How to Negotiate Email with Clarity, Cleverness, and Insight—5 Simple Tips…
How many emails do you get in a day? How many do you send?
How many people do you communicate with almost exclusively by email?
Email is no longer a novelty, it’s the conduit for some of your most important “conversations”. How well you write—and read—email means everything to the results you get.
I recently got a note from a reader who asked me for tips about negotiating via email. It’s an interesting subject—and one that’s not talked about much, either.
So here they are, 5 easy tips for better negotiation—and more effective communication generally—via email…
1-Are you negotiating, persuading… or selling? Be honest with yourself about the purpose of an email. If you’re trying “sell” someone, either literally or figuratively, and it feels like negotiation? You probably don’t have a real prospect.
In a business context, this simply means they aren’t predisposed to buying what you have. If you have to convince a prospect they want or need your stuff, you’re wasting time that should be spent finding those who are already cocked, loaded, and looking for the product or service you have to offer.
Do we “sell” in personal contexts as well? Of course. You might find (or have already found) yourself negotiating by email to get another person to make a particular decision, or just understand your position on a subject.
If they have resistance, suddenly you’re negotiating. And negotiation is really just a low form of persuasion—and a really low form of selling. Just like in business scenarios, if it takes a lot of work to convert them to your way of thinking in a personal situation, you may be dealing with someone who really isn’t a “prospect” for what you’re advocating.
Maybe it’s them.
Maybe it’s you.
Maybe it’s the subject of conversation.
And maybe, it’s just the medium: Email.
So here’s my best tip for negotiating by email: Don’t do it. Email is a great device for fast, direct communication, but it has its limitations. Email insulates the person. It allows them more comfort in denying you what you’re after. What’s easier, saying ”No” to a person standing in front of you, or telling them “No” in an email? Heck, you don’t even have to “say” the word… you can just delete their note.
So…
2-Meet with them, or at a minimum, get them on the phone… Whether the subject is business or personal, face to face communication is almost always better than email, or even a phone conversation. It’s real time. It’s personal. And live dialogue obligates both parties to a more open exchange of ideas, demands, objections… and courtesy.
But if face to face isn’t an option, get them on the phone. If you can’t get them on the phone, email can be a great tool to accomplish this. There have been times in business emails, to ensure a call from someone, I’ll JUST write, “Hi, Ron, please give me a call when you get this—I’d like to get your thoughts on something.” That’s the whole email. Nothing else but my name, number, and “Thanks”.
-This gives a ‘call to action’ and a deadline all in one (call when you get this)
-It appeals to their curiosity (what could he talking about?)
-And it’s flattering when ANYBODY wants our opinion, right? (I’d like to get your thoughts on something).
Of course if they call, you’ll want to actually have something to run by them, something that fits with your objectives… we never want to be seen as deceptive in using this, or any other approach.
In a true sales scenario: If this doesn’t work, if the person refuses speak to you on the phone, they’re not a real prospect. Forget ‘em and move on. Always remember: You do NOT have to have any ONE person to be successful. There are others. Go find them.
3-Perception is reality—or is it? Keep in mind that the written word is perceived differently than the spoken word, and both can be perceived differently than what you have in mind when you write or speak them.
Emails can seem curt when read, even when we had no intention of being curt as we wrote them. And if we spoke the same words, the listener would likely perceive them differently (better) than in written form. The evidence: There’s no need to say “LOL” in a spoken conversation, because people can tell when you’re kidding around.
Be sure to keep this perception thing in mind as you write ANY email. Because most of our communication experience with others is through the spoken word, we tend to read emails as if they’re being spoken to us. So to communicate most effectively via email, write yours just as if you were speaking.
Here’s the test: Read your email aloud before sending it. How does it sound? Is is abrupt? Is it too wordy? Does it contain words you wouldn’t use in normal speech? Does it sound natural and conversational? Is this how you would say it if the person were standing in the room with you? If not, you’ll be giving up a large part of your ability to communicate to (and certainly to persuade), the reader.
So don’t write like a lawyer. Don’t write like Tom Clancy. Just write like you speak.
4-Keep ‘em short and simple… Maybe you know by now that I’m into brevity. Why? It’s powerful. Shakespeare, 1603: “Brevity is the soul of wit”. Whether written or spoken, if you want something to come across powerfully, make it brief.
And when it comes to emails, length can even be a deciding factor in whether one will even be read. People want speed these days, and their attention span—and their patience—is short. Have you ever opened an email, seen it was 11 inches deep, and just decided to close it out and deal with it later? Others will do that with yours, too… and they might never come back to one like this.
5-Read their email with savvy and insight… A little secret for you: All the techniques I’ve given you in Conquering Deception© and in The Insider’s Report on Lying© for navigating spoken conversations can also be used to decipher the hidden meanings in what people write.
So notice the subject line. Read every single word of the email body. Notice the subtleties, and consider why they used the words they did. In regular conversation people always reveal more than they mean to… lucky for them, most people aren’t savvy enough to catch the subtleties.
The same goes for emails. If you’ll read carefully, you’ll find that many of them reveal more than the author realized… or intended.
Then read their email aloud. Because we tend to read emails fast and in chunks, you’ll hear words you missed in just reading it. Best of all, you’ll get the spoken version, which is always more revealing. Why? Because the spoken word is what you’re most accustomed to—and it’s still the most revealing form of communication.
I’m not suggesting that you’ll need to use all these techniques in every email exchange, but when the subject is important to you, or the stakes are high, taking a little extra time will always be time well spent.
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If you have a subject you’d like me to write on, send me your idea for a post… I’m not short on ‘em (I have 228 at present) but you can probably can come up with something I won’t think of, so here’s my personal email: cdauthor@hotmail.com. Be sure to put “Post Idea” in the subject line to get priority. Thanks!
And I welcome your comments, feel free to leave your thoughts on this post, or any tips of your own…
-jef
Tags: email, Negotiation, negotiation skills, selling
Jef, you are correct about email as the wrong medium for negotiating with someone. In my case it started with talks on the phone and later on I ended up talking to the person’s staff, then corresponded by email. I already had an indication of the person’s position when I started talking to his staff. Time to move on!
You wrote ‘How well you write—and read—email means everything to the results you get.’ It is very true. No matter how carefully one writes, depending on how well the recipient reads, the message may or may not be received correctly. Or it the email may not be opened at all! My autoresponder clearly shows this.
So much to learn… thanks Jef!
And you hit on something pretty big here (that I didn’t): Choose the wordage of your subject line carefully. If they don’t open the email, nothing else matters, does it?
Curiosity is the best device for writing subject lines that will get your emails opened.
No deception or tricks, of course, but there’s usually an interesting and curiosity-provoking way to title ANY email.
Thanks J!
Thanks for the article, Jeff, but I would sure like more insight on the actual subject of the title “How to negotiate by email”. In my business, negotiations are carried on exclusively by email, I never see or talk to my clients. That’s because I am a translator, and my clients speak many different languages and are scattered all over the globe. I have spoken to maybe 5 of them by phone - calling from Spain, France, Belgium, China, Brazil - and the conversation went nowhere because we didn’t understand each other’s language. So we revert to email, where you can use the dictionary. That’s the nature of the new global economy we live in. I was taught in a negotiation to always ‘flinch’ at the other’s offer. How do you ‘flinch’ by email? This is the new economy, and somehow we need to find out the new methods.
hi, John, as I wrote in the post, “my best tip for negotiating by email: Don’t do it.”
Sounds like you have little choice, though. And it can be done.
You mention offers and clients, so you’re selling, right? Oddly, selling via email is easier than
negotiating by email… but you’re doing both. Flinching via email may not be the answer,
so much as how you word yourself in your reply… and that depends on knowing the subtleties
of a given language.
If you’re leaning at all on a dictionary, you’re likely not going to be coming off like a native speaker
would. True negotiation by email is hard, with the key being very good, subtle use of the
wordage… which you’ll have a hard time doing if you aren’t a master of that language.
You’ve probably seen labels that are in English, but obviously written by a Chinese speaker who
knows just enough to get by, something like, “Careful read cautions on box side.” A person with
limited dexterity in a language will be limited in the nuances… which is where negotation and
influence is practiced best.
That said, I could give you better direction if I knew your specifics, and might be able to help
you more than I have here. I’ll contact you by email and we can go into it further if you like. I have
some suggestions on how to “flinch” as well.
Thanks much for the comment, John, you’ve raised some interesting stuff, and given me
some things to consider… maybe another post is due on some different angles of this.
-jef