Chris Voss is right that everything is a negotiation, and he skips the number you walk in with

Chris Voss spent his career as an FBI hostage negotiator, and he tells The Diary Of A CEO that his whole method comes down to one moment. The other person says, that’s right. That is what people say when they feel understood, and once you hear it, any negotiation is heading somewhere good: landlord, tenant, employee, employer, a business deal. He is right.

What he skips is the part that matters most to an owner. Voss walks into every room knowing exactly what he needs to walk out with. Most owners walk into a price conversation with a feeling. They know the client is on an old rate. They do not know the number. So the conversation drifts, the client is lovely about it, and nothing changes. You cannot get to that’s right on a price you have not worked out.

Loss is on your side of the table too

People’s thoughts are most dominated by loss, he says, and loss looms larger than gain, at least two to one. Every good negotiator uses that on the other side of the table.

It works on you too. It is the reason your most loyal client is on your oldest price: losing them feels twice as bad as fixing the margin feels good, so you keep paying for it, quietly, every month. Count the loss both ways. On one line, the margin you give up in a year by keeping them where they are. On the other, what you would lose if they walked. Once both numbers are on the page, the fear has a size, and a fear with a size is a decision.

You are the board

The great CEO negotiator, he says, blames somebody who is not in the room. I have a board of directors. I have to be careful what I commit to. It is one of the oldest moves there is.

You do not have a board. You are the board, the CEO, and the person who has to see this client at the school gate, so every no you give is personal, and so is every discount. Build the person who is not in the room. Write it down: we review prices every January and every July, new work is quoted from the current sheet, rush jobs carry a surcharge. Now when a client pushes, you are not refusing them. You are following the policy, and the policy never gets tired, never feels guilty, and never needs to be liked.

Stop handing out answers

If your counterpart discovers the answer, he says, it is their idea and they do it. If you offer it, it is advice, they have no ownership, and they are less likely to do it. He is talking about the other side of a deal.

The same thing happens inside your business every day. Someone brings you a problem and you hand them the answer, because it is faster, and tomorrow they bring you the next one. For one week, when someone brings you a problem, ask three questions before you answer. What do you think we should do? What would it cost? What do you need from me? It is slower the first time. By the fourth time they bring you the answer instead of the problem.

Write the lines down

The mirror, repeating the last one to three words of what somebody said, is ridiculously effective. Try it on the next client who says your price is too high. Too high? Then say nothing, and they will tell you what they are actually comparing you to.

But a technique only you know is not a system. Voss teaches it to people who practice for a living, and your front desk did not sign up for that. Write three answers to the three things clients push back on most, word for word, on one page by the phone.

The arithmetic comes first

Voss is right that everything is a negotiation. The owners who win them are not the best talkers. They are the ones who did the arithmetic before they sat down.

So, this week. Work out the number before the conversation. Count the loss both ways. Write the policy that says no for you. Ask three questions before you give an answer. And put the lines by the phone.