stand his ground.
“How can I come up with that kind of money?” we told
him to ask.
Again, the kidnapper dropped his demand, to $25,000.
Now that we had him in our sights, we had the nephew
make his first offer, an extreme low anchor of $3,000.
The line went silent and the nephew began to sweat
profusely, but we told him to hold tight. This always
happened at the moment the kidnapper’s economic reality
got totally rearranged.
When he spoke again, the kidnapper seemed shell-
shocked. But he went on. His next offer was lower,
$10,000. Then we had the nephew answer with a strange
number that seemed to come from deep calculation of what
his aunt’s life was worth: $4,751.
His new price? $7,500. In response, we had the cousin
“spontaneously” say he’d throw in a new portable CD stereo
and repeated the $4,751. The kidnappers, who didn’t really
want the CD stereo felt there was no more money to be had,
said yes.
Six hours later, the family paid that sum and the aunt
came back home safely.
HOW TO NEGOTIATE A BETTER SALARY
One of the critical factors in business school rankings is how
well their graduates are compensated. So I tell every MBA
class I lecture that my first objective is to single-handedly
raise the ranking of their school by teaching them how to