The Secrets of Power Negotiating

I originally purchased this as a cassette series a long time ago. I so enjoy listening to it now and then that I decided to purchase the CD version. I was not disappointed. Roger's advice is just as relevant now as ever. I feel it's well worth it.

Great tips and strategies for negotiating. Dawson presents very solid information on how to better position yourself in a negotiation. I started using this info right away and saved a bundle on something I was purchasing. I paid $1.99 for this on a gold box deal and it's paid for itself many times over.

While there are some helpful chapters in the book, I feel the book is misleading. The sub-title is "Updated for the 21st Century" and the back cover promises to include "new and expanded sections" on how to negotiate over the phone, by e-mail, and via instant messaging. There are NO sections like that in the book. And that was the main reason I bought the book.

I also e-mailed the author Roger Dawson who supplied his address in the book and encourages you to e-mail with questions. NO RESPONSE. Thus I feel this book has a major issue with misleading or false advertising.

Just one of the best sources on negotiation. I used one tip from this to save my buddy 50% of his budget hiring someone for a project. 50%!!! From 1 single tip.

I also use it just about daily for negotiating as a freelancer. You can't not know this. Whatever the price, you'll earn back 10X that easily just by applying 1 or 2 ideas from it. If you're any kind of high achiever, if you take notes and map all of this out and really internalize it all -- you'll earn back so much more than it's measly cost.

I do recommend you pair it with "getting past no" by Ury just because it's got a simpler framework. Think of Dawson's as a tactical smorgasbord. You still need an arching strategy to really make it work and "getting past no" gives you that arching strategy. These 2 sources will put you head and shoulders above most of the people in the world.

Absolute classic - a must for everyone in charge of negotiating deals and contacting customers. Reads easily and contains a lot of very useful information. Pays for itself within a week from the purchase - I negotiated down 10x its price in my first try after reading the book when buying some other product ;-)

This book was recommended by Jim Ferriss of 4 hour work week and it delivered in every way. You will learn many negotiating gambits and discover how to deal with them when they are being used on you. I wish I had read this book when I was buying my last car!

Jim

You feel that you always knew these tricks in negotiating, but actually you haven't properly applied them yet in your life. This book is a useful how-to-negotiate guide that can help you through real business negotiation, but most all in the game of daily life's actions.

A quick glance keeps you reading this book for hours straight. If you follow just a few of the simple gambits Rodger Dawson outlines, items become cheaper & your compensation will be greater. Highly recommended!

This book has plenty of good negotiating advice and I can see how the many gambits he teaches can be useful. My only hang up is the use of "lying" that he suggests to use in certain situations. I'll take the good without the bad in this book and continue to conduct my business with honest dealings.

Overall, this book has some excellent advice and gives great pointers on how to negotiate to get the best deal, but I was expecting something totally different and for that, I am slightly disappointed in this book. This would probably be the ideal book for someone who uses negotiation in their job and has a use for this information on a regular basis, but I don’t fit into that category, so this book was just subpar for me.

He starts off by talking how you should think win win, however, he could care less. He says you should trick the other person into thinking they won. He brags about how he gets these great deals by taking advantage of people in desperate situations. The book has some decent pointers however, I can hardly get through it by how much this man and his thoughts repulse me.

I purchased this product years ago in cassette tape format.

I am replacing it with the CDs, because I no longer have a cassette player in my vehicle.

I am doing the same with several other sales training materials that I have.

I like it well enough to want to keep it in the newer technology.

Dawson is a master of organization backed up with examples. Listening to him, it is easy to tell he's spent his lifetime doing this. Some key thoughts I got (although there were a lot more):

The most valuable negotiating technique is simply to ask for more than you expect to get. Your ability to get what you want depends on your ability to overstate demands. It’s so simple that it often doesn’t get much credibility. Within this, a lot of people make the mistake of leading with price before they have built up the justification for their product’s value. Lead with value. Then if you ask for more than you expect to get - you often end up splitting a difference later on and getting better price or timing or value than you ever thought possible.

Second, he has a section about negotiating for a higher salary, pointing out that you will enjoy the benefits of that for the rest of your life. Once your hourly or yearly rate goes up a notch, rarely does it ever go back down. It’s not just for that one job. It’s for every one going forward.

Third, Dawson also points out that some people are convinced via seeing, some via hearing, and some via feeling. People talk in these modes too. For example, visual people may say something like “I see what you mean.” Recognizing these styles can be useful in negotiation in communicating effectively - you need to match the mode the person you're talking to uses.

The fourth thing I noted is that a big pressure point is projecting to the other side that you are prepared to walk away. Dawson stresses as soon as you decide you have to have something, you have lost the negotiation. He gives the story of his daughter who wanted to buy a car and had already spent some time at the dealership and then came home and asked him to come with her for the final deal to do some final negotiating. On the way down he asked her if she was willing to leave to dealership without the car if they could not get the price they wanted. She told him “no way”. She just had to have this car. Without being willing to walk away, your negotiating power has disappeared.

Finally, Dawson points out nothing pays better than negotiating. He gives lots of examples on saving significant dollars through a short time frame, just as just "flinching" on the initial cost. So many times people came down quickly. On an auto example, he gave an example of saving $1,000 quickly.

You might get different things from Dawson's approach - those were mine.

This book is absolutely spectacular! The chapters are short, which I really love because I hate putting a book down in the middle of the chapter. More importantly the information is amazing and unlike the majority of books out there this one isn't loaded with fluff just to fill more pages. The information is immediately actionable. And even though my copy has a copyright year of 1999, it is still completely relevant for 2018. I am absolutely going to be checking out Roger Dawson's other material!

Roger Dawson has always impressed me positively. I've been following his work for many years.

Recently, however, a new expert on negotiation has changed the paradigm that negotiation gurus like Dawson and Herb Cohen have been working within for decades. His name is Chris Voss and his new book is entitled NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE: NEGOTIATING AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT.

In the context of negotiation theory, Voss's work is "revolutionary" (not a word I use casually, as I realize it's been overused). If you're interested in state-of-the-art knowledge about negotiation, you will not want to miss what Chris Voss has to say. (I have no connection with him, other than being an admirer of his work.)

Although decidedly geared toward its obvious target audience of professional negotiators, the book offers a wealth of valuable information for anyone. Every chapter offers at least one point of value, although the early chapters do feel like they’re belaboring their points some. But then the book veers away from traditional negotiating wisdom into the fascinating realm of criminal negotiators and even (my favorite bit) the differing mindsets and mores of various nationalities. It ends with an equally interesting section on the various specific aspects of personal power. I won’t say it changed my life, but I do feel better educated for having read it.

I do not have a job that requires negotiating much. I hate bargaining over price when I travel to countries where it is woven into the culture. Before this book, I did not think of myself as someone who needed negotiating skills since I rarely engaged in deals that required the skills. But this book is about so much more than negotiating deals or contracts. It is a study of psychology and human nature as well as deal making. Even if you do not end up using any of the lessons that the author teaches, you will gain huge appreciation and new perspective for the many situations (ie: in politics, business, families) that negotiating tactics are used. Dawson is an excellent writer whose passion for educating his readers is evident. He does not try to use his book to sell other materials such as his audio tapes or seminars.

Along with Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion", this book deserves to become a classic. Like those two books, the skills that you learn from this book can be used to improve not just your life but even the people on the other side of the negotiating table from you. This is a delightful and incredibly valuable book no matter what you do in life. I strongly recommend this gem. Thank you Roger Dawson!