Plant a Trust Land Mine

By — on / Negotiation Skills

Establishing trust between yourself and your counterpart can be difficult in any negotiation – especially if you have little to no history with one another. Find some tips on how to build trust in your next negotiation.
In any negotiation, you’re likely to have information about the other party or about the deal (industry facts, economic health, new products, and so on) that the other party might not know you have.

To gain some measure of your counterpart’s trustworthiness, plant a “trust land mine”:
• Ask some questions to which you already know the answers.
• If someone avoid your information requests, or if he lies outright, that’s one sign you should be careful about what you reveal – or call off the talks altogether.

Of course, someone who answers a few questions truthfully might not always behave honestly.

Nonetheless, trust land mines offer a reasonably good way of determining if a person is leveling with you.


Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.


Related Article: Six Strategies for Building Trust in Negotiations

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