My 90 year old mother in law has lived in an assisted living senior facility for the past 2 years. Due to the recessed economy, management recently announced a promotional room price of $1525 per month to stir up new business.

My mother in law was paying $2440 per month, and that price was slated to increase even more in December. Believing it’s unfair to treat new tenants better than long-time loyal occupants, she asked my wife to contact the business office to request the promotional price.

The business manager promptly returned her call and, reading from a rehearsed script, dryly explained that the special price was for new residents only. Then, hard bargainer that he was, he followed up the phone call with a notification of lease termination. It was clear to me that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this guy so I decided to go right to the top.

Two days later I contacted the owner directly (the real decision maker) and calmly explained our dilemma. I explained that my mother in law was very comfortable in the facility but felt that her status as a loyal renter was being devalued by being excluded from the lower price. I explained that I understood his position but I wasn’t asking for everyone – just my mother in law, who had been living there for many years.

I also reminded him that my mother in law would probably need more intensive care in the future, one of his core profit centers. I explained that if she was happy there, she would feel much better about moving a few doors down the hall than relocating to an entirely new facility when her health issues inevitably intensified.

Seeing that I was considering the pictures in his head and not just my own interests, he happily agreed to lower her rent significantly to $1,982 and to prorate it for the current month which was already well underway. He also agreed to forego the annual rent increase until December 2012.

These negotiation tools work great. Not only was this negotiation successful but the new rent is even less than she was paying when she first moved in 2 years ago! — Andy Ungar, COO Max Grease Monkey (Beijing) Automotive Technology Ltd., Beijing China.

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SD Comment:
This is excellent. Even though the owner didn’t match the introductory price, what the book and course are about are getting more, not getting everything. And I expect that the “introductory price” won’t stay there for long, while your mother-in-law’s price will increase only slowly. You have a friend in the owner. And you didn’t spend a moment on the skin-flint hard bargainer – you went to the person who could meet your goals. Savings of $5,496 for the first year alone.

Yesterday I had batting practice at Giants Stadium in San Francisco with Rich Murray, who played first base for the Giants from 1980-83. His stats included four home runs and 125 hits. I traded him a signed baseball for a signed copy of Getting More.

Murray was on hand for an evening at the ballpark for a group of Young Presidents Organization members from San Francisco.

The event was put together by Brad Oberwager, a Wharton graduate of 1995 and one of my favorite negotiation students. Brad is now Chairman of Sundia, which sells cut fruit in plastic containers. An anecdote is in the book on how he trades items of unequal value.

I gave a talk to the group about Getting More after missing five pitches from Rich, after which he gave me some batting tips and posed with me for a picture.

Later, when I went back to my hotel, I got into a conversation about the event with the doorman who took my car and noticed my Giants cap in the front seat. He remembered Murray and said, “Oh yeah, he played first base. Good guy.” The doorman was impressed with the signed baseball.

I’ll bet my 10-year-old son, Alexander, will be too.

Recently I bought a suit from one of the best fashion stores in my town in Syria. In US currency, the suit cost $300.

A few days later I took the suit out of my closet, excited to sport my dapper new investment. It was then that I discovered defects in the suit that I hadn’t noticed when I was in the upscale boutique: there was clear dirt around the buttons. I was irritated that I hadn’t seen this in the store and that they hadn’t been pointed out to me by the sales representative.

Sadly, the consumer protection laws in Syria are not strictly enforced, so it wouldn’t be possible for me to return the product within a certain period of time for any reason, whether I don’t like the product or the product is defective.

I thought a lot before returning to the store. I focused on remaining calm, concentrating on my goals, and not losing my temper (which would be the natural reaction of most people.)

It was clear this was the perfect opportunity to use some of the hidden strategies in Getting More, a book I have read many times. After some consideration and preparation, I decided that Looking for the Decision Maker, Making a Human Connection, Standards and Framing were the best tools to use in this situation.

When I went back to the shop I packaged the suit in a black bag so they wouldn’t immediately write me off as someone who was there to complain and therefore treat me differently. I quickly located the salesperson who had initially sold me the suit. He remembered me immediately and we had a friendly chat about his day, the clothes in the store, and his sales career.

After speaking jovially to the salesman for a while, and in the presence of the shop manager, I took the suit from the bag, showed them the dirt around the buttons and asked a framing question: “Being one of the very best shops in town, do you accept that I wear a defective suit purchased from you?”

That’s all it took. They immediately replied: Definitely not! We’ll get you another suit that fits properly and is in perfect condition. Leave us your mobile number and we’ll call you once it’s ready.

I got the suit, a suit I love, because I used the skills I learned in this book to get more.- Adnan Baranbo PhD, Business Development Manager, HADID International Services, Dubai.