This Book Klub session took on a chapter that makes some readers uncomfortable: sandbagging, or letting the other side underestimate you. The tactic isn’t lying, it’s simply not volunteering how prepared or how interested you actually are. Larry’s version of this leans on SuperModel presence: dress deliberately, hold the listening position, keep the phone away, and let people read whatever they want into your calm.
Someone contrasted that with LCRRM, the reverse rebate structure where the buyer knows exactly how their money round trips back, arguing that opacity has its place in a negotiation but not in a deal’s actual terms. The rough consensus: withholding enthusiasm is fair, misstating facts or terms is not. Someone brought up the pen-drop close, setting a pen down and staying quiet until the other person picks it up to initial the points, as the physical version of the same idea.
A few in the room said their instinct is the opposite, to over-explain when nervous, which is the tell sandbagging is designed to avoid. Per his own retelling, Larry’s angle is that most people give away their position with their face long before they say anything.
The PQRST habit came up again here too: arriving already knowing your fuzzy points means you’re not scrambling in front of the other side. Practice for the week was small and specific, sit through one meeting without filling a silence.
Not everyone in the group loved the chapter, and that disagreement made for one of the better debriefs so far. Larry works through the tactic on video, linked below.
Details: Watch Larry on the sandbagging tactic
#Negotiation #BookKlub #Web12