Christopher Voss Quotes
Salary negotiations are particularly important because people are testing you as both a co-worker and an ambassador. They really don't want you to be a pushover, and they don't want you to be a jerk.
Christopher Voss
Quotes to Explore
Whether we notice it or not, we spend our days negotiating for something: for our spouse to do more housework, a child to eat just three more bites or go to bed on time, an extended deadline on a project, a salary increase, a better rate on a vacation package.
Christopher Voss
There are three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit yes because they've been trapped by the confirmation yes so many times. So the way you master no is understanding what really happens when somebody says 'no.' When yes is commitment, no is protection.
Christopher Voss
People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder - too hard, as it were - at being believable.
Christopher Voss
Every job that you take, the term that you should always include is, 'How can I be involved in the strategic projects that are critical to the future of the company?' You ask that question. It's a great 'how' question.
Christopher Voss
If you're going to play the bargaining game, you just need to make the other side mad. You want them to get a little annoyed. Then you know that you've come in with a good price.
Christopher Voss
What I really think of myself as is a person who's great at negotiation coaching and consulting.
Christopher Voss
You're supposed to have a passionate purpose as a CEO.
Christopher Voss
Remember Robin Williams's great work as the voice of the genie in Disney's 'Aladdin'? Because he wanted to leave something wonderful behind for his kids, he said, he did the voice for a cut-rate fee of $75,000, far below his usual $8 million payday. But then something happened: The movie became a huge hit, raking in $504 million.
Christopher Voss
As human beings, we're powerfully swayed by how much we feel we're being respected. People comply with agreements if they feel they've been treated fairly and lash out if they don't.
Christopher Voss
In reality, every single negotiation involves another commodity that's far more important to us, which is time - minutes, hours, our investment in time. So even if you're talking about dollars, the commodity of time is always there because there has to be a discussion about how the commodity of dollars is moved.
Christopher Voss
There's great power in deference. You ask somebody 'what' or 'how' questions. People love to be asked how to do something. They feel powerful, and from a deferential position, you've actually granted that power, and you're the one that now actually has the upper hand in the conversation.
Christopher Voss
If your first objective in the negotiation, instead of making your argument, is to hear the other side out, that's the only way you can quiet the voice in the other guy's mind. But most people don't do that.
Christopher Voss
The 'that's right' breakthrough usually doesn't come at the beginning of a negotiation. It's invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you've said. To them, it's a subtle epiphany.
Christopher Voss
Emotions aren't the obstacles to a successful negotiation; they are the means.
Christopher Voss
Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out of the window.
Christopher Voss
In Syria, for some time, they have been trading hostages for a number of things: for weapons, for money, for political influence, and for favors.
Christopher Voss
The No. 1 rule in any negotiation is don't take yourself hostage. People do this to themselves all the time by being desperate for 'yes' or afraid of 'no,' so they don't ask for what they really want. Instead, they ask for what they can realistically get. I've heard many people say, 'Well, that's a non-starter, so we won't even bring it up.'
Christopher Voss
'No' is a dynamic that you've got to master before you can ever master 'yes.'
Christopher Voss
