount for each set."
"We are short of funds now. Can you buy 20 sets first, 3 months later 15 sets? "
The seller hesitated, because it would not be so high to buy only 20 sets of discounts. But he thought of the unsatisfactory sales situation in recent weeks and agreed.
"So, you mean to sell us 20 machines at the price of 620 yuan," he said, and the buyer concluded.
The seller nodded.
"Why 620 yuan? Round it up, 600 yuan. It's easy to calculate. Crisp and neat, we will make a deal right away. "
The seller wanted to refute, but the word "deal" attracted him very much. It was difficult to complete the sales quota for several weeks, so he agreed.
The buyer's nibbling strategy took effect. He pushed the price from 750 yuan to 600 yuan, reducing it by 20%.
: ultimatum
An American airline wants to set up a large air terminal in new york, and wants to ask Edison Electric Power Company to give preferential treatment on electricity price. The power company has the initiative in this negotiation because the airline wants the power company. Therefore, the power company said that if preferential electricity prices were offered to airlines, the public service commission would not approve them and refused to lower the electricity prices, and the negotiations were deadlocked.
At this time, the airline suddenly changed its attitude, claiming that if it did not provide preferential electricity prices, it would withdraw from this negotiation and build its own factory to generate electricity.
As soon as this statement came out, the power company panicked and immediately requested the public service Committee to mediate and expressed its willingness to give preferential prices to such new users. Because the loss of power supply to this big airline means that the power company will lose a lot of money, so the power company quickly changed its original arrogant attitude and expressed its willingness to supply power at preferential prices.
In this case, the negotiation situation has changed so much because the airline skillfully used the ultimatum strategy in the process of asking the other party to make concessions.
The so-called ultimatum refers to setting a deadline for negotiations. If the other party does not accept its own trading conditions within this period, it will declare the negotiation broken and withdraw from the negotiation. This strategy is often used to force the other side to make concessions when the two sides are deadlocked and the other side is unwilling to make concessions to accept its own trading conditions.
An ultimatum usually proves to be an effective strategy. People are very sensitive to time in negotiations. Especially at the last minute of the negotiation, the two sides haggled fiercely for a long time and reached an agreement on many terms of the transaction, but they were deadlocked on the last one or two issues. If one party sets a deadline for negotiations and issues an ultimatum at this moment, the other party must consider whether it is prepared to give up this profitable opportunity, sacrifice the huge negotiation cost that has been invested before, weigh the benefits of making concessions and giving up the whole transaction, and insist on not doing it. If the negotiating partners don't have enough funds
Courage and negotiation experience, then, in the face of an ultimatum, the choice is often to retreat and make concessions in order to clinch a deal. Give an ultimatum, and you're done.
Of course, if the negotiator wants to use this strategy successfully to force his opponent to make concessions, he must have some conditions, otherwise, his wishful thinking will be difficult to succeed.
First, the ultimatum should make the other party unable to refuse.
The ultimatum must be issued when the other party is desperate and wants to get out, but it is too late, because he has invested a lot of money, time and energy in the negotiation. Not at the beginning of the negotiation, when the other party still has a way to go.
Second, the ultimatum should make the other party unable to fight back.
If we can fight back forcefully, there is no ultimatum. Negotiators must have reason to believe that the other party will act according to their expectations.
There is such an example, which is very telling.
In the cell of a prison in a western country, I saw the guards smoking in the corridor through the observation hole on the door. With a keen sense of smell, the prisoner immediately concluded that this was his favorite Marlboro cigarette. He is crazy about smoking, so he knocked on the door with his right finger.
The guard came up slowly and snorted contemptuously: "What?"
The prisoner replied, "please give me a cigarette ... the kind you smoke, Marlboro."
The guard ignored the prisoner's request and turned away.
The prisoner knocked on the door with his right knuckles again, this time he was imperative.
"What do you want?" The guard blew a mouthful of smoke from his mouth and turned around and shouted grumpily.
The prisoner replied, "excuse me, please give me a cigarette." I only wait 30 seconds. If I can't get it, I'll hit my head on the concrete wall until the blood comes out. " When the prison official pulled me up to wake me up, I swear it was you. "
"Of course, they will never believe me. But please think about it. You must attend the hearing. Before the hearing, you must fill out a report in triplicate. You have to take part in many interrogations. Think about it, all this is to not give me a few pence of Marlboro cigarettes? Just one, I promise I won't bother you again. "
The result is self-evident, and the guard will naturally give him a cigarette from the observation hole.
The prisoner's ultimatum came into effect. It came into effect because he was convinced that the guards could not fight back.
Third, the ultimatum should not be too sharp.
Negotiators must issue ultimatums as tactfully as possible. The ultimatum itself is aggressive. If the negotiators become more intense and hurt each other's feelings extremely, the other party may take risks on impulse and withdraw from the negotiations at once, which is not good for both sides.
The ultimatum strategy is not the monopoly of any negotiator. You can use this method to force the other party to make concessions, and the other party may also use this method to blackmail you. And how to deal with the opponent's ultimatum?
First of all, we must judge the authenticity of the ultimatum. Perhaps the ultimatum of the other side is just a bluff, then we should be tit for tat and make a gesture of never giving in and quitting the negotiations. But at the same time, give the other side a step down and tell them if they have any new ideas about the negotiation. Negotiations can continue.
Second, if the other party's ultimatum is serious, then we should carefully weigh the gains and losses of making concessions to reach an agreement and refusing to make concessions to lose the deal before making a decision.
Third, if we have to accept the ultimatum of the other party and make concessions to the other party, then we can consider changing other trading terms and strive to get back the lost benefits in other trading terms.