Negotiating against yourself means that you are willingly going down on price on your own accord without the other side asking you to. It is the most expensive negotiating mistake you can make, ever. You don’t want to lose because you made yourself lose. Don’t make it a 2 vs 1 battle.
I’ve made that mistake countless times. Some, it didn’t matter because I ended up walking away from the deal anyway. However, on others, it was a costly mistake. It took a very long time to get out of the habit of negotiating against myself. It’s a bigger deal than most people realize.
For example, the most common negotiating tactic the other side will use against you is the word “no”. If you ask the car dealer whether he or she can reduce the price by another $1,000, they’ll just say “no” and stay silent. Then whoever speaks first after that, loses.
You are more likely to say “ok… then how about an $800 reduction?” Now you are on the losing path. The sharks from Shark Tank are notorious for using this tactic against entrepreneurs. I have no idea why the entrepreneurs phrase their counters as “could you do 5% lower equity….?”
What are they going to do if they get a no? Most of them don’t recover from this. The only times that they recover is when there is a competing offer on the table. That means the only times the entrepreneur avoids negotiating against themselves is when someone else helps them out.
Learn from their mistakes. Stop negotiating against yourself and get the other side to say the next number. Negotiating is a fine-tuned skill where it will take some time to recognize the right and wrong things you’re doing. With time, you’ll get better at it.
Don’t Negotiate Against Yourself
Negotiating against yourself is a very expensive lesson. If you lose the negotiation because the other side was good or you actually had no other choice, then so be it. However, 99% of negotiations don’t have to go this way. You can ALWAYS at any point, with or without a reason, walk away from absurd negotiations.
However, that should be a last resort. If you are happy with the deal that’s in front of you without walking away, it means you won the negotiation. A good negotiation is one where both sides give something up. However, not every negotiation is equitable. Sometimes, one side gives up more than the other in negotiating.
Negotiating against yourself means that there was a silent third entity in the room that was against you. It was your inner psyche and mindset. You should be an ally for yourself instead of an enemy. If you don’t know how to practice silence and be comfortable with it, you will lose because you couldn’t deal with the tension.
Silence and no’s are the most common ways others get you to negotiate against yourself. When people try to use silence against you, all you have to do is say “did you catch what I was saying?” If you are negotiating on the phone, all you have to say is “hello, can you hear me?”
If they say no to your number, then you just have to say “what’s your counter?” Then put the ball on their court. If you say the next number after you say the first number, you are on the way to losing. You already gave information away by saying the first number, don’t give more information away by giving the next number.
Examples of Negotiating Against Yourself: My Stories
What isn’t negotiating against yourself is SMASHING that social share button and share the article with your friends by posting to your favorite social media! This article can greatly help your friends better their negotiating and bargaining position.
We negotiate with others more than we know. Simple things like what time to meet for coffee is a negotiation that we all can be better at.
So with that said, let’s go into my stories of how I avoided negotiating against myself and the time that I did negotiate against myself. One time I successfully avoided making the mistake, another time I actually made the crucial mistake. Let’s explore both scenarios.
1) When I was Negotiating Diminished Value Claim
90%+ of people don’t know this. When you are in an accident that isn’t your fault, some states allow you to file for a diminished value claim with the party at fault or under your underinsured motorist coverage portion of the insurance contract. It completely depends on which state the accident happened and your insurance contract.
The insurance companies will NEVER tell you that you are eligible to file for this, you have to ask for it of your own accord. Anyways, when I was negotiating my own diminished value, the insurance company offered a lowly settlement offer of $200. I thought that was ridiculous so I called them.
He told me that the burden of proof is on me (factually correct) and that the $200 is to settle the diminished value claim. So then I got an appraiser who appraised about $1,100 of value lost. The claims adjuster called me back and said he’s raising the offer to $300 (woooow, what a generous offer).
Then I got on the phone with him. He tried everything he could to try to get me down on the price but I wouldn’t budge. He was classically trying to get me to negotiate against myself. I refused to do so. This is a classic negotiating strategy insurance companies employ to get you to negotiate against yourself.
Don’t fall for it. Stand your ground and refuse to play along with their games.
2) When I Negotiated for a Car
I saw a 2017 Nissan Versa Car with 40,000 miles on it for $7,800. I thought it was a steal in the first place. So I went to the dealer and asked for $7,000. He yelled at me and said “NO, NO, I’M NOT GOING TO DO THAT”. Then started going off topic and saying all sorts of irrelevant things to change the conversation.
Then I made the mistake of going up to $7,200. That was a big mistake. That was a classic mistake on my part and I negotiated against myself. We eventually settled on a price of $7,500. It was a phenomenal price for the car.
However, knowing that used cars typically have a $1,000 gross margin after the negotiated price, I know I botched the negotiation.
I learned from this mistake. This was one of the most regretful negotiations I’ve ever done so far. Learn from my mistake. Negotiating against yourself doesn’t feel good afterwards. It’s one of the most gut wrenching feelings you feel after coming out of the negotiating table.
How to Stop Negotiating Against Yourself
So now that you understand that you shouldn’t negotiate against yourself, you may be asking, well, how do I stop? The answers are below. It’s simple steps that you can take. However, the key is knowing when to apply it. In high stakes negotiations where fast thinking is required, this isn’t going to come to you straight away.
You have to know when the principles below actually applies even during stressful negotiations to properly avoid the mistake. That’s the tricky part. In a negotiation, you’re thinking at a 100 miles per hour. The other side is not going to give you ample time during the middle of it so you can gather your thoughts and proceed with the next sentence.
Therefore, the key is to continue to practice these principles to real life bargainings. Not only will you get used to the battle field, you will recognize even faster when you are making mistakes and making the right choices. You will also recognize what situations apply to what strategies and play it off accordingly.
Don’t expect to be an expert right off the bat. Continue putting yourself in negotiations and you will come out just fine.
1) Talk About Anything but Price
When you first give the number, you’re giving a lot of information to the other side. Not only are you giving them at what price you are willing to buy, you are giving them the information that you are willing to concede.
Therefore, after you give out the first bit of important information to the other side, never revisit what more you are willing to give up. If they start going off topic with other bits of information, mirror them and go off topic yourself. No matter what they say, never say the next number afterwards.
The exception is if you feel that you can convincingly tell the other side a worse number than what you started with. If you said you are willing to buy it for $1,000 off, they say no, then you can comfortably say you are willing to buy it for $1,200 off, then you can go ahead and say the next number.
Whether it’s for a car, street vendor purchase, or for your salary, you never want to give them a second number that’s better for the other side. Make them do the next round of leg work. It’s a negotiation, which means it’s a two-way street. Both of you are trying to reach a good offer that works for both sides.
It should be a win-win, not a win-lose.
2) Walk Away
When you try everything that you possibly can and they’re not budging, then the last resort is to walk away. You don’t have any other choice. If you continue to talk to the other person, the information that you are giving them is that you are still interested.
Remember the cardinal rule of negotiations. Doing no deal is better than doing a bad deal. If you got yourself in a jam because the other side was a very good smooth talker, walk away. No need to say why, just walk away. Don’t worry about ruining your credibility.
Would you rather be a credible person who lost or an in-credible person who didn’t lose? Let go of pride and how you look to the other side. One classic negotiation strategy goes like this: Let’s say you have 10 items to negotiate on. You only truly really want one item from the list that you want the other side to concede on.
Then you go down the list one by one and the other side surprisingly concedes on every single point until you guys get to the one item you really want. Then the other side asks for it and you fight to keep it. Finally, they hit you with, “but we gave you every single other thing you guys wanted, shouldn’t you give us something?”
There’s no way that you can recover from that. Your entire credibility is lost. You can’t say “oh, let’s start all over,” because it hurts your reputation. However, it’s better to have a lower credibility with no deal than good credibility with a bad deal. Take your ego, pride, and emotions out of it.
Negotiating Against Yourself is Bad
It’s a common and expensive mistake to negotiate against yourself. If you do so, you are giving everything away. You don’t want to do that. I made that mistake so that you can learn what not to do. This is something you need to avoid at all costs. There’s an infinite number of mistakes you can make during a negotiation.
The worst mistake you can make is negotiating against yourself. You feel the worst after doing this. Why? You don’t get mad at anybody else, you get mad at yourself. That’s the worst position to be in. It doesn’t sound like a big deal and in some situations, it isn’t a big deal.
You can still come out on top even after making this mistake. However, it’s better to not put yourself in that position in the first place. You may make the mistake on the first couple of negotiations that you do. That is completely OK. What’s important is that you learn from what happened and move forward.
At worst, because you can just walk away, you lose credibility with a total and complete stranger you will never see again. At best, you became a better negotiator. Always create a win-win situation so that there isn’t any silent resentment.
One of my friends said these words that I still remember to this day.
“We’re a big company and we have huge power over our suppliers. However, we can’t exert too much of that power. If we ever just once miss the promised guaranteed payment due to market conditions, our suppliers are outraged and we end up losing them anyway.”
You have more power over the counter party than you think. Walk away at any point you made a mistake in the negotiation and are losing.
