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Comment by esond | Hacker News Reader

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This relatively short book has made more of a difference to my personal livelihood than maybe any other pice of literature or advice.

You really don’t realize how much negotiating you do in day to day life. Its good to be comfortable with it.

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One key component that Voss spends a lot of time on -- if your counterparty comes out a negotiation feeling like they lost, everyone loses.

The outcome of a successful negotiation is that a fair deal is struck, and everyone feels good (or at least not bad) about it.

There are very few situations in the real world that are true one-offs, where you'll never have to interact with that counterparty again. Consequently, scorched-Earth is a poor long-term approach.

I was part-way through the book and I needed to sell some things on Gumtree. Normally I'd expect some low balling at first and then accept below the asking price.

However using what I'd read in the book, I got the asking price for all 4 items I sold!

There's also a TEDx talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_voss_never_split_the_differe...

His Masterclass was awesome too! And I definitely recommend listening to the Audiobook vs. reading it. Hearing his tone of voice and watching his body language made such a difference in understanding his point.

Chris Voss also has a Masterclass on negotiation. I imagine it's probably similar to his book, but it's very good.

It's basically verbatim.

The audiobook is good as well, you can hear the tone of voice, which is useful.

I looked it up and saw it was read by Michael Kramer. It's worth it do just hear his voice.

For a moment I thought you said Cosmo Kramer... That'd be something hahaha

Totally agree about listening to the audiobook!

Seconding this book. I took grad school level negotiation classes and this book added as much or more value when I've negotiated for pricing, salary, etc.

Interesting, I found the author so off-putting I didn't make it more than 50 pages. I'll have to try again based on all these +1s.

That book paid for itself ten times over by the time I had finished reading it, practicing on insurance renewals and utility bills.

It's incredible how much you can save on your bills! I read the book and called my ISP. I was polite and didn't threaten to leave or do anything aggressive and ended up paying less for faster service.

Another vote for this book... it is very good. I negotiate contracts, price, and terms & conditions as a significant portion of my job.

comfortable with it?

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