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

said, using a label to extract more information.
And he got it.
“Fortunately and unfortunately, yes,” the broker said.
“The occupancy has historically been one hundred percent
and it is a cash cow, but the students act like college
students . . .”
A lightbulb went on in my student’s head: there was
something strange afoot. If it were such a cash cow, why
would someone sell a 100 percent occupied building
located next to a growing campus in an affluent city? That
was irrational by any measure. A little befuddled but still in
the negotiation mindset, my student constructed a label.
Inadvertently he mislabeled the situation, triggering the
broker to correct him and reveal a Black Swan.
“If he or she is selling such a cash cow, it seems like the
seller must have doubts about future market fundamentals,”
he said.
“Well,” he said, “the seller has some tougher properties
in Atlanta and Savannah, so he has to get out of this
property to pay back the other mortgages.”
Bingo! With that, my student had unearthed a fantastic
Black Swan. The seller was suffering constraints that, until
that moment, had been unknown.
My student put the broker on mute as he described other
properties and used the moment to discuss pricing with his
boss. He quickly gave him the green light to make a
lowball offer—an extreme anchor—to try to yank the
broker to his minimum.