When it comes down to negotiating, there are three main things that matter. First, you need adequate resources or supplies. This can be money, materials, or experiences.

Second, you need to have access to these resources before you negotiate. You must be able to physically take them from someone else.

Third, you need to know what types of offers are legitimate strategies in your field. These include offering lower prices, asking for more than they want, and even giving up if you’re not satisfied with their offer.

All of these things play an important part in negotiating. But none are more crucial than the first one — having enough resources to start off with.

If you don’t have much material wealth, then focusing on emotional intelligence will help you out. Because while money is always valuable, emotions aren’t.

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So by improving your EQ, you’ll eventually be able to negotiate better deals using only feelings as a resource. And while most people are going to feel some sort of emotion when they talk about something, thinking about ways to manipulate those negative feelings can be helpful.

Emotions tend to run very quickly so you won’t have too long to think about how best to use this information.

Connect with your audience

When you are trying to persuade someone, there is one very important thing that you must do first. You have to connect with them.
You will not get their trust if you are not showing interest in them as people.

Influence does not come from who you are, but rather what you can give others. People look at how well you manage yourself and how you relate to other people for clues about how to trust you and use you.

If you cannot show empathy and understanding for others, then it is hard to expect anyone else to feel the same way towards you.

Furthermore, if you lack self-awareness, you won’t know when you're being influenced by something or someone.

You could make a decision because of what someone said, even though you knew it was wrong. Or you could decide an idea looks good so you'll adopt it, even though it isn't necessarily the best one.

Self-awareness helps you recognize such things and gives you ability to change them.

Make eye contact

Making direct, meaningful eye contact is a powerful way to gain trust, influence someone, and strengthen relationships. When you look into another person’s eyes, it creates emotional connection and understanding.

Making direct, meaningful eye contact is a powerful way to gain trust, influence someone, and strengthen relationships. When you look into another person’s eyes, it creates emotional connection and understanding. This happens at a subconscious level — your brain doesn’t process what people are looking at like your own vision.

So when someone makes an effort to focus their attention on you, it boosts your confidence and gives you permission to feel confident too. It also sends a message about them that can motivate you to work together towards a common goal.

When you don’t make eye contact, it can convey lack of respect or even intimidation. People may avoid making direct eye contact with you out of fear of being judged or attacked.

It can also be hard to do if you’re trying to seem uninterested in something they’re talking about or giving you a funny look. But unless they’re actually saying something rude, most people find it uncomfortable to keep staring back.

General tips: Try keeping your head slightly angled up so your gaze drops naturally. Avoid gazing directly ahead – this could make someone feel self-conscious or distracted.

Avoid looking away quickly as this can come across as nervousness or avoidance.

Be realistic

A lot of people get involved in negotiation because they think it is a way to make lots of money, or at least a way to keep some money. It’s not like that at all!

Negotiation is actually very useful for creating win-win situations where both parties walk away with what they wanted but feeling good about themselves. This doesn’t happen often enough unfortunately.

When we negotiate, we usually aim too high. We might want something that is totally unrealistic, so we lowball ourselves and start from there. Then we feel bad when we don’t get our desired outcome, even though we gave up on the idea of getting it in the first place.

It’s more effective to be goal oriented and realistic with your starting point, instead of aiming too high and then being disappointed. Starting low makes you look more open to negotiating than if you were holding onto an inflated perception of yourself.

Use your emotions

In addition to using reason, or thinking about things logically, there is another way to use your brain that has become increasingly popular in psychology. This style of learning calls itself emotional intelligence (or EI for short).

Many experts believe that we should not only learn how to think rationally, but also how to recognize and manage our own feelings. We can refer to this as emotional literacy or emotion regulation.

Why is this important? Because we are exposed to a lot of different situations throughout our lives, which require us to negotiate, persuade, challenge, and influence other people.

In these settings, being able to regulate your own emotions will help you achieve your goals more effectively. You’ll be less likely to get distracted, frustrated, or overwhelmed by what you're trying to accomplish, and instead focus on solving the problem.

There are several theories about why developing emotional skills could make a difference when it comes to success in life. Some say it's because everyone feels certain emotions, so if you are good at recognizing them and managing them, you may be better equipped to succeed in the workplace and in relationships.

Another theory suggests that practicing mindfulness — paying attention non-judgmentally to current experiences, and having awareness of yourself and the environment around you — helps develop self-awareness, which makes it easier to identify and understand your emotions.

Whatever the underlying reasons, researchers agree that it's a skill worth developing.

Understand your opponent’s emotional state

In order to influence someone, you have to understand them. You can’t assume anything about someone else unless you connect with their emotions or manipulate theirs through manipulation of your own.

This is why it’s important to be aware of how your opponent reacts to things. If they seem stressed or angry, try to see what might cause that for them.

Does this person get a lot of calls from family back home? Does he feel like his job doesn’t give him enough time to focus on his personal life? Is she in an emotionally fragile place right now?

By being conscious of these factors, you’ll know how to play upon them when negotiating with her or him.

Look for the humor

A lot of people consider being funny an integral part of their negotiating style, but what you may not know is that being humorous is one of the most effective ways to use your emotional intelligence (EI) when it comes to negotiation.

Emotions play a large role in how well we negotiate, so using emotions to your advantage can help you get things done more quickly.

By incorporating some comedy into the mix, you can reduce tension, create rapport, and even change someone’s perspective or opinion of something.

When used effectively, a good joke can be just as powerful as any other tactic in business.

Here are four reasons why being funny is great for negotiating influence and challenge.

Communicate effectively

When negotiating, your verbal communication skills are just as important as how you handle yourself physically.

This is especially true when it comes to influencing others and changing their behavior. You will not change someone else’s behavior unless you understand why they have that behavior in the first place.

It also means knowing what kind of response you want from them so that you can adjust your own behaviors accordingly.

You may be asked to ask for something that other people do not typically agree to give away. Or you might be requested to challenge an assumption or belief that has allowed someone to justify bad actions or inaction.

When these things happen, it is very important to remain calm and focused. If you get too excited or agitated, you may lose control over the situation.

Challenge your opponent

A challenge is something that comes with risk, but that you have to do for other reasons. You may want to challenge someone about their argument, or to find out how they like things done their way.

This can be valuable information in itself as it creates new relationships or breaks down barriers. It also helps you determine if this person has what it takes to succeed in their field.

If you’re ever in a situation where you need to negotiate, then try looking into whether there are ways to put an end to the negotiation before it even begins. This could be changing the conditions of the agreement, asking to go somewhere else, or just saying “no”.

By putting up these defenses, you show that you are not willing to agree to their terms and that you will not back down. This removes the incentive for them to make concessions because they would lose face.

Embrace differences

When negotiating, use difference instead of similarities to keep the conversation flowing. Differences create a dialogue, so start talking about those!

Ask questions to get more detail about the opposing side’s arguments, see what changes they suggest, and compare your own ideas to theirs.

This puts pressure on them to prove why their suggestions aren’t good enough and opens up opportunities to come up with your own alternatives.

Avoid assumptions when possible, ask directly for what you want, and be honest.