Four ways that negotiation can boost your wealth How do good deal makers do this? First, they don't just focus on what they want. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But the more you focus on the other person, the more you get. So great negotiators at work are normally great listeners - spending twice as much time listening as speaking. This creates a sense of empathy and trust. Second, they also know intuitively that everybody is different. Poor negotiators tend to behave the same way every time, using their favourite behaviours rather than responding differently to the person who is actually in front of them. Good negotiators know that some people love making decisions, others like to avoid them. Some people love the big picture, others are very focused on the detail. Who are you dealing with? The knack is to work that out and then deploy behaviours which suit that person. If you do that, you are far more likely to persuade them to agree with your point of view. Selling a house It's one of the top five most stressful experiences in life. Guaranteed to wind you up and it often goes wrong. It's the personal touch that often makes a difference. If the transaction is just an argument about price then people tend to be less cooperative, more stubborn and may behave badly. It makes a difference if you have met your buyer or seller and got to know each other better. Your agent may be nervous about you doing this but it's a good way of increasing the odds of getting a deal done. It will help you if you have disagreements about price and you will almost certainly identify factors other than price that are important to them - perhaps the timing is very important to them, for example. Negotiating standard terms We often assume when we negotiate with larger organisations that we have no bargaining power. This applies both to situations at work (negotiating with big corporations) and to domestic negotiations (with big institutions like service providers or financial firms). Often they negotiate on the basis of "standard" terms which they say can't be varied for one individual. Standards are a two-edged sword though. Large organisations will often boast about their standards in their website materials. You can use this against them to protect or enhance your own position. If they talk about the importance of giving good customer service, or caring about individuals, then remind them of this when you deal with them. They will then be forced to apply their standards to their dealings with you. This will give you a bargaining ace which can offset their size. Standing up to tough guys Collaborative negotiation is a good way of enhancing your wealth - and many of the above examples illustrate that approach. However, this doesn't stop many people displaying old-fashioned "tough guy" tactics and being manipulative and abusive when they negotiate with you. Some people will make threats or shout, some will set false deadlines to force you to concede. Some will give you "take it or leave it" ultimatums to try to panic you into agreeing. In order to enhance your wealth, you have to be able to handle yourself with these people or they will roll you over. It's very tempting when this kind of thing happens to keep your head down and pretend it isn't happening. That's the professional thing to do, right? Wrong. Most tactics of this kind are adopted to put pressure on you. If you make it clear that you know what is going on then they will often drop the tactic. There are many ways of doing this. If someone is trying to intimidate you by shouting, you can say "Would it help if both of us shouted?" Or "Tell me what you would do if someone was shouting at you throughout a negotiation." Either of these approaches will normally stop them in their tracks. Make their behaviour the issue and the issue of their behaviour will usually go away.