Herb Cohen - You Can Negotiate Anything: The World’s Best Negotiator Tells You How To Get What You Want

Trouble with the wife, the boss, the room clerk, your husband, the department store, the auto mechanic, your friends, your children?

Then you need this book today.

YOU CAN NEGOTIATE ANYTHING
by
Herb Cohen

Over 9 Months on The New York Times Bestseller List. Win-Win tactics that could change your life.

Herb Cohen brings power out of the ivory tower and down to the realities of getting things done.

San Francisco Chronicle

You learn how to be a person who doesnt shrink from the positive use of power to get what you want.

Chicago Sun-Times

READ HERB COHEN AND PEOPLE WILL LISTEN WHEN YOU TALK.

Every day you go without this great textbook on coping with life as it is, is your loss. Whether youre negotiating for a raise, a home, an automobile or just trying to get the kids to clean up their room, this book is a must for a better, more profitable, and more satisfying life.

Og Mandino

YOU CAN NEGOTIATE ANYTHING

A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Lyle Stuart Inc.

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Lyle Stuart edition published / November 1980

Bantam edition / February 1982

A Selection of Book-of-the-Month Club, Playboy Book Club, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Preferred Choice Bookplan and US Book Club.

Serialized in New York Times Syndication,

Book Digest Magazine, Family Circle and Computer Decisions Magazine.

All rights reserved.

Copyright 1980 by Herb Cohen.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Lyle Stuart Inc.,

120 Enterprise Avenue, Secaucus, NJ 07094.

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Ebook

In memory of my father, Morris Cohen, whose negotiating strategy was always to give much more than he received. His life spoke an eloquence of its own.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Acknowledgments

T his book, like any other, has a long ancestry. Many people and experiences have shaped my thinking over the years. In this respect, it is honest and accurate to say that work on this manuscript began a long time ago.

Despite this qualification, what follows is primarily the product of thirty years of direct involvement in thousands of negotiations. During this period, I have profited immensely from working with many distinguished thinkers and doers, in both government and the private sector.

However, I would be remiss if I did not specifically mention some individuals who contributed to my development. Though they cannot be held responsible for anything I have written, their names follow: Robert E. Alberts, Saul D. Alin-sky, Renee Blumenthal, Harlan Cleveland, Michael Di Nun-zio, Viktor E. Frankl, Jay Haley, Eric Hoffer, Eugene E. Jennings, George F. Kennan, Marya Mannes, Norman Pod-horetz, Bill Rosen, Bertrand Russell, Arthur Sabath, Francis, A. Sinatra, and of course, Esther Greenspun.

To others, who left their mark on these pages, I extend my appreciationspecifically George Elrick, Eleanor Harvie, Anita Lurie, and my best friend, Larry King. I am indebted to Carole Livingston for her advice and to my publisher, Lyle Stuart, for his unique blend of risk taking and patience.

Above all, I want to thank my life partner and wife, Ellen, for her involvement and support. This undertaking would not have even been contemplated, let alone completed, without her.

Before you go any further, let me elaborate upon three things that you will notice as you proceed.

First, I wish to assure the majority of my readers that I intend no slight in using the masculine tense predominantly. In writing this book, I spent endless hours trying to grapple with the semantic bias of the English language. My initial attempts to eliminate the pronoun problem resulted in prose that was either confusing or clumsy. Consequently, you may occasionally come across a bit of verbal sexism. When this occurs, accept my apology. Obviously, I do not believe that because Eve was fashioned from Adams rib, women are a side issue. In this age of emancipation, the fault lies primarily in our fatherlands mother tongue.

Second, I have chosen not to furnish any footnotes, references, or technical texts to support the concepts or ideas in this book. My purpose was not to produce a scholarly work for the specialist, but to write a practical and readable guide for laypeople. The thoughts and examples must make sense on their own. If they dont, even a divine footnote cannot provide salvation.

Third, I have painted with a broad brush, so you will not become mired in technicality or legalese. This was done to make it easy to understand the broad underlying concepts. Obviously, in some instances I have made suggestions tongue in cheek, in a figurative sensenot to be taken literally.

It is not my intention to prescribe behavior or tell you what you should want. Instead, my aim is to illuminate your

reality and its opportunities. In doing so, I will point out thinking and behavior that may be limiting you, as well as options and alternatives from which you can choose. Each of you will then, within your own comfort and belief system, have a way of getting what you want, based on your unique needs.

H.C.

Northbrook, Illinois

September 1980

PART ONE

YES, YOU CAN

The secret of walking on water
is knowing where the stones are.

L et me reconstruct the scenario. You, your spouse, and your two children are at a Sears store confronted by a refrigerator whose asking price is more than you can afford to pay. Yet you want that refrigerator. Is it worth negotiating for? If your answers to the three questions that closed the last chapter were yes, you should proceed full speed ahead. But how? What can you say and do?

To begin with, dont define yourself too narrowly. Dont regard yourself as someone who wants to buy a refrigerator. Regard yourself as someone who wants to sell money. Money is the product thats up for sale. The more people there are who want your money, the more your money will buy. How do you get people to bid for that money? You generate competition for it.

Staying with the Sears situation, a foolproof way to generate competition for your money is to inform the salesman that rival outlets have a comparable model at a lower price. The fact that rival outlets are eager to accept your money gives you instant leverage ... as does the fact that Sears is often in competition with itself. You find it astonishing that Sears can compete with itself? Just examine the catalogue displayed in the same store. There, right in the middle of a large-appliances page, is the same refrigerator for $440.00 plus a $26.00 delivery charge. Show that page to the salesman, then start negotiating.

You have other options, and they pivot on the satisfaction of your needs, real or fictionalized. In a fundamental sense, every negotiation is for the satisfaction of needs. Sears presents you with a $489.95 asking price that meets its needs... but what about yours? After all, youre the other party in the transaction. Ideally, both parties should win, or come out ahead, when a transaction is consummated.

There are several ways you can snap the Sears salesman into a keen awareness of your needs. You can ask, What colors does this model come in? If the salesman replies, Thirty-two, you say, What are they? When he finishes telling you, you exclaim, Thats it? Those are the only colors you have?