Start with No: The Negotiating Tools that the Pros Don't Want You to Know

Start with No presents a contrarian system for negotiating deals across any context—from purchasing a house to resolving business disputes to deciding where to take children for dinner. The book challenges the conventional wisdom that win-win solutions represent the best negotiating approach. According to Camp, win-win has become the dominant business negotiation paradigm, but it functions as a tactic used by skilled negotiators to push the other side toward unnecessary early compromises. These negotiations exploit emotions and the desire to close a deal. The book introduces decision-based negotiation, a system designed to help readers understand and manage their emotions. Rather than focusing on final outcomes (which cannot be fully controlled), it teaches readers to concentrate on controllable activities and behaviors. The book outlines characteristics of successful negotiators: they prefer "no" to "yes," avoid rushing to close deals, remain unneedy while exploiting the other party's neediness, maintain assumptions-free questioning, operate with clear mission and purpose, approach every communication with a specific agenda, understand four budgets (time, energy, money, and emotion) for both parties, and avoid wasting time with non-decision makers. Start with No includes numerous business and personal examples illustrating each principle of the system.