Chapter 57 Master the Response Skills in Negotiation

All questions must be answered.If questions have become an important part of the entire negotiation process, so have the corresponding answers.Regarding the importance of the answer, we have already said it before.And because the negotiation has a strong pertinence to some extent, the response is also more important in the negotiation. There is a story in the New Testament: Jews and Pharisees brought an adulterous woman, and they asked Jesus in public: "According to the law of Moses, this woman should be stoned to death. What do you think should be done?" ’ It’s a trap—if you agree, Jesus as a “savior” is responsible for the woman’s death; but if you don’t, then he violated the law of Moses.Then Jesus said, "If any one of you has done nothing wrong, let him stone her to death!" The people asked themselves, and they all felt that they were not clean, so they went away.And the woman was saved.

When negotiating, some questions may not necessarily be more difficult to answer than the ones Jesus faced.With all his cunning and tact, Jesus ably answered questions before which some negotiators fell. So, how to answer the question in the negotiation?Here, I will tell you some of the answering skills I know, and hope that you can answer all questions calmly from now on. Before answering the question, you should give yourself enough time to think about the other person's question.However, generally speaking, during the negotiation process, the other party will not give you enough time for you to think calmly.Because he knows that the longer the time, the more you can give answers that are in your own favor.In this case, even if he urges you to answer right away, you can politely tell him that you have to think about the question and that it will take some time.

The first point of your thinking should be to categorize the questions the other person is asking.In other words, whether the question is friendly or difficult to answer, or even hostile.These three types of questions should have different answers.The first type of questions, such as your basic information, etc., because the other party is not hostile, and speaking out has no effect on you, if you are still evasive, it will appear insincere (it may even be that the other party took you are tempted by information you already have).Although the second type of question is not hostile, it is a question that you do not want to answer and is inconvenient to answer. The other party may ask it unintentionally or on purpose.

In short, answering such questions should be done with a sense of proportion, to see if it will affect the negotiation.The methods I'll talk about below basically fall into this category (unless otherwise specified).The third type of question occurs when your conflict is very serious. The other party may ask such questions because they are dissatisfied with your behavior and hostile to you.When answering this kind of question, you should be polite, and you should not take a tit-for-tat attitude, and then grasp the proportion of the answer. In some negotiations, the other side may directly ask you bottom-line questions.If you answered such a question, you would obviously be passive.For issues like the bottom line, you naturally don't want to tell him so directly, because under normal circumstances, no negotiator wants the negotiation result to be just the bottom line.And once you tell the other party your bottom line, you have lost the meaning of continuing the negotiation.

For such problems you have to find a way to transfer.For example, the other party asks you, what is the lowest price of the product.You can tell him that the price you offer will never be too high, and before you tell him, you plan to introduce some superior performances of your products.In this way, you change the topic and win the initiative for yourself. You can use vague language for questions that have to be answered but are difficult to answer right away.Vague language is the language that gives the other party an uncertain answer.For example, when the other party asks you how much the lowest price is, you can say: "It will not be higher than the price you can afford." This kind of vague language is very clever, which not only answers the question, but also does not make you passive.

Vague language allows plenty of leeway for itself.For example, when applying for a job, the interviewer asks you: "What is your expected salary?" You can't give the other party a definite answer, but you can say: "Between 2500 and 3500." Your salary fits. When the other party asks you to answer a question immediately that you don't want to answer, you can delay the answer.For example, you can say to the other party: "I don't think this is the time to talk about this issue!" It might be better to have a detailed and precise answer." These reasons are irrefutable, so you will never encounter the same problem again.

However, the delay can only be temporary.If you delay answering the other person's question this time, you won't be able to excuse the delay next time.Therefore, you better find a better way to solve this problem. In the process of negotiation, due to communication problems, the other party may not fully understand what you said, resulting in misunderstanding.This is what often happens in negotiations. Some negotiators adopt a wait-and-see attitude when the other party misunderstands them-if the misunderstanding is beneficial to them, they will turn a blind eye and make the mistake;This is an approach that only looks at the immediate and ignores the long-term.They are afraid that they will lose, so they ignore that the negotiation is actually based on candor, and should never deceive and hide from each other-even if it is passive.

In this case, the correct approach is, regardless of whether the other party's misunderstanding is beneficial or unfavorable to you, you should tactfully raise it to the other party.You don't have to worry that you will suffer losses because of this, those things may not be what you deserve.And if you conceal the real information, then when the other party finds out, you will lose more than you gain.