One of the tools our Team uses in negotiating offers is to decrease the size of the steps you take. With offers and counter offers, the two sides are moving closer on price. Start with your biggest change. Then, move less and less with each step.

Negotiation by Harvard Business Essentials makes the point that negotiating experts interpret a large concession as an indication that you have significant additional flexibility.

So, if you give a large concession, your counterpart will think they can get additional significant concessions. Particularly in a buyer’s market, it is important to get the buyer to want to continue the negotiations.

The Negotiation book also makes the point that a small change generally signals that process is approaching the party’s walk away price, and that further efforts will result in smaller and smaller concessions.

For a more detailed discusson on this topic, please go to http://createagreatdeal.com/principles/tools/smaller-steps/.