Zeroing


In a negotiation, the first thing you need to be comfortable with is zero.

As in No Money, can't pay, won't pay, don't see the point on it.

Having that figure clear in your head is the thing that will let you move forward.

Right now, you have zero. If the deal doesn't happen, you'll still have zero. You didn't lose something that you didn't have in the first place.

Zero means you're also free. You can say no when it's not a fit, when it doesn't make sense to you, or when you feel like it.

Giving that option to your customer (and that they can choose it) will allow you both to talk and behave like adults. Bullshit-free.

When you're passed that, you can talk of the other options.

Rod Aparicio

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Read more from Rod Aparicio

Anyone with money. Anyone who is willing to pay. Anyone that needs our thing. How do you reach to this specific anyone? If you can’t come up with a very clear specific description of who this “anyone” is, it’ll be hard for them to know you’re talking about them. For them to know of you. For them to recommend you to more like them. At the end of the day, anyone is no-one.

In diving, when you’re overwhelmed, you stop everything. Then, you breath. Assess. Decide. Same is in business. While everything seems urgent, you can only do so much. So stop, breath, assess, decide. And to get to that decision, you’ve already thought of a few ways to go about it.

Just as a band starts playing in a house, to small gigs, to more small gigs... all the way to stadiums with thousands of people. It's the same with decisions. The more controlled, low-impact, and low-risk decisions you make, the easier it is to see the patterns to move upwards. It's simpler to stir the wheel and correct direction with small decisions, than to shift everything from one decision. Quantity over quality first, quality over quantity then.