There are hundreds of books on how to negotiate. You can spend a year reading them all to become a great negotiator. Or you can do the one thing that will give you the upper hand in every negotiation: be willing to walk away.
I spoke about this during my negotiation workshop at the Heureka Conference in Berlin earlier this month:
Before you walk into any negotiation, you must know at what price you'll leave the deal. Before you start negotiating with anyone, ask yourself:
"At what point will I walk away from this? Where isn't this a good deal anymore? Where do I draw the line in the sand that I won't cross?"
It always surprises me how few people set their prices in advance. It makes life much easier and makes you a more effective negotiator.
Simple, But Hard
This sounds almost too simplistic, right? Can something so plain be the key to working out better deals?
I believe it is. You don't need to be fancy rhetorics, clever, persuasive tricks, or complex strategies to be a great negotiator. Just know at which point you'll walk away.
Don't take my word for it. Give it a try. You'll find that while this is easy in theory, it's hard to practice.
It's hard to manage your emotional investment in any given negotiation in which you're involved. Fears of losing out will whisper into your ear. Your insecurities will weaken your resolve. Doubts will try to break you.
The hardest person you'll ever negotiate with is not some slick Wall Street dealmaker - it's you! There's an "anxious little teenager area" in your brain that's really good at inspiring you to make stupid choices, and the higher the stakes, the louder and more forceful it will become.
Win-Win, Win-Lose & Real Life
Some people walk into every negotiation, trying to get everything they can out of a deal. They don't care if it ruins the other side or makes them unhappy. They just want as much as they can get.
If you don't know the price, you're willing to walk away; these people can eat you for lunch.
Trying to reach a 100 percent win-win is noble in intention, but nothing in life is balanced. The scale is always tipped in one direction - and you want it to be yours—just a bit.
What's the Real Goal of Any Negotiation?
Any negotiation you engage in should ideally lead to a long-lasting, profitable relationship between you and the other party. Avoid one-time transactions. You can't do this if you're screwing the other side over. Both parties need to get more good out of the deal than they put into it.
What Happens When You're Not Willing to Walk Away
If you don't establish your price before engaging in a negotiation, it can wear you down and cause you to make concessions you shouldn't make. If you don't draw a clear line in the sand before you enter the deal, it's too easy to talk yourself into accepting lousy terms to close this deal.
"It's Just an Exception."
One of the most common justifications I see sales reps bring up for closing lousy deals is that this is an exceptional customer. Don't make exceptions. That's why you draw a line in the sand.
If you want to close a deal by offering one customer better terms, you must redraw every customer's line. This becomes even more important as your sales team grows and your sales process scales. Managing dozens of people who all bring you exceptional deals is a big mess you don't want to deal with. It's just not worth it.
How Close Landed Its First Big Enterprise Customer (Without Trying)
Shortly after we launched our sales software, we drew our line in the sand and made a decision:
"We're not going to do any enterprise sales, and we're not going to engage in complex sales cycles with big customers. We'll treat all our customers equally, whether they're a huge corporation or a tiny startup."
There was a reason for this: we knew how enterprise sales worked, and we didn't want to play that game.
Guess what happened soon thereafter?
Huge startup told us they wanted to have their sales team use our software. We liked this company, respected the founders and the product.
But we know that a company of that size could be in trouble. Remember, we had drawn a line in the sand. So we asked them:
A few days later, a huge startup speaks with us again:
We went through several rounds of this. They requested a feature that was required to make the deal happen, but we kept saying no. They threatened to pull out of the deal, and we wished them good luck.
Now, internally, we weren't as cool as that. We were scared of losing this giant, delicious deal right before us.
But we had drawn our line in the sand.
No crossing.
At some point, they said,
And they were right. It would have been a ton of money. Some people on our team were very tempted to take it, even at a huge discount.
But... line in the sand.
No exceptions.
We were profitable. Our company was growing fast. We didn't need this deal to survive and thrive.
So we told them:
They didn't buy it.
We had lost the deal.
At least, that's what we thought.
We received a notification a couple of days later. A huge startup had entered their credit card and bought all the seats they wanted to buy.
"We're Not Going to Buy if You Don't X, Y, and Z."
Some prospects will try to pressure you by dangling a carrot in front of your face and then pulling it away, telling you:
If you're faced with that, look at the line you drew in the sand. Do you have to cross it to make the deal happen? If the answer is yes, just walk away.
"If You Make These Changes, We'll Send You a Check."
Zach Holman shared a great story about his early days at Github.
An enterprise prospect liked their product but wanted some extra features. They sent Zach an email:
He's written about the anxiety it had caused him to say no to their request.
And the surprise when they responded:
But even if they had not bought it at that time, it would probably have been the right choice.
"While all of their needs combined wouldn’t take more than a day or two of development time, most of them were pretty obvious requests we didn’t want to add to our product. [...] everything you add to your product dilutes everything else." - Zach Holman
When are You Willing to Walk Away?
Answer that question before any negotiation you engage in. It'll help you stand firm even with parties that are more powerful and well-versed in advanced negotiation techniques.
