Using the Law of Reciprocity and Other Persuasion Techniques Correctly

let's talk today about negotiation tactics one of the most powerful of all is called persuasion by reciprocation now this is based on what is called the law of reciprocity it's considered by many to be the most powerful law of human nature and what it says is this if you do something nice for me I'll do something nice for you I feel obligated to reciprocate for example if we go out to lunch together and I say I'll pick up the lunch you'll almost always say that I will pay for it next time and next time you

insist on paying for the lunch now there's several different types of reciprocation there's of course emotional reciprocation where you make people feel good you say thank you it's a pleasure to meet you I know how busy you are thank you very much for your time or this is a beautiful company or it's a great opportunity for me to speak to you whenever you say anything that causes people to feel better about themselves they have a deep unconscious need to reciprocate there's another type of reciprocation which is called material or financial reciprocation when you do something

physical for someone for example you help someone load their car they want to help you load their car if you lend sea people money or your lawnmower they want to pay you back by reciprocating in in some way we always like to do things for others because we have according to psychologists this deep need to be even so if you do something for me the only way that I can get even is by doing something for you by the way the reverse is also true if you do something that hurts me that I feel a

deep need to get even as well so be careful so the starting point of reciprocation is look for opportunities to do things for others something as simple as bringing a cutout from a newspaper that may be of interest to a prospect something as simple as giving a person a book or something like that something as simple as opening the door or getting a cup of coffee is a very powerful technique to cause people to like you and to feel obligated to you you the Socratic method now the Socratic method is simply simply by asking a

lot of questions more questions you ask of another person and listen closely to the answers the more they like you and the more they open to being influenced by you you'll say you'll find by the way that in negotiating is that the more questions you ask and the more open you seem to appear to being reasonable and to see things from the other person's point of view the more reasonable they will be as well they will reciprocate now whenever there's a disagreement in a negotiation and I've negotiated 50 and 60 page agreements that were worth

many millions of dollars and covered multi-year time spans you'd always say this well let's come back to this so you put off any clause or any part of a negotiation where there is some difficulty or resistance or pushback you say let's put that aside for now let's go through the rest of the material and then let's come back to that later now in negotiating one of the rules is to agree slowly it's very easy to agree quickly but even if you have no problems with a particular issue always go slowly with the issue the slower

you go the more strength you have later on when you come to issues that are of greater importance to you you can also push the fairness button and use the word fair over and over again they have found in television debates especially in politics that the politician who uses the word fair when they say you know that's not a fair interpretation that's not a fair way to describe this situation or or that wouldn't be fair to me or someone else you'll find that in current politics they always use the word well people aren't paying their

fair share and no matter what the truth of the matter is the word fair triggers an emotional feeling to be even that that that you should back off rather than being unfair remember children are always saying that's not fair that's not fair because they know how strong the word is ask the other party to reciprocate now here's a rule in negotiating is never give something without getting something in return even if what you give is of no real concern or value to you always ask for something in return if you don't ask for something in

return and soon that they will ask that they will ask things from you and not reciprocate at all and remember the final point is that price and terms are different you can pay almost any price if you can name the terms I remember one of the best negotiators said I will pay you a thousand dollars for that gold cross pen in your pocket even though only cost 150 I'll pay you $1,000 for it if I can name the terms and the terms are is every time I pass you on the street in New York on

a Wednesday I will give you one dollar until the thousand dollars is covered and no interest so therefore you can agree to a higher price as long as you can degree two terms that are much more favorable to you thanks for watching so what is the one thing that you're going to do in your next negotiation based on what you have learned in this video whatever it is leave a comment below and until next time remember that only you are responsible for your success