Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

HOW TO GET YOUR COUNTERPARTS TO BID
AGAINST THEMSELVES
Like you saw Aaron and Julie do with their kidnappers, the
best way to get your counterparts to lower their demands is
to say “No” using “How” questions. These indirect ways of
saying “No” won’t shut down your counterpart the way a
blunt, pride-piercing “No” would. In fact, these responses
will sound so much like counterbids that your counterparts
will often keep bidding against themselves.
We’ve found that you can usually express “No” four
times before actually saying the word.
The first step in the “No” series is the old standby:
“How am I supposed to do that?”
You have to deliver it in a deferential way, so it becomes
a request for help. Properly delivered, it invites the other
side to participate in your dilemma and solve it with a better
offer.
After that, some version of “Your offer is very generous,

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I’m sorry, that just doesn’t work for me” is an elegant
second way to say “No.”
This well-tested response avoids making a counteroffer,
and the use of “generous” nurtures your counterpart to live
up to the word. The “I’m sorry” also softens the “No” and
builds empathy. (You can ignore the so-called negotiating
experts who say apologies are always signs of weakness.)
Then you can use something like “I’m sorry but I’m
afraid I just can’t do that.” It’s a little more direct, and the
“can’t do that” does great double duty. By expressing an
inability to perform, it can trigger the other side’s empathy
toward you.
“I’m sorry, no” is a slightly more succinct version for the
fourth “No.” If delivered gently, it barely sounds negative at
all.
If you have to go further, of course, “No” is the last and
most direct way. Verbally, it should be delivered with a
downward inflection and a tone of regard; it’s not meant to
be “NO!”
One of my students, a guy named Jesus Bueno, wrote me
not long ago to tell me an amazing story about how he’d
used the multi-step “No” to help his brother Joaquin out of a
sticky business situation.
His brother and two friends had bought a cannabis grow
shop franchise in northern Spain, where the cultivation of
marijuana for personal use is legal. Joaquin and his partner,
Bruno, each invested 20,000 euros in the business for a 46
percent stake (a minority partner invested another €3,500

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for 8 percent).
From the beginning, Joaquin and Bruno had a rocky
relationship. Joaquin is an excellent salesman, while Bruno
was more of a bookkeeper. The minority partner was also an
excellent salesman, and he and Joaquin believed that
growing sales was the correct strategy. That meant offering
discounts for large orders and repeat customers, which
Bruno disagreed with. Their planned spending on launching
a website and expanding inventory also rubbed Bruno the
wrong way.
Then Bruno’s wife became a problem as she started
nagging Joaquin about how he should not spend so much
on expansion and instead take more profits. One day,
Joaquin was reviewing inventory purchases and noticed that
some items they had ordered had not been placed on the
store’s shelves. He began searching for them online and to
his surprise he found an eBay store set up with the wife’s
first name that was selling exactly those missing products.
This started a huge argument between Bruno and
Joaquin, and soured their relationship. In the heat of the
moment, Bruno told Joaquin that he was open to selling his
shares because he felt the business risks they were taking
were too large. So Joaquin consulted with his brother: my
student Jesus.
Because they believed that pressure from Bruno’s wife
was why he wanted to sell, Jesus helped Joaquin craft an
empathy message around that: “It seems like you are under
a lot of pressure from your wife.” Joaquin was also in the

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middle of a divorce, so they decided to use that to relate to
the wife issues, and they prepared an accusation audit—“I
know you think I don’t care about costs and taking profits
from the company”—in order to diffuse the negative energy
and get Bruno talking.
It worked like a charm. Bruno immediately agreed with
the accusation audit and began explaining why he thought
Joaquin was careless with spending. Bruno also noted that
he didn’t have someone to bail him out like Joaquin did
(Joaquin got a start-up loan from his mother). Joaquin used
mirrors to keep Bruno talking, and he did.
Finally, Joaquin said, “I know how the pressure from
your wife can feel, I’m going through a divorce myself and
it really takes a lot out of you.” Bruno then went on a ten-
minute rant about his wife and let slip a huge piece of
information: the wife was very upset because the bank that
lent them the €20,000 had reviewed their loan and had
given them two options: repay the loan in full, or pay a
much higher interest rate.
Bingo!
Joaquin and Jesus huddled after learning that, and
decided that Joaquin could reasonably pay just above the
loan price because Bruno had already taken €14,000 in
salary from the business. The letter from the bank put Bruno
in a bad spot, and Joaquin figured he could bid low because
there wasn’t really a market for Bruno to sell his shares.
They decided that €23,000 would be the magic number,
with €11,000 up front with the remaining €12,000 over a

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year period.
Then things went sideways.
Instead of waiting for Bruno to name a price, Joaquin
jumped the gun and made his full offer, telling Bruno that
he thought it was “very fair.” If there’s one way to put off
your counterpart, it’s by implying that disagreeing with you
is unfair.
What happened next proved that.
Bruno angrily hung up the phone and two days later
Joaquin received an email from a guy saying he’d been
hired to represent Bruno. They wanted €30,812: €20,000 for
the loan, €4,000 for salary, €6,230 for equity, and €582 for
interest.
Nonround figures that seemed unchangeable in their
specificity. This guy was a pro.
Jesus told Joaquin that he’d truly screwed up. But they
both knew that Bruno was pretty desperate to sell. So they
decided to use the multi-step “No” strategy to get Bruno to
bid against himself. The worst-case scenario, they decided,
was that Bruno would just change his mind about selling his
shares and the status quo would continue. It was a risk
they’d have to take.
They crafted their first “No” message: