The context of a negotiation exists independently of the actors. Framing is how each actor tries to influence that context. By placing emphasis on certain aspects and setting the priorities, the framer establishes how each actor understands the context. The framer also imposes limits on their leeway to operate within it. These frames can range from classical nudges to a complete rewriting of the rules or reshaping of the playing field.

Buyers use several techniques – such as time, uncertainty, fear, and silence – to ensure that negotiations take place on their home field with their ground rules. In some cases, they will try to rewrite those ground rules by reframing the entire negotiation. Part II concludes with a peek into the buyer's playbook to show you how these techniques work and how you can withstand them and neutralize their advantages. Sellers need to reject these frames and, if possible, attempt to impose their own.

How buyers play with time and timing

Time can be an especially dangerous influence. Buyers gain a considerable advantage by controlling it: deadlines, meeting length, start and end times, for example. People tend to underestimate the extent to which time messes not only with our heads but can even shake our core beliefs.

Let's take a brief timeout for a quiz. Imagine that someone is in a small city for a meeting and is rushing to get to the destination, because they are late for a meeting. Along the way, they pass by a person who obviously needs assistance. How likely is that person to stop and offer help?

1. 1%
2. 10%
3. 25%
4. 40%

Most people are familiar with the phrase ‘Good Samaritan’, which describes a person who goes out of their way to offer help to a stranger in distress. That original story about the Good Samaritan takes up a mere 200 words in the Gospel of Luke, but over centuries it has come to define a desirable code of behaviour that most people aspire to emulate.¹

How applicable is that story to the hectic pressures of modern life? That question prompted two professors at Princeton University to conduct an experiment. They wanted to find out how many people would act as Good Samaritans if they were in a hurry. The participants in the experiments were all scheduled to give a presentation in a nearby building. The professors exposed them to one of three situations: high hurry (‘you're already late’), intermediate hurry (‘they are ready for you; you should get going’), and low hurry (‘they will be ready soon; you should get going’). Along the way, each participant encountered the proverbial stranger in distress.

Before we compare your quiz answer to the findings of the Princeton researchers, let's add to additional assumptions to the quiz. What if the people in our quiz question were all seminary students, training for the priesthood? What if the presentation they were scheduled to give was a sermon about being a Good Samaritan? Under these assumptions, how would you revise your answer?

The reason we added those assumptions is because they represent the conditions the Princeton team tested. The participants in the survey were seminary students, and the findings from the experiment demonstrate clearly how artificially manipulated triggers can lead people to act in ways that conflict with or even violate what they profess as core values. Some 63% of the ‘low hurry’ seminary students did indeed stop to help the victim. In the case of the ‘intermediate-hurry’ scenario, 45% of the participants helped, but in the ‘high-hurry’ case – the one in which the students were late for their sermon – only 10% stopped to act as a Good Samaritan. This held true regardless of whether the topic of the sermon was about the Good Samaritan or a sermon on giving and helping in general.²

The moral of this Good Samaritan experiment is that time pressure messes with our heads and our beliefs. These effects occur in sales negotiations as well. Witness what transpires within the span of 30 minutes in this following true story about a sales team on its way to meet a key account.

It is 9:50 a.m. outside a gleaming office building in a major city centre., Josie is sitting with her team colleagues in the reception area at Shielding Inc.³ She has already checked in for the 10:00 a.m. meeting with Anton Smith, the head of purchasing. Josie and her team are not only positive and full of energy, but also well prepared for the day. Today's meeting concerns the renewal of a large supply contract for a third year. Her company has already won this contract twice in previous years against its competitors and is banking on the $10 million in revenue that the renewal would bring in. Josie and her team have to strike a deal today.

Now the clock says 10:05 a.m. They are still waiting in the reception area.

Josie asks at the reception desk whether she has perhaps missed a step in the check-in process. They reassure her that everything is ok. Slowly the tension rises. She and her colleagues look at each other quizzically, trying to understand why the purchasing team is keeping them waiting. Perhaps a small crisis has suddenly come up? Maybe they want them to wait to sap their energy or psych them out? Maybe it is simply for the sake of waiting? They have no idea what is going on and stare with increasing nervousness at the clock in the reception area: 10:10, 10:11, 10:12 … 10:15.

At 10:20, Josie writes a WhatsApp message to Mr Smith:

Good morning, Anton. I assume that something unforeseen has occurred to prevent you from taking our meeting today. I'm sorry about that. We don't want to impose any additional burden on you and will now leave for the day. I will contact you again tomorrow to schedule a new meeting.

Two minutes later, the phone rings at the reception desk. Josie and her team are asked to wait, because Mr Smith will meet them momentarily. Three more minutes go by before Mr Smith exits the elevator, together with Schielding Inc.'s managing director. They apologize profusely for the delay, citing the need to take an unanticipated call from the CEO. Josie recognizes that excuse as one of the oldest and weakest excuses that a purchaser might give, but she tries to suppress and disguise her disbelief. She smiles and accepts the apology. Both parties head upstairs to begin the meeting.

The steps taken by both parties between 9:50 a.m. and 10:20 a.m. reflect a battle for power and control. Smith's side made an attempt to subordinate and intimidate Josie's party through their actions. They had their attempt immediately countered by a veiled threat from Josie, whose team could now enter the negotiation without a sudden and adverse shift in the balance of power.

Josie has trained herself to recognize the signal of such power play and resist the urge to give in. The urge to accept the other side's actions stems from the human desire to be liked, which we discussed in Chapter 8. She had trained her System 1 to ignore the urge to please by expanding the boundaries of her comfort zone. That's why she could confront such situation with a clear ‘No! Not acceptable!’

Would Josie have left if that call hadn't come through to the reception? Absolutely she would have! Over the years, she had learned not to make idle threats, which means she had every intention to follow through. She knows that it is always important to make it clear that your time is just as valuable as your business partner's time.

Time is a powerful offensive and defensive weapon, precisely because it is a scarce resource. People can use timeouts to process information and engage or recharge System 2, and people can use artificial stress and time pressure to force another party to respond in ways that work against that party's interests.

Be aware that time is also a powerful tactic to drive decision making. The extent of the advantages and disadvantages depends on who controls time and timings. Think back to the study with the cockroaches. What happens to our dominant response when someone imposes artificial stress on an otherwise easy situation? The key word in that sentence is artificial. Many of the constraints that people perceive – both in their personal and professional lives – lead them to veer away from the desired and proper form of response that they would have if the constraint were not present. People can develop phobias when they face continued exposure to artificial conditions. Professional buyers know this and take advantage of it systematically.

To dive deeper into the psychological and physiological effects of time, let us pose a situation. Assume that you have to make a short speech. You have two options. Either you can speak for two minutes, or you can speak until a slice of bread pops from a toaster. Which option would you choose?

Our speculation is that you would select the option of two minutes, because it provides certainty and it allows you to plan your talk better than when you cannot anticipate the end. We also assume that you would opt for the two minutes even though one study has shown that the ideal timespan for toasting a slice of bread is 216 seconds (or 3 minutes, 36 seconds) which would allow you much more time to speak.⁴

To say that our minds don't like uncertainty, however, is an oversimplification. What bothers us – mentally and physically – is anticipation, or more precisely, an artificial gap or delay between the expected timing of an event and its actual occurrence. This is the flip side of the power of timeouts. In Part I we mentioned that sports teams use timeouts as an opportunity to rest, rethink, and regroup. But sports teams also tap into this power when they call a timeout late in a game in order to ‘ice the shooter’ before a basketball free throw or ‘ice the kicker’ before a decisive field goal attempt in football. Buyers do something similar when they ask a sales team to sit in the lobby or wait outside beyond the scheduled start of a meeting. The common interpretation is that this is a ‘psychological tactic’ on the buyers' part. But this is an insufficient explanation, because it offers neither a precise ‘why’ nor the basis for a solution. Why do people use the tactic, and why is it still effective in many cases even when the intended target often knows that the other side might deploy it?

The untrained mind's response in such a situation is that one's imagination that starts to run wild and attribute the delay to any number of causes. What could the problem be? Are we on shaky ground?

Think of it this way: ‘It's like when the lights go out and you feel something behind you. You hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there.’ Even if there is no ‘there’ there, the longer we wait, the more we start speculating: what is going on?

That is how the novelist Stephen King defines terror.⁵

How buyers play with uncertainty and fear

System 1 hates uncertainty and wants consistency and stability. That need is especially strong when urgency or fear plays a role. The greater the perceived urgency of a situation, or the greater the level of uncertainty and fear involved, the more people will rely on System 1 for a decision and ignore System 2. These decisions are generally known as a ‘fight or flight,’ a visceral reaction driven by System 1. It is our primitive mechanism for self-preservation and remains an active and strong force in all humans to this day.

One difficulty with ‘fight or flight’ is that our System 1 has not evolved sufficiently to keep up with the modern life that thrives on System 2. The chances are almost negligible that today's cavepeople wearing designer suits will die directly from the activities they conduct in their fancy offices. But uncertainty still causes the fear of a severe loss. This alarm even creeps into salespeople's language, articulated in thoughts such as ‘if we lose this deal, we are toast’ or ‘losing this deal could kill my business’. System 1 kicks into overdrive in order to prevent this metaphorical death, not a real one.

Fear is the worst partner you can imagine. Addressing that core fear of losing the deal is important because many of the other fears derive from it. It infiltrates your mind and influences your behaviour. If you are afraid of not getting the business, you can start to fear for your ability to meet a target and to earn a bonus that was going to pay a tuition bill, fund a surprise vacation, or get you that new SUV. In its worst case, you may even fear for your livelihood.

Of course, buyers know this. When they undergo their own negotiation trainings, they hear one simple sentence, over and over, until it becomes second nature for them: the salesperson's greatest fear is losing the deal. The purchasers know that they can turn up the intensity in a negotiation by making that statement explicit rather than implicit, especially in highly competitive industries where there is not much differentiation among suppliers.

Why would the buyers do that? They know that they can use fear as a weapon. That one ominous sentence about losing the deal has such a powerful psychological as well as a physiological impact on the salesperson. It momentarily paralyzes them, then creates an opportunity for the buyer to reframe the negotiation. At that moment, they know that the salesperson becomes more susceptible to the repetition of short messages because they will trigger a System 1 response. When that happens to you – and it will – what will your response be?

If your response to conquer the fear and reduce uncertainty is to cling to stability, then you are more likely to put yourself into a smaller box and colour between the lines. You will attempt to play it safe, and you will be more likely to acquiesce to what the purchaser wants. When buyers redefine the frame for the negotiation, they force the salespeople to believe in reinforced stereotypes as they try to adjust to the new frame.

But if your response from System 1 is more nuanced and better informed by a range of past experiences and pre-programming, you might be able to recognize the new frame for what it is: the buyer's attempt to stoke fears and capitalize on the stresses of the negotiation. This recognition helps you resist the new frame.

How buyers play with silence

The absence of literal communication is a powerful form of communication, as Gaby can attest. She had a very close relationship with the head of purchasing at one of the largest companies in a portfolio she once managed. She was about the same age as Gaby and was always friendly. She reached out almost daily, not only to align on current business topics, but also to have a casual personal chat.

But then one day, she temporarily cut off communication after Gaby said ‘no’ to a discount request. For almost a month, she neither called nor responded to Gaby's calls. When she finally did resume contact, she never mentioned the incident which – in Gaby's mind – had precipitated the silent treatment.

Gaby had felt the same emotions that one would feel in a family quarrel, when someone gets the cold shoulder for a minor offence that eventually blows over. It taught her that silence is another powerful weapon that makes people uncomfortable. As Gaby managed her withdrawal symptoms during the silent period, she observed herself fighting back the urge to send a mail saying ‘Sorry, of course you get the discount!’ and thus atone for her supposed wrongdoing.

Most salespeople have a similar story to tell. This is another form of framing in the Invisible Game, and salespeople need to recognize it and exert self-control. Sometimes the secret to winning lies in steeling yourself to endure the silence, resist the urge to act, and wait for the other person to get back to you. Otherwise you teach your customer that silence is a sure way to manipulate you (see Situation 10.1).

If you change your offer in the absence of such information, you risk losing face or losing your credibility. Be sceptical about yourself when you get anxious waiting for a reply. Instead of jumping to conclusions, you might be able to call a trusted source in your customer's company and have a friendly chat about another topic. This may put your mind at ease and even draw out some information on why you haven't received a response.

A moment of silence is also a very powerful technique in any business situation, especially when you want more information, or the time has come for the other party to make a decision. Most people we know have a hard time with moments of silence during a conversation. They feel the urge to fill the silence, which loosens their tongue and risks that they will share more that they should. Try a moment of silence. When you have an opportunity, smile at the other party and remain silent for about 10 to 15 seconds. You'll be surprised what gets revealed.

How buyers rewrite the rules or change the playing field

Imagine that you work for an ingredients company called Xevono. You hear through industry channels that a company called Starlight is about to acquire one of your important customers, Peter & Friends, a start-up successful in marketing cosmetic products to male consumers.⁶ Starlight is a much larger organization that sells a broad range of personal care products through its own outlets, and the specialty lines from Peter & Friends are an ideal fit for the popular Starlight shelves.

Xevono helped Peter & Friends develop and implement their original marketing and sales strategy, creating a mutually beneficial relationship that rapidly accelerated Xevono's profitable growth. But Xevono has so far never been able to develop a fruitful sales relationship with Starlight. This acquisition therefore opens up an opportunity for more sales growth if Starlight is impressed with the excellent service performance you have delivered to Peter & Friends.

Then just as quickly as that window opens, it threatens to slam shut on your fingers. Shortly after the acquisition became public, an email from Starlight appears in your inbox. It's a form letter from their purchasing department, communicating its two prerequisites for continuing your business relationship with what is now a larger organization with more marketing and buying power. They want an immediate 25% onboarding discount and an extension of their payment terms to 150 days.

As you read those details this story, what did you think right away? How should respond to the demands?

Such emails are common. Many other suppliers around the world have received similar ultimatum letters that contain the kinds of egregious conditions that Starlight wants to impose. This situation occurs in every industry and every region. Right now, those suppliers are also scratching their heads, just as you are, in an effort to find the right answer for their particular situation.

Let's boil your possible responses down to two options, each of which is in the spirit of what you just absorbed in Part II.

1. Say ‘no’ in clear, unequivocal terms: You write back to Starlight and state that your calculations do not allow discounts of that magnitude, and that payment terms of 150 days are a non-starter because of the obvious detrimental effects on cash flow.
2. Imply ‘no’ by asking Starlight for a meeting: You write back to invite Starlight's purchasing team to a meeting to discuss the 25% discount and 150 days. Your objective – left unstated in your response – is to negotiate them down to something more reasonable.

If you go with the first option, Part II should have prepared you to deliver that response with confidence. After all, if any request for a discount deserves a forceful rejection, it is Starlight's. The second option offers several potential advantages. It will leave the Starlight purchasing team with some uncertainty. It will buy you time for more thorough analyses to prepare your precise counteroffers. Finally, it will add to the context that will help you infer how serious their offer is and then calibrate your response. Right now, their aggressive demands are their opening moves in the attempt to frame the Visible Game and the Invisible Game.

Nonetheless … it might surprise you that we recommend neither of these options.

Part II showed you how to say ‘no’ to a specific request from a customer during a negotiation. In Part III, we explore how to say ‘no’ to the entire context of a negotiation, and then establish your own frames. That is the best response to Starlight's email.

The motivation behind emails such as Starlight's is to establish a new set of anchors and redraw the frame of the negotiation. If you choose either Option 1 or Option 2, you have swallowed the bait. You have tacitly agreed to their negotiating context, even though you have rejected the proposal or implied that you will make a counteroffer. Regardless of what ultimately happens with the numbers, you will have negotiated within rules unilaterally set by Starlight and with anchors that Starlight set.

What should you do instead? The moves we describe in the following list weave together many of the insights we have presented so far, from situational awareness to anchoring to confidence and control.

• Limit exposure to Starlight's email: What will happen if you share that email internally, so that the rest of the team can share your indignation at Starlight's audacity and unfairness? Suddenly you will hear the numbers 25 and 150 come up in conversations, and that is precisely what Starlight would want. Anchors are sticky numbers. Sending that email around ensures that those two numbers remain at the forefront of everyone's thinking. So don't do Starlight's work by letting their anchors go viral within your team, in the true infectious (and negative) sense of that word.
• Engage your situational awareness: You should recognize the letter for what it is: an attempt to influence the buying decision in Starlight's favour. Register the attempt and ignore the numbers as best as you can. These emails not only deliver anchors, but also aim to elicit a response that will allow the sender to infer how much leverage they have, how unsettled the sellers are, and how they can take advantage of the pending negotiations.
• Respond in kind, but do not acknowledge their numbers: One forceful way to say ‘no’ to the context is to counter immediately with your own anchor. You could send them a letter congratulating them on the acquisition of Peter & Friends, thank them for their interest in your products, and suggest a meeting to discuss business continuation. But in contrast to Option 2 above, your response must never acknowledge that you have received or seen any numbers, never mind what the numbers are or that you cannot afford them. Some companies have gone a step further in their response letters by announcing price increases (for example, up to 15%) to set a new anchor.

These steps belong to a more advanced version of the Invisible Game. They allow a seller to find a way to say ‘no’ without actually explicitly saying ‘no’ or even acknowledging that there was a question in the first place. The seller aims instead to create their own new frame for the working relationship with Starlight and Peter & Friends, including new price anchors.

What we have learned in Part II

In Part II we have shown how to develop a stronger mental core that will empower you to say ‘no’ to a discount or any other concession request. But getting to that point required a thorough exploration of the emotional side of a sales negotiation.

That starts with the emotional and sensory power that prices exert on both buyers and sellers. Prices are where the lines between the Visible Game and the Invisible Game blur. Most salespeople are unaware that buyers have a maximum feel-good price in their minds that usually lies well above the prices explicitly discussed between the parties. Buyers work hard to keep it that way by affecting the frame of the negotiation, keeping the stress level for sellers high, and pushing for discounts.

Sellers overcome their fear of ‘no’ by understanding the reasons behind that fear, and then expanding their comfort zones by redefining their goals, gaining new experiences in a structured way, and using prompts to reinforce their progress.