wouldn’t take something better. Once you’ve got flexibility
in the forefront of your mind you come into a negotiation
with a winning mindset.
Let’s say you’re selling old speakers because you need
$100 to put toward a new set. If you concentrate on the
$100 minimum, you’ll relax when you hear that number and
that’s what you’ll get. But if you know that they are for sale
in used audio stores for $140, you could set a high-end goal
of $150, while remaining open to better things.
Now, while I counsel thinking about a best/worst range
to give my clients the security of some structure, when it
comes to what actually goes on your one sheet, my advice is
to just stick with the high-end goal, as it will motivate and
focus your psychological powers, priming you to think you
are facing a “loss” for any term that falls short. Decades of
goal-setting research is clear that people who set specific,
challenging, but realistic goals end up getting better deals
than those who don’t set goals or simply strive to do their
best.
Bottom line: People who expect more (and articulate it)
get more.
Here are the four steps for setting your goal:
■ Set an optimistic but reasonable goal and define
it clearly.■ Write it down.■ Discuss your goal with a colleague (this makes it