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

class. So instead of countering and getting stuck in “How
much?” he kept talking, labeling the boss’s emotions and
empathizing with his situation (at the time the company was
going through difficult negotiations with its investors).
And then Angel courteously asked for a moment to step
away and print up the agreed-upon job description. This
pause created a dynamic of pre-deadline urgency in his
boss, which Angel exploited when he returned with the
printout. On the bottom, he’d added his desired
compensation: “$134.5k—$143k.”
In that one little move, Angel weaved together a bunch
of the lessons from this chapter. The odd numbers gave
them the weight of thoughtful calculation. The numbers
were high too, which exploited his boss’s natural tendency
to go directly to his price limit when faced by an extreme
anchor. And they were a range, which made Angel seem
less aggressive and the lower end more reasonable in
comparison.
From his boss’s body language—raised eyebrows—it
was clear that he was surprised by the compensation
request. But it had the desired effect: after some comments
about the description, he countered with $120,000.
Angel didn’t say “No” or “Yes,” but kept talking and
creating empathy. Then, in the middle of a sentence,
seemingly out of the blue, his boss threw out $127,000.
With his boss obviously negotiating with himself, Angel
kept him going. Finally his boss said he agreed with the
$134,500 and would pay that salary starting in three