Start With No: The Negotiating Tools That the Pros Don't Want You to Know

The dirty secret: Tough negotiators want you to think "win-win" so they can eat
you for lunch! Once they get you to compromise early, you go down a slippery
slide leading to a bad deal. How should you defend yourself these predators and
emerge on the other end with a good deal that sticks? Jim Camp strongly
believes we must start with "no".

Table of Contents

▻ Introduction: Win-Win Will Kill Your Deal

▻ Your Greatest Weakness in Negotiation: The Dangers of Neediness

▻ The Columbo Effect: The Secret of Being “Not Okay”

▻ Start with No: How Decisions Move Negotiations Forward

▻ Success Comes from This Foundation: Develop Your Mission and Purpose

▻ Stop Trying to Control the Outcome: Focus on Your Behavior and Actions Instead

▻ What Do You Say?: Fuels of the Camp System: Questions

▻ How Do You Say It?: More Fuels of the Camp System

▻ Quiet Your Mind, Create a Blank Slate: No Expectations, No Assumptions, No Talking

▻ Know their “Pain,” Paint Their “Pain”: Work with Your Adversary’s Real Problem

▻ The Real Budget and How to Build It: The Importance of Time, Energy, Money, and Emotion

▻ The Shell Game: Be Sure You Know the Real Decision Makers

▻ Have an Agenda and Work It: Ride the Chaos Inherent in Negotiation

▻ Present Your Case—If You Insist: Beware the Seductions of PowerPoint

▻ Life’s Greatest Lesson: The Only Assurance of Long-Term Success

▻ Conclusion: Dance with the Tiger! Thirty-three Rules to Remember

Book Notes

Introduction: Win-Win Will Kill Your Deal

• We believe in the idea of a shared prosperity when we approach negotiation with a win-win
mindset. However it’s a naive practice that amateur negotiators use even as more experienced
ones eat them for lunch. Win-win implicitly means getting to “yes” quickly, by any means
possible.

• Just because a deal is signed doesn’t make its outcome ideal. When the pros start off by
touting win-win approach, it’s often a disguise for a win-lose deal. Be wary of the dangers lurking
in win-win.

• PICOS (developed by GM’s procurement guys) was developed solely to take advantage of
weak win-win negotiators. And if any supplier goes bust, there’s always another to replace him.

• The negotiator believing the win-win mantra compromises early. His adversary doesn’t. And
when he’s under pressure to sign a deal or answer to his boss, he’ll give in. Unnecessary
compromises debilitates.

• Getting to Yes is the leading book on win-win in the market.

• Win-win is elusive, because we can’t (with our limited perspectives) decide unilaterally whether
any position is in the best interest of the adversary or others involved. Thus there can never be
a win-win as defined by Getting to Yes.

• We have to consider the adversary’s legitimate interest, but this doesn’t mean we have to give
up anything. Or at least, why give up anything until you’re certain you must? Because quite
often you don’t have to.
• Adversary is defined as a respected opponent. (A term used in this book to counter the idea
that your counterpart wants to be your friend, because some will pretend to be your friend.)

• Emotion-based negotiation leads you to irrational decisions because it traps you in an

emotional bind even as you adhere to abstract theories of negotiation. A decision-based
negotiation is based on focusing on what you can control (i.e. your emotions and behavior),
having an accurate assessment of your adversary and his situation, and letting go of outcomes
which you cannot control.

• Success sometimes mean walking away cordially.

• Start with “no”. Because “no” is a decision. An early “yes” is probably false anyway, and
“maybe” is undefined and gets you nowhere. “No” is at least a concrete position both sides can
start from. Therefore invite the adversary to say “no”.

• No closing: deals come together through vision, decisions & time. You cannot control the
closing, so it’s futile to focus on it. Put winning aside and work on a foundation for good decision
making.

Your Greatest Weakness in Negotiation: The Dangers of Neediness

• We humans have predator-like nature. It shows up as early as childhood, at the playground
where a bully looks for a weak target. We carry this nature -- whether a bully or needy -- through
our life.

• Neediness lead to a severe negative effect, especially on the negotiating table. Tough
negotiators are experts at smelling out (and even creating) neediness.

• Negotiators at giant corporations can paint a grandeur picture of this once-in-a-lifetime,

career-making opportunity to heighten expectation, thus creating neediness.

In their expedition, Lewis and Clark were desperate and needy, and the locals knew it. (The
Journals of Lewis and Clark)

• It’s dangerous to lose control. Predators know any signs of distress or neediness instantly. and
will pounce without hesitation.

• In this day and age we’re not needy. Theoretically. We shouldn’t be, because we have all the
basic survival needs met. Anything beyond this are wants. However we’re often overcome by
the need to soothe our ego. We get entangled by the need to prove ourselves, to keep up with
expectations, to fill some emotional shortcomings.

• Neediness lead to bad deals and lost sales more often than other factors. To be successful,
you must understand and live this concept. Reflect on what you’re doing by asking yourself what
the underlying motivation is. You’ll realize many things we get so worked up over doesn’t really
matter in the end.

• Often, neediness is subtle. Eg. someone who introduced himself as Frank Jones is met with a
“Hello, Mr Jones” reply.

• Needy introduction: “Mr Smith, this is Bob Jones. I’m with XYZ widgets, and I’d like to see if I
could get 10 minutes on your calendar so I can show you how we can work with you in the
future.”

• A not-so-needy intro: “Bill, my name is Bob Jones. I’m not quite sure that we as a venture fund
fit where you’re going. I just don’t know. What I’d like to do is meet with you so we can see
where you’re going and you can look at where we’re going at First Advantage and see if there’s
a fit. When’s the best time on your calendar?”

• No talking. Talking is an overt show of need (to feel important). Adversaries will be happy to let
you feel important just to skin you alive.

• A cold call is just another negotiation. It’s good training ground because your neediness is
under control. You don’t have great expectations regarding the immediate outcome.

• If we’re not disciplined, we can get excited, start thinking about the payday and become needy.
• Other signs of need: a high-pitched voice that comes with strong emotions, a raised voice and
a rushed delivery. (Negotiators under control lower their voices and slow down.)

• Fear of rejection (the need to be liked) is an obvious need. Unless you’re a baby or a young
infant totally dependant on your mother, nobody can really reject you. Your adversary cannot
reject you and they don’t have the power to. So don’t let yourself feel like they do.

• You can’t spend emotional energy trying to get people to like you and think you’re smart or
important. Being effective and businesslike lead to better outcomes.

• The trained negotiator has no need, because he knows there’re other deals.

• Urgent closing betrays need. If someone closes you too quickly, you react negatively.

• To stop showing need, you must not feel it. You don’t need this deal, you want it. Differentiate
between need and want. Need is death, want is life. If the deal falls through, it’s their loss… and
either way, you’ll still eat and sleep well the next day. Mastering this gives you confidence.

The Columbo Effect: The Secret of Being “Not Okay”

• Since birth, we struggle to feel comfortable and safe. Mingling with people we feel ahead of or
equal to, we feel comfortable. We open up. Conversation and questions come easily. In
contrast, when we feel inferior to people we meet, we become defensive, or aggressive, or
resentful.

• Projecting a less-than-perfect image makes the other party feel comfortable.

• Only one person in a negotiation can feel okay, and that’s the adversary.

• Detective Columbo was down to earth and sometimes acted a little clumsily, making people
feel at ease. He could thus get the information he wanted easily as people feel safe enough to
share them. At press conferences, Ronald Reagan was a master at appearing less than okay.
Effective keynote speakers tells a self-deprecating story in the first few minutes to set his
audience at ease.

• Unokayness is different from neediness. Neediness is an internal state, unokayness is a public

presentation.

• Getting people’s help is an excellent way to help them feel more okay. (eg. borrow a pen or a
slip of paper)
• A shrewd negotiator almost always allows the adversary to show off, because his greatest
strength eventually becomes his greatest weakness.

Start with No: How Decisions Move Negotiations Forward

• We make decisions from the gut before justifying it with our head.

• We must understand the relationship between emotion and decision making to capitalize on it.

• When people make a real decision by saying “no”, they then think about why they said it
because they have to take responsibility for “no”.

• “Maybe” is really more of an emotion than a real decision. It doesn’t give either side anything
to work with.

• A “yes” in the beginning is not a decision, because if your adversary really meant it you won’t
be here negotiating in the first place. Worse, if you get excited by an early “yes”, you get
distracted by your rewards (goals) and may become needy. You lose control.

• Quite often, our emotion responds to an early “yes” even as our mind tells us this isn’t a real
“yes”. And if the adversary follows up some time later with a subtle “if ...”, “but ...”, “however ...”,
“when ...” or some other qualifiers, we suddenly become susceptible to unnecessary
compromise.
• An American company was losing millions each year because of a bad deal with a Japanese
company. They can’t challenge the contract for another 5 years, but they went ahead to
renegotiate it anyway. By encouraging the Japanese partner to say “no” if the new terms doesn’t
work out for them, the Japanese began to crystalize their thinking and a mutually profitable deal
ensued.

• A student sent his academic transcript to recruiters inviting them to qualify him and say “no” to
him if it didn’t meet their criteria. Then he sent letters to certain coaches and said, ”Please tell
me if you’re not going to support my application through the admissions process. I’d appreciate
knowing this now, because if you cannot support me, I’ll move on to the other schools I’m
interested in.” (Essentially inviting a “no”.) He received some “yes” at the end of the process.

• For the cold call script, Jim invited the listener to send the caller on the way (i.e. say “no”).

• Negotiation: an agreement between two or more parties, with all parties having the right to
veto.

• It’s often hard to either say or hear “no” because we craved to be liked (feel approved), are
afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, or fear making mistakes instead of being effective.

• The need to be right (fear of making mistakes) is very powerfully drilled into us since school
days. We must put aside this neediness to be effective negotiators.
• Never “Save the Adversary” or “Save the Relationship” on any level whatsoever. It ends up
badly for both parties.

• People commonly perceive “no” as personal rejection and get ugly. If you try to save the
relationship (a classic win-win behavior of building friendly relationships and wanting it intact),
ask yourself how much do you have to pay to maintain this relationship. Corporate negotiators
eat these negotiators for lunch by playing up emotional stuff like the importance of partnerships,
loyalty, the long term, et cetera, and accuse their counterparts of endangering these values by
holding their line.

• In the end, your adversary will build a relationship with you, but he doesn’t want to be your
friend. He wants your business. We have to remember that when conducting business In any
field, effectiveness and respect is way more important than friendliness.

• While respect and politeness is required, friendship has nothing to do with good business and
negotiation decisions. In reality, friendships in business are the product of long-term effective
dealings. After all, you’d much rather your adversary be effective than friendly too. So don’t bog
down your business with unnecessary emotional baggage.

• Remember if we made a mistake -- and we often do -- we can always renegotiate.

Embrace “no”. Every “no” is reversible. Appreciate the honesty and power of “no”. It clears the
air and provides both sides with a good foundation to negotiate from.
Success Comes from This Foundation: Develop Your Mission and Purpose

• A mission and purpose is the foundation of effective decision making. Every negotiation that
serves this end is a fruitful one. All minutiae that doesn’t align suddenly appears meaningless,
and you’re emotionally liberated to negotiate properly.

• List of doubts that disrupt decision making:

Why take this deal?”

“The whole thing sounds too good.”

“Maybe I can win even more.”

“Why are they making this so easy?”

“What do they know that I don’t know?”

“This can’t be right.”

“How can I get out of this?”

• Only with focus, control, and resolution provided by a clear mission and purpose can great
things manifest.
• If you’re not working on your own M&P, you’re working for someone else’s, often without
realizing it. People who are frustrated and unhappy at work are either serving someone else’s
M&P or have crafted an invalid one.

• M&Ps cannot focus on money or power, because they are only byproducts of a good M&P. It
keeps your mind on scorekeeping. Focusing on results takes you away from what you can
control, such as discipline and hard work.

• A valid M&P is set in the adversary’s world while our own world must be secondary. It helps
you see your adversary’s world clearly without false assumptions. It also encourages the
adversary to see and act with similar clarity. After all, negotiators don’t get anywhere without the
adversary.

• Put the adversary first in your M&P. You make profits only by entering heart and soul into your
adversary’s world, business, needs, requirements, hopes, fears, and plans.

You M&P must also be concise. A vision must have clarity. Complicated or convoluted
statements muddle any vision.

• Create a written M&P for every negotiation or undertaking. Your M&P should also evolve for it
to stay relevant. It must encapsulate the features and benefits to your adversary.
• “Your business is never apparent. It requires in-depth questioning that gives you a process that
provides constant refocusing of what you do.” -- Peter Drucker, Management: Tasks,
Responsibilities, and Practices

• For the negotiator, a valid M&P helps him manage emotions, which helps him make good
decisions.

Stop Trying to Control the Outcome: Focus on Your Behavior and Actions Instead

• One of Jim’s most successful students do not set sales targets, quotas, numbers, percentages.
Instead, he set controllable goals. In reality, we can only control behavior and activities. Not
anything else, not even the result of your behavior and activities.

• No sane person will set a goal which he has no control over… but that’s what everybody does.

• Beginner practitioners of decision-based negotiation should have 4 behavioral goals they have
control over: (i) focus at all times on mission & purpose, (ii) control neediness and never
demonstrate neediness, (iii) always allow the adversary to be okay, & (iv) to have no fear of
saying or hearing “no”.

• You suffer through cycles of emotional swings -- disappointment, excitement, despair, hope --
when you focus on (and thus react to) what you can’t control.
• Use discipline and practice to set valid goals that further your mission & purpose.

• Negotiations never end, things are never perfect, and tough negotiators operate on the
premise that contracts are easily broken.

• Payside vs nonpayside activities: Payside activities are activities that relates and contributes
directly to the negotiation. The rest are nonpayside activities.

• We sometimes distract (or deceive) ourselves with nonpayside activities to avoid hard work
and risks. The activity is there, but work is not done. For example, a salesperson spends time
begging for an appointment -- any appointment -- is engaged in nonpayside activity. If he
spends time getting worthwhile appointments with a potential client, he’s doing Payside work.

• Keep a daily track (record) of your activities and performance. Use it to identify strengths and
weaknesses. The daily habit of analyzing performance and correcting it is critical to success.

What Do You Say?: Fuels of the Camp System: Questions

• The ability to ask good questions allow us to uncover what’s really going on in the adversary’s
business situation and negotiating position, layer by layer. This is more important than the ability
to answer questions.
• A valid mission and purpose is set in the adversary’s world. Thus you must inhabit his world by
getting all information about it, and by understanding the perspectives from which his decisions
are made. Questions hold the key to his world.

• No vision, no real decision (a rule of human nature). We can only make a decision when we
believe it leads us to our vision. Questions lead the adversary to a vision that serves as a
catalyst for a decision. It helps us control our own neediness and to be ‘unokay’.

• Verb-led questions lead to a “yes”, “no” or “maybe” answer. (eg. “Do you need this?”) They’re
closed-ended. Only ask such questions if you already know the answer or if you really have to
drill in at the end of the negotiation.

• Disadvantages of using verb-led questions: (i) it makes your adversary feel like you’re forcing
a “yes”, thereby giving him no option to say “no”, & (ii) if it’s hard for them to say “no”, they get
defensive and uncomfortable.

• Good questions start with an interrogative, “Who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” “how,” and
“which”, , not by a verb. They are a means of discovery. It helps the adversary tune into their
own vision so you can see what they see, in order to inhabit his world.

• Compare Verb-Led vs Interrogative-Led questions:

“Is this the biggest issue we face?” versus “What is the biggest issue we face?”

“Is this proposal tight enough for you?” versus “How can I tighten this proposal?”

“Can we work on delivery dates tomorrow?” versus “When can we work on delivery dates?” or
“How important are delivery dates?”

• Questions can be led or inspired by the features and benefits of your mission and purpose. For
example, an M&P states “...have them see and decide that having our technology will meet all
their needs now and in the future.” An interrogative-led question for an early discussion might be
“How can you stay competitive without this technology?”

• Keep questions short. Ask one question at a time. An iteration of one simple question followed
by an answer helps your adversary build his picture of the issue. Take the process slow and
easy, listening carefully to clues (spilled beans) in each answer to frame the next question.

• Resist the impulse to help people answer their questions.

How Do You Say It?: More Fuels of the Camp System

• The four ‘fuels’ that directly support your questions are nurturing, reversing, connecting, and
3+.

• Nurturing is to put your adversary at ease, to feel okay. Nurturing allows excessive stress to be
released at appropriate moments. This keeps a negotiation going through rough patches.
• Body language that nurtures: No sudden forward movements. Take it easy, relax your neck,
face & hands. When standing, lower your posture so you won’t tower over the adversary. When
in doubt, slow your cadence of speech, lower your voice. Inject laughter into tense moments.

• Tone of voice must be respectful and empathetic.

• Maintaining your ability to nurture your adversary when the going gets tough (or in the midst of
conflict) requires practice, insight, and reflection.

• Reversing: start with a softener (a short nurturing statement), then answer the adversary’s
question with a question. For example:

Q: “Jim, what will this option do for me?”

A: “That’s a good question, Dick. Before we get into that, what’s the biggest challenge … ?”

Other softeners you can use:

“That was certainly well thought out….”

“We definitely have to talk about that, but before we go there …”

“Interesting. Really interesting. How soon … ?”

“That’s something I hadn’t thought of. When could you .... ?”

“Hmmm. What am I missing here? What else … ?”

• Reversing helps gather more insight and information. Don’t provide information by answering
questions. Questions and reversing help you get into the adversary’s world to create vision,
without which we get nowhere.

• When forced to give an answer or opinion, offer a no-risk one. Such as “Well, Mary, I know
how you feel and I really respect your opinion, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t had time to
solidify my opinion. You may be right. I’m sort of going both ways. But your opinion is always in
the back of my mind.”

• Golden rule: Never answer an unasked question. Don’t interpret a statement as a question.
Never reply to random statements. Instead, when you hear unasked questions or any
provocative remark, use connectors to dig for more information.

• Use connectors. They encourage your adversary to talk further. Eg. “And...?” or “Which
means…?”. A silent concern (expecting him to talk further) is often used as connectors.
• 3+: To ask a question (in many different ways) so it’s answered at least 3x, or to repeat a
statement (such as an agreed-upon point) at least 3x. It’s named “3+” because it often requires
more than 3x.

• 3+ is not closing three times, we must give the adversary any feeling we’re pressuring him.
Think of it as asking for “no” three times, and give him an option to change his mind. Be
extremely suspicious of “yes”, and nurture or reverse with 3+.

• 3+ gives the adversary multiple opportunities to see the situation from various angles, and to
invoke awareness about their own thinking. This helps them arrive at a vision, leading to
decision.

• Strip-lining: a fishing technique whereby you let your catch swim away for a moment before
reeling it in.

• The strip line helps to keep emotions in balance (calm). Huge emotional swings in negotiation,
whether positive or negative, are always detrimental. They form vicious cycles.

• If emotions swing too much into positive mode, little inevitable doubts (or send-thoughts) can
send these emotions into a very negative area, like how a pendulum swings hard from one
extreme to another. Excitement or any strong positive emotions won’t last.
• By staying in the calm, neutral range, we’re more likely to work out deals that stick.

• Negative strip line: totally identifying yourself (verbally) with the adversary before taking a more
neutral position. Jim relates a scene in a movie where the defense attorney swings the
emotional pendulum hard into negative. He wanted to get the jury back into neutral emotions, to
be aware of their bias, and to plant a thought. So he joined their decision of “no” to create a
moment that allows for some rationality.

• Use negative strip lines, one after another, till you observe evidence of significant movement in
the emotional pendulum.

• Positive strip line: purposely putting a damper on extreme positive emotions such as
excitement. For example, the client gets excited about buying a black sports car. The salesman
comments, “Black is a powerful color for a sports car, but it sure shows the dirt. It’ll take work.”

• A positive strip line controls your neediness, gives the adversary a chance to say “no” and
makes him feel okay. You end up with deals that stick.

• “In all honesty, I could not name one instance in which a positive strip line ever backfired. It just
never backfires. To believe that it might is to misunderstand human nature and your purpose as
a negotiator.” -- Jim Camp

Quiet Your Mind, Create a Blank Slate: No Expectations, No Assumptions, No Talking

• Blank slate (verb): clearing the mind in order to receive anything new (information, attitudes &
emotions) that our adversary wittingly or unwittingly divulges.

• Obstacles to blank slating: neediness, fear of “no”, fear of failure, a “know it all” attitude,
holding expectations and having assumptions.

• Blank slating is simple to understand, hard to do. It requires discipline.

• The adversary may sometimes build positive expectations to close a deal. They start off with
some pie-in-the-sky promises, then build in qualifiers like “if”, “and” & “but”. Or they could do the
opposite by building negative expectations. Both are detrimental.

• Having a positive attitude is celebrated as a virtue, but for negotiators it’s dangerous. It can
degenerate into neediness or expectations.

• A good negotiator has no emotion over the final price. He recognizes that early numbers hold
no real significance, and he’s won’t compromise nor give up on the deal.

• It’s subtler negative expectation tactic is employed when a client becomes too painful or
bothersome to deal with and you’ve reached the point of giving them up. Then all of a sudden,
they become less of a pain.
• Assumptions are more dangerous than expectations because they’re so subtle and insidious.
Assumptions lock us into one perspective while blank slatting frees us to recognize
opportunities.

• Samuel Langley was an expert in steam engines. Because of this, he assumed steam engines
was the future of aviation. He was obviously wrong, but he was tenacious enough to hear “no”
again and again through failed experiments and would set activities that he could manage, not
result he had no control over. At some point, he blank slatted and figured gasoline engine was
the way to go. Sometimes our expertise locks us into one perspective so much that we’re not
willing to blank slate.

• Our assumptions always work against us. Their assumptions can work for us.

• Thorough research can help us blank slate. We can also know where our adversary is coming
from. We can search the web & trade journals. Taking notes can help us listen better and it
helps us blank slate.

• “You must listen to every word just as closely as a trial lawyer listens to every word of
testimony without letting the mind wander off, without thinking about what you want to say next,
without interrupting, without answering your own questions.” -- Jim Camp
• We often assume (wrongly) that people will be impressed by our eloquent talk. In fact we tend
to feel unokay with someone like that.

• People spill the beans when they feel important (a very subtle emotion), or when they
mistakenly believe this helps them advance their position or agenda.

• Experienced negotiators can skin win-win negotiators by getting them to spill internal cost
structures in an effort to ‘cost optimize’ for mutual benefit.

• In negotiation, if you can’t blank slate for whatever reason, don’t negotiate. Reschedule it.

Know their “Pain,” Paint Their “Pain”: Work with Your Adversary’s Real Problem

• Pain is what brings you and your adversary to the negotiating table. It’s his most vulnerable
point.

• There must be a clear vision (of current or future pain) in order to motivate the adversary into
action. Without action, there’s no deal.

• Painting the pain is an art. You can’t create the adversary’s pain, you have to discover it (it’s
already there) in order to create a vision of their pain. The clearer the vision of pain, the more it
motivates your adversary.
• Winston Churchill painted a picture of intolerable and imminent pain to motivate his allies.

• Hugh McColl Jr, chairman of the Bank of America successfully negotiated over a hundred
M&As. He said he’d get into the head of his adversaries before negotiations to find their pain.

• A clear vision and accurate understanding of your adversary’s pain will guide you and carry
you through thick and thin. Without it, you’ll be lost.

• Jim chanced upon a convertible Porsche and ended up buying it. He imagined himself the only
one in town who owns a Porsche convertible. His pain point was his ego trip. Vanity.

• The primary job of a negotiator is to create a clear vision of the adversary’s real pain, position
your solution as the only solution that truly alleviates the pain, and that the adversary’s interests
will suffer without it.

• The basis of a negotiation is set in adversary’s pain. Never get into negotiation without a clear
vision of it. And since your mission and purpose is set in the adversary’s world, your offer in any
negotiation must address the pain your adversary feels. Make every effort to uncover hidden
pains.
• In life insurance sales, when a prospect sets up an appointment with an insurance
salesperson, hidden behind a general emotion would be a particular circumstance that’s
bothering (and thus motivating) him.

• You’ll face great problems in negotiation when (i) you fail to understand your adversary’s pain,
(ii) you fail to create a clear vision of his pain, or (iii) the real pain is purposely hidden.

• Revealing pain points make any party vulnerable, so it’s natural for your adversary to hide or
avoid talking about it. Nurturing helps your adversary feel safe enough to offer clues that reveal
their pain.

• One way to help the adversary see how he’s going on the wrong track is to start by asking,
“Now, I ask you to be patient with me here, but I’ve got a real problem. Maybe I’m out of my
mind. I need you to tell me if I am. Just say so. And everything I say is going to sound
self-serving, I understand that, but with your permission, I’d like to tell you what I see, and
together let’s see if it makes sense... What direction is this whole industry now going in the area
of wireless widgets?”

• Always get back to your mission & purpose (which addresses the adversary’s pain) at different
points in the negotiation.

• No salesman can really convince someone else. The pain must already be there for him to
leverage, to sell.
• An artful way to paint the adversary’s pain by asking them to tell you “no.” As he considers the
implication of this “no”, their pain can become crystal clear.

• Most negotiators think of the gift of gab is one of their greatest assets. But when we try to
convince the adversary (or anyone) about anything, we’re asking them to come into our world,
to see our world. This never happens. We get them to make a rational decision, to buy
something, and offer up reasons, facts, figures, and charm. But these efforts are futile.

• Instead of trying to persuade, we ask questions, nurture, connect, reverse, et cetera, to paint
the picture of their pain.

The Real Budget and How to Build It: The Importance of Time, Energy, Money, and
Emotion

• Negotiators do badly in their job mostly because of self-defeating habits. They tend to focus on
the wrong things instead of useful behavior.

• The real price paid in a negotiation goes beyond dollars and cents. Jim’s formula for budgeting
a negotiation gives “time” a value of x, “energy” 2x, “money” 3x, and “emotion” 4x. (Emotion
being the most important.)
• You’ll want to keep your budget as low as possible, taking advantage of your adversary’s
higher budget.

• We sometimes trap ourselves in a sunk cost bias, thinking we’re already done so much so we
have to get something out of it. This almost always lands us in bad deals or sway us to
compromise on our mission and purpose.

• Time and energy is precious. In negotiation, these must be calculated. Untrained negotiators
think it’s free so they hand it out freely. In fact, time can be used against us. For example, it can
be used to drive up the dollar cost of the deal, leading to compromise. Draining the adversary’s
time budget is also another time-tested tactic.

• The salesperson booking an appointment with an unqualified lead (just to make up numbers)
uses time against himself.

• In straight sales (or any other negotiations), a good negotiator won’t lift a finger without a clear
vision of the adversary’s pain and an evidence of his budgets in time-and-energy, money, and
emotion to take this pain away. This is the only valid type of appointment.

• When stood up, trained negotiators can calmly consult his budget for time-and-energy, then
figure out if it’s worth it to try again or just walk off.
• Patience, along with a valid mission & purpose, makes time work for you, not against you. In
negotiation, when you use your time budget, you’re using the adversary’s too. It’s one tactic to
get his attention and to push the vision of his pain as his pain intensifies. (For example, Ho Chi
Minh kept using the Americans’ time budget till he drove home the point that the Vietnam war
isn’t going anywhere.)

• When the adversary wants to conclude the matter, it means he’s reaching the limits of his
time-and-energy budget, and he’s seeing the vision of pain clearly. On the other hand, be sure
you have all the time in the world, otherwise you become needy (which is when you must walk
away from the deal).

• Use energy only for necessary activities. Negotiations consume much more energy than you
expect. Eliminate all pointless appointments, all “maybe” or “yes” answers, all neediness and
useless questions. Spend time on research instead of relying upon assumptions. Be aware of
personal health and stamina.

• In terms of money budget, you’ll attempt to drive up your adversary’s budget (make it
expensive) because when there’s a money squeeze, the untrained negotiator loses sight of his
mission and purpose and then compromises. Your adversary will do the same, so you must
figure out both side’s financial standing & reference (i.e. what amount is real money to them).
You must have enough cash reserves to engage in any particular negotiation for the long haul,
otherwise pursue deals elsewhere that fits your budget.

• Emotions such as pain, excitement, et cetera, have extreme values in negotiation. (Money is
highly valuable simply because it’s also emotional.) The adversary will attempt to drain your
emotion budget using promises, threats, ridiculous requests and deadlines and other shocks.
The only way to insulate yourself against this is to have no expectations, positive or negative.
Keep what you can control in check: your fears, ego, responses, and decisions. Winning or
losing is a byproduct that’s out of the realm of your control.

The Shell Game: Be Sure You Know the Real Decision Makers

• Failure to identify the real decision maker at the start of the negotiation will surely put
unnecessary drain on all areas of your budget. The larger the organization, the harder it is to
pinpoint the decision maker. Some don’t even know what their own approval process actually is.

• Jim believes negotiators often fail to find the right decision maker for fear that they don’t have
what it takes to negotiate with him.

• Some questions to tease out the real decision maker:

“Of course you make the decisions. But who else might you want to talk with?”

“Who might be of service in making this decision?”

“Who should we invite to support your decision?”

“Who’d be sorry or upset if we left them out?”

“How will this decision be reached?”

“When will it be reached?”

“What criteria and paperwork must be in place for it to be reached?”

• People often pretend to be the decision maker in order to feel okay. Other times, it’s in
people’s job scope to block access or decisions. Or the may block the deal because of petty
emotional motivations.

• Start at the top of the organization laddar. They’ll boot you down, but you’ll get to talk with the
blockers. The blocker just wants to feel okay, so we need to do some nurturing.

• You can ask the blocker to give you an introduction by saying, “Bill, I’d like to make a deal with
you. I’d like to go over our proposal with you. If what I present to you is not acceptable and you
know it won’t fly, just tell me no, it won’t fly, and I’ll go away. Fair? Fair. That will be our deal. If
you like what I propose and feel it is what the committee is looking for, all I ask is that you allow
me to represent myself to the committee. Fair?” Apart from this blocker, you can also move
around other parts of the organization to get to the decision maker.

Have an Agenda and Work It: Ride the Chaos Inherent in Negotiation

• Identify the greatest problem head-on by bringing it into negotiation through an agenda.

• The typical agenda is but a formality that most discard once the meeting gets underway. To
conserve time and energy, every negotiating session (even a phone call or email) requires an
agenda. The agenda clarifies the purpose.
• We’re all tempted to sweep difficult problems under the carpet. But if we don’t deal with them
head-on, we become the problem underlying all problems. Yet if we do, we present ourselves as
effective people to the adversary.

• Every agenda must be negotiated for it to be accepted. The better you are in negotiating an
agenda, the further you can get toward the adversary’s inner sanctum.

• The moment a problem occurs, you’ll create an agenda to negotiate and solve it. Valid
agendas have five basic categories: (i) Problems, (ii) Our baggage, (iii) Their baggage, (iv) What
we want, (v) What happens next.

• Baggage is but an educated guess. But laying it on the table often clears the air and gains
your adversary’s respect. Ignoring baggage can get you blindsided along the way. Better to be
forthright and walk away than waste your budget on a deal that cannot be done to begin with.

• Most negotiators don’t know what they want at each point in the negotiation process, they only
know what they want to end up with. Unfortunately they can only control the means, not the end.

• Every want requires a decision, so we have to phrase our question to solicit a decision, yes, no
or maybe. And with decisions, we’re wary of an early “yes” or a “maybe”. We give the adversary
an opportunity to say “no”.
• Numbers are often limitations, so leave them out until the time is ripe.

• The last item in the agenda, what happens next, is often left out. However to keep things
moving, it must be negotiated, and it must be verified three times.

• Crafting agendas help you discover where you stand. As you work the agenda, you improve
your standing.

Present Your Case -- If You Insist: Beware the Seductions of PowerPoint

• “The greatest presentation you will ever give is the one your adversary never sees.” -- Jim
Camp

• When you try to present and to tell your adversaries, they flip into intellectual mode, get a little
resistant and start peppering you with objections. So you end up answering questions instead of
asking them. Instead, use interrogative-led questions to allow your adversary’s answers to
create vision for himself. You can’t tell anyone anything.

• A presentation is not necessary if you’ve accurately painted a vision of pain. When asked to
give a presentation, be sure to ask for what the adversary need so you know how to paint the
vision. Be sure to negotiate an agenda, present only the points that address their concerns
(nothing else), and only present to decision makers who will decide “yes” or “no” (not “maybe”)
at the end of the meeting. Otherwise simply by presenting to any and everybody, you’re spilling
your beans all over the place.

• The football recruit asked each coach, “How do you evaluate a player?” It’s an obvious
question that nobody asks. Incidentally, no coach asked for nor implied him to send over clips of
his greatest plays. So he customized each video according to each coach’s criteria and send
them over.

• The prep-end step is about negotiating the next step. It’s also about how to end a negotiation if
an agreement hadn’t materialized. Fade away, never burn bridges. It betrays neediness.

Life’s Greatest Lesson: The Only Assurance of Long-Term Success

• A good self-esteem is crucial in negotiation because you must have a healthy self-image to
keep neediness in check, to swallow false pride, to control your emotions in tough situations, to
let your adversary be okay while you’re unokay, to produce high quality work and to get paid in
full for the work you do.

• Attempt to “pay forward” first because you can’t sufficiently pay others back. Jim believes
paying forward is just important an attitude as other attitudes and behaviors in his negotiation
system. It’s an effective way to create good self-esteem.

Conclusion: Dance with the Tiger! Thirty-three Rules to Remember

Getting good in negotiation requires practice, like any other skill. Identify some rules you feel
comfortable handling and find a fairly risk-free situation to gain experience. Keep a daily track to
keep track of behavior and emotions.

The 33 rules:

• Definition of negotiation: an agreement whereby anyone has the right to veto (say “no”)

• A negotiator is better respected and effective than to be liked.

• You can’t control the results you get, so they’re not valid goals.

• A mission and purpose based on money is not valid because it’s not based on the adversary’s
world.

• Never spill your beans anywhere.

• Always negotiate a valid agenda before each negotiation.

• Behavior and activity are the only valid goals because you can control only these, not results.

• Mission and purpose must be set in the adversary’s world. Our world must be secondary.

• Spend time on payside activity. Minimize time on nonpayside activity.

• Never have needs. Have wants instead.

• Do not save the adversary.

• Only the adversary can feel okay.

• A clear vision of pain drives decision and action.

• Show respect to the blocker.

• Agreements must be clarified point by point and confirmed three times (3+).

• A clearer picture of pain expedites the decision-making process.

• Cost of negotiation increases by multiples as time, energy, money, and emotion are spent.

• No talking.

• Always let the adversary save face.

• The greatest presentation you will ever give is the one your adversary will never see.

• Negotiations are never over, unless we want it to.

• “No” is good, an early “yes” is bad, “maybe” is worse.

• No closing -- it reeks neediness.

• Dance with the tiger: practice your negotiation skills.

• Our greatest strength is our greatest weakness (Emerson).

• Paint a clear vision of the adversary’s pain.

• Everything you do is based on and driven by mission and purpose.

• Decisions are 100% emotional.

• Interrogative-led questions drive vision.

• Always nurture.
• Blank slate. Don’t assume, have no expectations.

• Identify the real decision makers.

• Pay it forward.