Coni Rathbone, of counsel for VF Law, offers some tips on how to handle high-stakes negotiations, including simple advice like staying focused and present.
What you probably already know: Coni Rathbone has spent her career negotiating deals. From small real estate transactions to deals worth hundreds of millions, Rathbone, who serves as Of Counsel for VF Law, knows what it’s like to sit in a high-stakes table and read the room. She has also taken all that hard-won knowledge and now teaches classes on negotiations to help young people learn the tricks she wished she knew when she first started out.
We sat down with Rathbone for the latest episode of the Formidable Podcast and chatted about how she handles high-stakes negotiations. Here’s a bit of her advice:
“The two most important keys in negotiations are pretty easy to understand,” she says. “One is listen. Listen more than you speak.” If you listen to what the other side says and give them plenty of opportunities to speak, they will eventually disclose what they have been holding back, she says, and that will give you the upper hand.
“The other is being present,” she says. While it can be easy to get distracted from notifications on your phone, texts coming through or even just the tone of voice of the person you’re negotiating with, staying focused on the room and the situation at hand is a superpower.
If the guy on the other side of the table is being a jerk, Rathbone says, it’s easy to stop listening to his words and instead focus on your anger at the way he is speaking to you. Some experienced negotiators will actually use that as a way to throw you off. “If that’s what you’re focused on, you’re not listening to the tools or the keys they are giving you,” she says.
One of the other most important tricks is preparation. Know what you need and know the difference between needs and wants before you walk in the door.
“Make an outline of your needs and your wants in order of priority,” Rathbone says. “But also spend more time thinking about the questions you are going to ask the other side to draw out their needs and wants.”
She also has a bit of a disagreement with the famous book on negotiating, Never Split the Difference, which was written by a former FBI negotiator. “My rule is, if the facts are in my favor, then splitting the difference is a lazy negotiating tool,” she says. “If the facts are in their favor and I can get them to split the difference, that is a success.”
