This contract tip is about one of the most common techniques for finalizing the terms of a contract after an extended negotiation is to bundle a set of demands and concessions as one final point of agreement.
Here's how it works. Let’s say you've been negotiating for months. You are now down to four major issues in contention. At this point, the parties are worn down but refusing to budge. Each side is afraid if they concede on one or two, the other party will not make comparable concessions.
What some negotiators do is to tackle the final set of issues by grouping them. So instead of trying to resolve each one individually, they say, “How about I give you 1 and 2 and you give me 3 and 4?”
It’s a version of splitting the difference. I love Chris Voss’s book “Never Split the Difference,” but the reality is many negotiators effectively use splitting the difference to get the deal done. With this technique, you can go from stuck to signed very quickly.
This technique works better when you understand how important each of the final issues is to your counterparty. You might ask for the other side to concede everything else in exchange for you conceding on their one must-have issue.
Of course, this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. But for some negotiations, a final horse trade allows the parties to get the deal done.
How often do you see people use final trades like this in negotiations?
