What Makes Someone Persuasive?

Do you think some people are themselves shrewd negotiators? Do you think some people aren’t? Which of these two types of people do you want to be?

There’s no more effective way to develop a stronger sense of your own sovereignty. The single most helpful skill you can acquire, when you’re a teenager trying to work out how to behave in the world, is to learn to negotiate better. To ask the right questions.

But what, in most reports of skilled negotiators, do they have to say about any of these? Almost as a rule of thumb: the same thing, as far as personality.

Negotiation skills can be learned

To the contrary, although super-deliberators act in a hard-headed way, they do not have a hard-versus-soft temperament. They don’t bully or push around their negotiating counterparts any more than the hostages do. They are no more hostile, demanding or abrasive than the other negotiators.

Good negotiators are great people. Good negotiators are lovely people. You can talk, they let you talk. They bend over backwards. They don’t take the hard line. You think what a nice lady. You think a good guy. He’s a good player. You say to yourself ‘Yeah, I trust this guy.’ You say: ‘Yes.’ Because he’s nice.

The three most important negotiation skills

That’s why good negotiators fret about framing any agreement so that both parties in an agreement feel like they ‘won’ – that is, framing win-win possible solutions so that they’re signed off on by all the parties.

And this is true whether you’re buying or selling: whatever it is, a thing, a living thing, a non-living thing, that with which you buy and sell each other, the beginning of buying and selling in the economy, even if – so to speak – you do not own your own company in the future. At least, you know the principle, you know the basis of every deals, that you, whatever you buy or sell, you get the best deal, and you are happy.

1) Choose good questions to ask

One thing that I’ve noticed is that good negotiators ask a lot of questions. They’re very focused on trying to get a bit of informational clarity about what is it you’re looking to get out of this negotiation.

For example, in buying a house, both parties begin as though in passive opposites): they accept that price is the issue. ‘There is only one thing to negotiate.’ But a good negotiator will realise of course that there is a bundle and price is only one dimension.

A good negotiator should convince at least one of the parties that the shape of the deal is as important as the price itself, and that furniture and fixtures are part of the deal.

Learning to ask meaningful (and definitely not tricky) questions about your prospect’s buying needs is the only sure-fire way you’ll ever know what they really want (and actually value) and what other concessions they want at any given point in your sales pitch. Price is rarely if ever the biggest thing.

2) Patience

Any part of the contract that is equally important to the other side is likely to be attacked first But trickier ground must be tackled if possible at the very end, and (again if possible) on terms that will be pleasing to both sides. Patience is a highly visible trait of good negotiators.

They also allow for periods of silence to prepare good questions to make sure there is not confusion and that everyone is clear about what is happening as it makes its way around to each point on the table.

3) Preparation is key

The other thing that I talk to people about is – whether it’s a negotiation of any type, where its not about actually getting people to agree to something together – is that 90 per cent of what you do in a negotiation is preparation for a negotiation. And the better prepared you are for the negotiation, the likelier it is that the outcome of that negotiation is something that everybody can agree on.

There are two things that contribute to preparation. Gather as much information as possible about your coming talks; then, after that, think through your talks and work out the precise path that you want them to take, allowing for every eventuality.

The first type of informational money is information about the thing itself, the product or service being requested, and what you do or offer that’s the sole solution or special – information as well about who gets to hear it. When you’re asked any question about that thing on its own merits, that’s your chance to go out and pimp. Your ask is your opportunity to go out and find the information – get the pimps to ask you questions. That’s informational money. That’s a kind of power. And power gravitates to the person with the most information.

Take action and gain confidence!

There is no faster way to boost your confidence than by raising your perception of having made a win‑win deal and having given a good deal. None faster than to have your confidence crushed by finding out you have been hoodwinked and that you must live with it. So you enhance your personality, your sense of efficacy, and hence your confidence, by learning to negotiate.

When you actually get what the other side is offering, you feel respected, you feel better about yourself, you walk away, you bring it into any other experience.’ If you’re really good at negotiation, it’s an encyclopaedia of positive psychological experiences.

10 More Negotiation Skills

1. Assess and bolster your BATNA Arising in both the integrative method of negotiation and the adversarial method of bargaining, your greatest source of power is your ability and readiness to walk away and find another deal. Farsighted negotiators spend a great deal of time before coming to the bargaining table determining what their best alternative to a negotiated agreement – or BATNA – is, and doing what they can to improve it.

2. Negotiate the process. Don’t assume that you both have the same ideas about when and how to meet, who should be invited and what the agenda is going to be, among other things. Instead, you should negotiate these ‘procedural issues’ in advance. Talking about how we’ll talk will make it possible to have much more oriented kinds of ‘substantive’ talks.

3.Bond. While it’s not always possible to build rapport at the initial stage of a negotiation (especially if you’re under time pressure), having spent a few minutes talking about something other than the items on the table might actually make you and your counterpart more likely to work together and reach an agreement, according to research. If you’re negotiating via e-mail, even a short phone call at the start of our process might help. This might be the most important negotiation skills takeaway.

4. Listen with respect. While you’re talking substance, try not to fall into that irresistible trap whereby you formulate your next line while your interlocutor is still airing hers. Instead, listen closely – identify what she has been saying, and rephrase what you think she said to test your understanding. Let her know that, in doing it, you also keep present any difficult feelings, such as annoyance, in the background of the message. Chances are that not only will you glean some valuable information, but the other person might model your exemplary listening behaviour.

5. Learn to ask good questions. Asking more questions might actually get you more in integrative negotiation – if you’re asking the right kind. Keep your questions neutral and open-ended. The goal is to encourage your counterpart to share more than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Avoid ‘leading’ questions (eg, ‘Don’t you think that’s a great idea?’) and binary ‘yes or no’ questions. Instead, use questions that invite rich responses, such as: ‘How has the quarter been going?’ ‘Can you tell me about the challenges that you have been facing at work this quarter?’

6. Find space for ‘smart’ concessions. In distributive negotiation, the limits of a conversation are often focused on one issue, like price. In integrative negotiation, you can benefit from the presence of multiple issues to enable both sides to get more of what they want. In particular, try to find issues that you care less about that your counterpart cares a lot about, and propose a concession of that issue in exchange for a concession from her on something you care a lot about.

7. Beware of the anchoring bias The abundant research showing that the first number floated in a negotiation, often arbitrarily, has a powerful impact on the rest of a game is well known. You can be sure not to be the next victim of the anchoring bias by proposing first (or several times in a row) in order to anchor what follows in your preferred direction. If the other side anchors first, keep your targets and BATNA top of mind and, when possible, pause to revisit them.

8. Offer multiple options simultaneously (MESOs). Instead of making one offer at a time, offer several at once – if your counterpart rejects all of them, have him tell you which one he liked best, and why, and then do your own brainstorming to improve the offer, or maybe you can brainstorm together with the other side and come up with something that works to your joint satisfaction. Multiple options simultaneously reduces the probability of an impasse, and can lead to more creative solutions.

9. Offer a contingent contract. Negotiators sometimes find themselves stuck because they disagree about how some future state of affairs will play out over time. In this scenario, suggest a contingent contract – effectively, a bet with the other party about how future states of affairs will play out. For instance, if a contractor has promised that he can complete your home renovation in three months, yet you doubt whether he can, then you can suggest a contingent contract that would penalise the contractor if he completes after three months (and reward him if he completed early). If he believes his claims, he won’t mind putting them to the test.

10. Plan for the follow-through. Yet another way to ensure the longer-term sustainability of your contract is to build in milestones and deadlines, to make sure the commitments are being honoured. You might agree, too, to schedule meetings at intervals along the course of your contract’s lifetime, to check in and – if appropriate – renegotiate. You might also want to build a dispute-resolution clause specifically referring either to mediation or arbitration, if a disagreement arises.