The Negotiator's Toolbox

Winning Strategies for Corporate Buyers and Small Businesses

Have you ever wondered how to get into the head of your negotiation partner? How to increase the chance for the other side to accept your arguments? Play to their motivations, fears, and emotions? Detect lies and deceit? Win against the odds? The Negotiator’s Toolbox helps you with all of that, using lots of examples, anecdotes, and case studies. Have a look at the main topics and then order the book in print, as an eBook or Audiobook!

Never answer hypothetical questions

April 15, 2020  /  Heribert von Feilitzsch

Imagine you are taking a cruise in the Bermuda triangle. While you are asleep in your cabin, the fire alarm suddenly blares. Then an explosion. Darkness. You wake up on a beach, unharmed. You start looking around. No other people but lots of debris. Also, the island has a rich natural bounty. Bananas and coconut grow right along the beach. It turns out that you somehow escaped disaster and ended up in paradise. Robinson Crusoe. Now, let me ask you, which famous Hollywood personality would you like to spend time with on the lonely island? Daniel Craig? Scarlett Johansson?

Well, as luck will have it, I meet you and your partner in town in front of the theater. You introduce your better half to me. I say hello and ask, if he or she was aware that their partner wants to spend time on a lonely island with Daniel Craig or Scarlett Johansson? Boom!

Never answer a hypothetical question. The shipwreck was not real, the island paradise was not real, and I did not offer the choice of who could join you on the island. I certainly did not want you to say, ‘my partner.’ This question technique is common in journalism and politics, but also in sales.

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