Negotiating Against Yourself

We are our worst salespeople

Great! You’ve decided to sell your car, and you actually have a buyer in front of you with cash in hand.

Buyer: “Wow, you’ve really taken good care of it!”

You: “Well, yeah, but the tires aren’t in the best shape.”

The buyer looks at you quizzically, but you continue, “And let me tell you, it handles really poorly sometimes.”

Buyer: “Oh…well, okay, I’m going to think about it. I’ll give you a call if I decide to buy it.”

Deflated, you wonder why it is no one wants to buy your car. I mean, it’s a pretty decent car, it always got you to your destination, and hey, it looks pretty great considering the miles.

A paralegal friend of mine was talking me through a response on a business deal. I was prepared to start the deal by offering concessions to entice the other party.

“No!”, she said, “Never negotiate against yourself. Let the other party make the first offer and you counter-offer.”

I’m sure this is pretty common knowledge, but I don’t do business deals very often, so the concept was pretty new to me. It made sense; why was I going to “give up the goods” right up front??

If this makes sense in a business world, why don’t we apply this to our self-image? We receive compliments from loved ones and strangers alike, yet we talk them out of favoring us by either outright negating compliments (“Oh gosh, no I’m NOT good looking.”) or qualifying them (“Thanks, but I really need to lose a few pounds.”). Even worse, we negotiate against ourselves by offering up these negative soul-cutters up front: “I really suck at writing, but I hope you’ll get something out of this.”

You may very well suck. Maybe your writing will make everyone dumber for having read it. Maybe you should NEVER attempt writing again, but let the other person decide that and say it first. Don’t tell them how to think about you. They have cash in hand ready to buy what you’re selling (i.e., your friendship, love, abilities, etc). There’s a reason they were drawn to you in the first place. Welcome that! There are already enough people in this world who are just waiting to chip away at your soul, so you don’t need to be one of them. Instead, surround yourself with those whose first offer is “Wow, you sure are pretty.”

Then, your response should be “Thank you so much” and nothing more. No qualifiers, no rejections. Just pure, unadulterated acceptance of a genuine compliment that was generously offered with no prodding.

There’s this false belief that self-deprecation is the purest form of humility. I think true humility is being genuinely grateful for each compliment you receive and accepting it gracefully. There’s nothing wrong with making people laugh with self-deprecating humor. Rodney Dangerfield had a very successful career based on it. But be self-deprecating only when you’ve learned to accept the appreciation others have for you. Then make them laugh.

In the meantime, just know that you bring a lot to the table, and hey, you look really great today.