On the road to entrepreneurship, silence can make money.

Silence is gold.

Most startups don't think of themselves as the company's main negotiator, and at some point they often struggle. These moments are precisely the most valuable skill in exercise sales-the best time to "keep silent".

In the process of negotiation, silence is generally difficult to accept because of the demands of boldness and discipline. However, this is also an amazing tool, which unexpectedly saved our company 225,000 of dollars.

Why, then, can silence play a role in negotiations? The silence in the negotiation will create a very uncomfortable atmosphere for others, and then induce them to continue to talk. At this point, they will be prone to error, and to a large extent exposed their confusion in the negotiation of ideas.

That's right!

If the other person continues to express their views, then all you have to do is keep silent and wait for the right time to appear. That's how I managed to save 225,000 dollars in 10 minutes of phone time.

This is how things go: Close.io's founding team is doing something completely different from what we started. We offer a simple service that allows consumers to sign up for their credit or debit card in order for us to help them complete all the deals and donate the change to charity. In order to do this, we have to buy other people's technology. In order to get a large sum of money, we signed a contract with that company for three years.

We thought we were witty, so we negotiated a special agreement with them: in the first year of the contract, we had little money to pay, a little more in the second year, and then the third year we had to pay them a lot of money (about 90% of the contract).

This is what we envision: three years from now, our company will either grow well enough to afford the money, or the company may be bankrupt, and that won't be much of a problem. The company's account manager does not mind that his commission is paid on the basis of the contract value rather than on the terms of payment. This can be said to be a win-win situation.

However, a year later we completely changed the course of our business. We're not using their super expensive technology anymore, and we don't have the money to keep paying them. So we try our best to get out of them. We call them, use the Internet to contact them, visit their offices, and write to them. We have tried every means, because we are in a desperate situation.

Our agent kept telling us that he was willing to lend a hand, but he said "financial bullies don't allow me to help you do things, so if you want to get out, you have to pay the full amount of the contract."

He's not really willing to help us out of the misery, but we don't blame him. It would be more valuable to him if we went bankrupt than to offer him a contract. Eventually, we contacted one of their board members and persuaded him to send him an e-mail to our agent and let him help us out. The success aroused his concern.

The next day, the phone rang: "Hello, Steli, I'm John (not real name)." Is it convenient to talk now? " Me: "Of course you can!"

John: I really want to help you. I know you've been through a rough start, and I happen to be particularly willing to help you entrepreneurs. I argued with the financial sector to win you a wonderful treat. Don't be surprised to hear the news, now you just have to pay us 100,000 dollars instead of 250,000 dollars to save the contract. ”

In an instant, I was less than 150,000 dollars of pressure, simply can not be happier. But it is time to use the simplest but most powerful negotiation strategy-the most appropriate moment to remain silent.

After a little awkward silence, John continued: "Well, Steli, you know, we should keep a good relationship, which is very important to us." I want you to know: (omit 10,000 words here).

That's the limit I can make for you, and I've got a lot of benefits for you in the financial sector. I hope you can understand. ”

23. 22. 21. 20. 19.

He went on to say, "You know, if you postpone the contract by January next year, we may be able to get you a bigger benefit and reduce the money to between 25,000 and 50,000 dollars rather than the current 100,000 dollars." ”

It's November, and two more months seems to be fine.

"January, 25,000, sounds good." ”

John added: "The amount ... is very good, very happy we can get together good scattered." I will send you all relevant information later. ”

That's the way it is. The result is much better than we expected. That phone call alone saved US 225,000 dollars. I feel that if I speak I will not have this result. So I shut my mouth and listened to him.

It must be admitted that this is the most amazing negotiation I've ever had. But what you can tell you is that when you close your mouth 10 times at the right time, it will be more meaningful to say nine times than you would have said for your cleverness.

Source:tc