Detachment

To remain objective, rational, and logical during a negotiation, we must learn to be emotionally detached from the outcome. One approach to achieving emotional detachment is instead of negotiating for ourselves, we imagine ourselves negotiating for someone else, as it's easier to remain detached from a situation that does not directly affect us.

Imagine you were buying a used car from a dealership and saw a car you really liked that was listed for $20,000. It was the color you liked, the style you liked, had relatively few miles on it, and even had a new sound system installed - and listening to music while driving is your favorite thing to do. It was love at first sight, and you can envision yourself driving down the road in your new-to-you car, listening to your favorite song. After a test drive, you are totally ready to make the deal, and it doesn't even occur to you to ask the dealer to come down off the listed price. You hand over a check for $20,000, just happy that you are able to drive away with your dream car.

Now, imagine the same scenario, but instead of buying the car for us, we were buying it for a friend. The friend told you the color, style, mileage, and even sound system that they were looking for, and asked if you could negotiate a good price for them. Since you're not that attached to the car, instead of offering the dealer the listed price of $20,000, you offer them $15,000 - after all, what's the worst that can happen? After some back-and-forth, you settle on $17,500, saving your friend $2,500 off the listed price.

In the first scenario, losing your dream car was totally unacceptable to you, and as a result, you were not going to do anything to jeopardize the deal going through.

In the second scenario, it wasn't your dream car, and the fact is that you probably could find a better car eventually if you kept looking. There was nothing particularly special about the car or the car dealer. Really, it was just a financial transaction that exchanged money for goods - which is in fact all it ever was.

When we see advertisements for cars, we are shown pictures of beautiful people driving through beautiful landscapes while a confidence-inspiring voice tells us all the reasons why their car is the car you need to buy: It's new, it's spacious, it's luxurious. It's the safest, most advanced, won the most awards, has the best crash test rating, the best reviews, the best miles-per-gallon. Further, you can easily get financing, and can pick yours up today. What are you waiting for? Act now - supplies are limited.

All of this has the same intent - to get you to emotionally fall in love with their car, so that when the time comes to buy your car, you won't think to negotiate the price. There will never be a car advertisement that says, "Get it now for $20,000, but honestly we'd be happy with just $17,000, and may even go so low as $15,000 if we're desperate," and yet that is the truth of the matter when buying a car: the price is negotiable, as dealers must get their cars off their lots in order to make space for next year's models.

When the time comes to buy a car, you should not consider how "in-love" you might be, as love is just an emotion that is nothing but a liability in a negotiation. The purpose of negotiation is to achieve the outcome you're looking for, which in the case of a car purchase, is to get the car you want at the lowest possible price. There is no other factor to consider, as all other factors are simply a distraction.

Generally speaking, the more emotional we are, the less rational we are, and the less rational we are, the higher the probability that we will be taken advantage of in a negotiation. When we are rational, we can make good decisions, think several moves ahead, and make offers that make logical sense. When we are emotional, we will tend to obsess about details that don't matter, get stressed out when things are taking too long, and get frustrated when someone isn't giving us what we want.

When we negotiate with a detached mindset - thinking not of negotiating for ourselves, but as if we are negotiating for someone else - when we encounter obstacles we don't get stressed, we think of how we might overcome those obstacles.

When the person we are negotiating with tells us, "No," we think of how that "No" could become a "Yes," not that the person doesn't like us. When they say, "We would never agree to those terms," we think of the conditions under which someone might agree to those terms, not that someone is being stubborn, rude, or obnoxious. When someone says there is absolutely no way something will ever happen, we think, "There's no harm in asking."

When we are detached, we are free from the feelings of personal risk, which makes us less worried and anxious. We tend to have more confidence, because in the worst-case scenario, it doesn't really affect us. We also tend to be more open to understanding someone else's perspective, as nothing is personal - we're both just trying to work out the terms of an agreement.

If someone gets upset in the negotiation, perhaps by throwing a tantrum, issuing an ultimatum, or threatening to walk away from the deal, we can look at the facts objectively, and see through what might only be an emotional smokescreen. People will try to manipulate the emotions of others by making them uncomfortable, or trying to intimidate them by raising their voice, using dominant body language, or speaking aggressively. But, when we are detached, it doesn't matter. Only the deal matters. We can politely suggest that now would be a good time for a brief recess so that everyone can gather their thoughts, go outside, and enjoy the sunshine, and then come back in to pick up where the negotiation left off.

When it's all said and done, either a deal will get done, or it won't. If a deal is done that everyone is happy with, that would be best, and that is what we're shooting for. If that doesn't happen, so be it, but sometimes your best chance of getting the deal you want is not caring if you get the deal at all.