insulting. This is the only offer you have, so what do you
do?
Now, hopefully you’ve had contact with other buyers,
even casually. If you have, you can use the offer to create a
sense of competition, and thereby kick off a bidding war. At
least you’ll force them to make a choice.
But even if you don’t have other offers or the interested
buyer is your first choice, you have more power than before
your counterpart revealed his desire. You control what they
want. That’s why experienced negotiators delay making
offers—they don’t want to give up leverage.
Positive leverage should improve your psychology
during negotiation. You’ve gone from a situation where you
want something from the investor to a situation where you
both want something from each other.
Once you have it, you can then identify other things
your opponent wants. Maybe he wants to buy your firm
over time. Help him do that, if he’ll increase the price.
Maybe his offer is all the money he has. Help him get what
he wants—your business—by saying you can only sell him
75 percent for his offer.
NEGATIVE LEVERAGE
Negative leverage is what most civilians picture when they
hear the word “leverage.” It’s a negotiator’s ability to make
his counterpart suffer. And it is based on threats: you have
negative leverage if you can tell your counterpart, “If you
don’t fulfill your commitment/pay your bill/etc., I will
destroy your reputation.”