People typically only believe they're in a negotiation when dollars are involved. And maybe sometimes they're smart enough to see if there's a commodity that you can count being exchanged. And, of course, the commodity that we most commonly exchange is money.

Christopher Voss

Body language and tone of voice - not words - are our most powerful assessment tools.

Christopher Voss

There are three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit yes because they've been trapped by the confirmation yes so many times. So the way you master no is understanding what really happens when somebody says 'no.' When yes is commitment, no is protection.

Christopher Voss

Successful negotiation is not about getting to 'yes'; it's about mastering 'no' and understanding what the path to an agreement is.

Christopher Voss

The most dangerous negotiation is the one you don't know you're in.

Christopher Voss

Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out of the window.

Christopher Voss

Price doesn't make deals, and salary doesn't control your career.

Christopher Voss

If your first objective in the negotiation, instead of making your argument, is to hear the other side out, that's the only way you can quiet the voice in the other guy's mind. But most people don't do that.

Christopher Voss

Negotiation is often described as the art of letting the other side have your way. You have to give the other side a chance to put stuff on the table voluntarily.

Christopher Voss

Whether we notice it or not, we spend our days negotiating for something: for our spouse to do more housework, a child to eat just three more bites or go to bed on time, an extended deadline on a project, a salary increase, a better rate on a vacation package.

Christopher Voss

The No. 1 rule in any negotiation is don't take yourself hostage. People do this to themselves all the time by being desperate for 'yes' or afraid of 'no,' so they don't ask for what they really want. Instead, they ask for what they can realistically get. I've heard many people say, 'Well, that's a non-starter, so we won't even bring it up.'

Christopher Voss

The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is to give the other side the illusion of control. Don't try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Ask questions, that begin with 'How?' or 'What?' so your opponent uses mental energy to figure out the answer.

Christopher Voss

The moment you've convinced someone that you truly understand her dreams and feelings, mental and behavioral change becomes possible, and the foundation for a breakthrough has been laid.

Christopher Voss

In reality, every single negotiation involves another commodity that's far more important to us, which is time - minutes, hours, our investment in time. So even if you're talking about dollars, the commodity of time is always there because there has to be a discussion about how the commodity of dollars is moved.

Christopher Voss

Emotions aren't the obstacles to a successful negotiation; they are the means.

Christopher Voss

The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually, 'That's right.' Before you convince them to see what you're trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, 'That's right.'

Christopher Voss

How you use your voice is really important, and it's really driven by context more than anything else, and your tone of voice will immediately begin to impact somebody's mood and immediately how their brain functions.

Christopher Voss

There's great power in deference. You ask somebody 'what' or 'how' questions. People love to be asked how to do something. They feel powerful, and from a deferential position, you've actually granted that power, and you're the one that now actually has the upper hand in the conversation.

Christopher Voss

There is great power in deference. Deference works with everybody.

Christopher Voss

When you expect to get into a negotiation, you expect to be faced by a guy that's going to attack you, a guy or gal that's going to attack or that they're going to try to get the best of you. Two-thirds of us, that makes us very defensive.

Christopher Voss

Remember Robin Williams's great work as the voice of the genie in Disney's 'Aladdin'? Because he wanted to leave something wonderful behind for his kids, he said, he did the voice for a cut-rate fee of $75,000, far below his usual $8 million payday. But then something happened: The movie became a huge hit, raking in $504 million.

Christopher Voss