A Simple Tactic for Negotiating

When you negotiate, it’s essential to have a strategy. A good strategy is like a map. It’s the route to your objectives and a plan for using options and detours.

However, “Strategy without tactics,” wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War, “is the slowest route to victory.” In other words, any plan can only be as good as its execution.

This is why it’s valuable for you to know how to deploy and counter some common negotiating tactics. A strategy is what you plan, but tactics bring your plan into play. Here’s the first of five tactics I’ll be describing over the next few weeks. It’s called the flinch, and it’s the easiest and one of the most effective negotiating tactics to deploy.

A flinch is simply your reaction to an offer, and how you flinch will affect your counterpart’s perception of your position. Let’s start with an easy example. Suppose you’re at the night market and you want to buy bananas. You ask the vendor her price and she responds, “Fifteen ringgit per kilo.”

What’s your immediate reaction? Some remark of disbelief, right? "Ayoh!" That’s a flinch. The vendor immediately knows she’s not going to get that price from you.

Sometimes your counterparts will include an item in their offer just to test your reaction. That’s why your first reaction must lead your counterparts in the direction that you want them to go. Without a flinch from you, your counterparts will know that you consider their offer reasonable and, as a result, easier for them to achieve.

Here’s a story. Before I left Mexico, I did my shopping for a serape, a colorful woven blanket popular among touristas. A vendor with an assortment of serapes over his shoulder approached me and I asked his price. “Five-hundred pesos”, he said. “Ay!” I exclaimed. “Bueno, four-hundred,” he said. “Huy!” I continued. “Okay, three-hundred”, he offered. “Cielos!” I cried. “Diablo!” he said. Now he was flinching, too. “Two-hundred!”

All it took was three flinches from me to get his price into my range. Easy, no effort, and one of the most effective tactics you can use to get the deal you want.