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

think about them.
If you’ll bear with me for a moment, I’ll go over the
steps so you see what I mean.
First, the original offer of 65 percent of your target price
will set an extreme anchor, a big slap in the face that might
bring your counterpart right to their price limit. The shock of
an extreme anchor will induce a fight-or-flight reaction in all
but the most experienced negotiators, limiting their
cognitive abilities and pushing them into rash action.
Now look at the progressive offer increases to 85, 95,
and 100 percent of the target price. You’re going to drop
these in sparingly: after the counterpart has made another
offer on their end, and after you’ve thrown out a few
calibrated questions to see if you can bait them into bidding
against themselves.
When you make these offers, they work on various
levels. First, they play on the norm of reciprocity; they
inspire your counterpart to make a concession, too. Just like
people are more likely to send Christmas cards to people
who first send cards to them, they are more likely to make
bargaining concessions to those who have made
compromises in their direction.
Second, the diminishing size of the increases—notice
that they decrease by half each time—convinces your
counterpart that he’s squeezing you to the point of breaking.
By the time they get to the last one, they’ll feel that they’ve
really gotten every last drop.
This really juices their self-esteem. Researchers have