Seven rules that can help clinch any deal -- well, almost any deal

"If it's true that a winning book title makes a promise, I believe that my father Herb Cohen -- hereafter known as Herbie -- came up with the greatest title ever. In the book that captured his philosophy of business and life, he made not one but two huge promises: "You Can Negotiate Anything: How to Get What You Want." The book, written in longhand on yellow legal pads in our basement in Glencoe, Ill., was published in 1980, whereupon it began its climb from the self-help section at the Northbrook Court Dutton's to the bestseller list. Forty-two years after publication, it's considered a business classic.

For me, the immediate effect of Herbie's notoriety came from my high-school teachers, who between 1982 and 1986 answered my every protest with the phrase: "You can't negotiate everything in this class, Mr. Cohen." But the long-term effect came from Herbie's philosophy, which, as he would say, is not about business: "It's about life!"

Herbie worked for dozens of Fortune 500 companies in the years that followed, training their executives and representing the firms in every variety of union and takeover deal. He served as an adviser to several presidential administrations and worked for the FBI, CIA and Justice Department. The logo of his own business, Power Negotiations, shows a handshake, each hand with its thumb up -- a symbol for win-win deals.

I've observed my father in every sort of action. Herbie battled school administrators in Winnetka, Ill., and Soviet negotiators as a member of the U.S. delegation at the START talks on nuclear arms control in the 1980s. He advised me on how to close on a used Toyota, and he advised President Jimmy Carter on how to win the release of American hostages in Iran. I have distilled his philosophy to seven rules, a list that had been five before he corrected me, saying, "Haven't you ever played craps? The number is seven."

Know the language

What you say can be less important than how you say it. To explain, Herbie quotes a lyric from the movie "Dr. Doolittle": "If people asked me, can you speak rhinoceros, I'd say, 'Of courserous.'" Then he tells a story: "I'd been hired to represent a tycoon in a big deal, and he's nervous as hell, and keeps after me about my strategy, my game plan, and though I keep telling the guy 'Let's get there, talk to the other side, wait and see,' he can't calm down, so, finally, realizing that the guy is a fanatical football fan, I say, 'You want my game plan?' He says, 'Hell yeah!' I say, 'We're going to set up in the single wing, send the flanker in motion, pull the guard, fake the handoff, run the receiver on the post and go for the end zone.' And he sits back and says, 'Great plan!' And though I had no idea what I'd just said, I'd soothed my client enough to give me the room to work."

Dumb can be better than smart

The most powerful sentence in any negotiation is often "I don't understand, help me." It turns your perceived weakness into a strength, disarms the other side and gets them working for you.

Don't forget to negotiate

Several years ago, for reasons I won't go into, I found myself without a home. I had a wife and children and another baby on the way. We'd made offers on several houses in New Jersey, each resulting in a bidding war we lost. In desperation, my wife and I picked a house we could tolerate and simply met the asking price, figuring that would do it.

"Wrong," said Herbie. "The sellers won't be glad you met their price. They'll think: 'Damn! We set it too low. We could've gotten more.' They'll be unhappy and look for a way out. You're not getting that house."

Later, after our offer had indeed been rejected, Herbie explained the purpose of the offer/counter-offer ritual in deal-making: It's not because you're greedy, it's because you want the deal to stick. "They need to think they've gotten everything possible out of you," he said. "They'll be satisfied only when they think you've stretched just beyond your limit. That's when you'll get your house."

Control the information

A summer job I was applying for during college required a professor's recommendation. When I told Herbie I'd gotten my Spanish teacher to do it, he asked what was in the letter. "There's no way to know," I said. "The professor gives it to the placement office, and they send it direct."

"Have I taught you nothing?" Herbie asked, hotly. "You can't just send out a letter like that without knowing what's in it! Information is the most important thing you have."

"But how can I know what's in it?"

"Easy. Tell them you've applied for an internship at Power Negotiations" -- his business -- "and have them send it here."

The recommendation, which arrived three days later, began: "Though Mr. Cohen is not the smartest student in the world . . ."

The what versus the how

How a person or idea is presented can be more important than its substance. When I asked my father why we frequented the worst restaurant in our town, he said, "Because they give us the booth." This is the How over the What. Richard J. Daley, though he often seemed corrupt, won six mayoral elections in Chicago, another example of the How over the What. When he was in charge, the business of the city seemed handled. "I was sitting at O'Hare, delayed by a November storm," Herbie told me. "And the guy next to me looks out the window and says, 'It never snowed this early when Daley was mayor."

A nose that can hear is worth two that can smell

Being different -- unusual, weird -- can be more effective than being qualified. Herbie used me to try to prove this. When I was considering graduate school -- I never did go -- he sent applications on my behalf, without telling me, to Cal Tech and MIT. "But I've only taken a single math class since high school," I said later, "and it was called Fundamentals and Math."

"That's the thing," he said. "They've never seen an application like yours. The admissions office looks at genius kid after genius kid. Then your crazy application pops up. It makes no sense. It's different. It's strange. It's a nose that can hear! Kids at those schools have been the smartest in every room since fifth grade. Suddenly, for the first time, they'll be surrounded by kids just as smart. They're going to need someone to feel superior to in math -- that can be you!"

Improvise

When I received rejections from MIT, Cal Tech and several other schools Herbie applied to in my name, he insisted this had been his intention all along. "You say you want to be a writer," he told me. "Well, the most crushing obstacle a writer faces is rejection. All those letters from all those schools, all those skinny envelopes? I'm preparing you for your career."

In the end, all Herbie's lessons share a philosophy: If you treat life as a game and have fun, you'll perform better, be happier and, as a bonus, be more successful. It's a worldview he encapsulates in a single phrase: "The key is to care, but not that much."

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This essay is adapted from Mr. Cohen's new book, "The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator," published this week by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.” [1]

1. REVIEW --- Herbie Cohen's Secrets to Negotiating Anything --- The author's father, a professional negotiator, taught him seven rules that can help clinch any deal -- well, almost any deal.
Cohen, Rich. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 14 May 2022: C.5.