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

producer valued their relationship with Chandler more than
a few hundred dollars, so they took pity on him and called
an agent to represent Chandler in the negotiations.
Similarly, I had a student named Jerry who royally
screwed up his salary negotiation by going first (let me say
that this happened before he was my student).
In an interview at a New York financial firm, he
demanded $110,000, in large part because it represented a
30 percent raise. It was only after he started that he realized
that the firm had started everybody else in his program at
$125,000.
That’s why I suggest you let the other side anchor
monetary negotiations.
The real issue is that neither side has perfect information
going to the table. This often means you don’t know enough
to open with confidence. That’s especially true anytime you
don’t know the market value of what you are buying or
selling, like with Jerry or Chandler.
By letting them anchor you also might get lucky: I’ve
experienced many negotiations when the other party’s first
offer was higher than the closing figure I had in mind. If I’d
gone first they would have agreed and I would have left
with either the winner’s curse or buyer’s remorse, those gut-
wrenching feelings that you’ve overpaid or undersold.
That said, you’ve got to be careful when you let the
other guy anchor. You have to prepare yourself psychically
to withstand the first offer. If the other guy’s a pro, a shark,
he’s going to go for an extreme anchor in order to bend