Jun 17, 2021

Positive leverage

Positive leverage is simply your ability as a negotiator to provide things that your counterpart wants.

Whenever your counterpart says, “I want…”, you have positive leverage. When they say that, you have power because you can make their desire come true. Or you can withhold it and inflict pain or use their desire to get a better deal with another party.

Even if you don’t have other offers or the interested buyer is your first choice, you have more power than before your counterpart revealed their desire to work with you. That is why experienced negotiators will delay making a counteroffer in order to not give up leverage.

Positive leverage should improve your psychology in a negotiation. Even if it’s not the offer you want yet, you’ve gone from a situation where you want something to one where you both want something from each other. Once you have it, you can identify other things the person wants in order to get the deal done.