Ask once.

Most people do not negotiate badly. They do not negotiate at all. Asking for more feels rude, the silence after the question feels worse, and so they sign the first offer to make the discomfort stop. It is worth being precise about what that costs. A salary is the base for every raise that follows it, so a starting figure $5,000 lower, carried forward with a 3 percent raise each year for thirty years, adds up to roughly $238,000 in pay that nobody asked for. The same arithmetic runs, on a smaller scale, through the price of a car and the rent on an apartment. The argument here is simple. Ask once, for a specific number, with one reason, and then let the other side answer.

In Getting to Yes, first published in 1981, Roger Fisher and William Ury of the Harvard Negotiation Project gave the idea its acronym, BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It is the thing you will do if the deal falls through, and it decides most of what happens in the room. A second job offer, a written quote from another dealer or three comparable apartments on the same street all count. A person with a real alternative can ask calmly, because a refusal costs little. A person without one is not negotiating so much as hoping.

The alternative also tells you the number. For a salary, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wage estimates by occupation and metropolitan area, and the employer increasingly publishes its own. Colorado began requiring pay ranges in job postings in 2021, and by 2026 more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia had passed laws requiring some version of the same disclosure. For a car, the number is the lowest written price you can collect from several dealers. For a lease, it is what comparable units in the same building or block are listed for today. Research turns a wish into a figure you can defend in one sentence.

In 2001, the social psychologists Adam Galinsky and Thomas Mussweiler published three experiments on first offers in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Whichever side made the first offer, buyer or seller, did better, and the first offer was a strong predictor of the final price. The opening number works as an anchor, and everything after it is measured against it. The same paper found the antidote. When the side receiving the offer thought about its own target, or about the other side’s alternatives and bottom line, the advantage of going first disappeared.

That finding holds a practical lesson in both directions. When you can, name the number first, and name a real one near the top of your research. When the other side names it first, do not argue with it on its terms. Look away from their figure and back at your own target and your own alternative, because that is where the study found the anchor loses its grip.

Wait until a job offer arrives in writing, because that is the moment the company has decided it wants you. Thank them, say you want the job and ask for a specific figure with one sentence of reasoning. “Based on the range for this role in this city and the experience I bring, I was hoping for $X” is enough. If the salary is fixed, ask about a signing bonus, extra vacation days, a title or an earlier review date.

At a car dealer, negotiate a single number, the out-the-door price, including taxes, registration and every fee. Arrive with a loan preapproval from your own bank or credit union, so the finance office has to beat a rate you already hold. Settle the price of the new car before you mention a trade-in, and email several dealers the same request so they compete in writing rather than across a desk.

A lease works the same way in miniature. A landlord loses money every month a unit sits empty, and turning it over costs cleaning, paint and listing time. Offer something that removes that risk, such as a longer term or an early renewal, and ask in return for a smaller increase, a lower rent or a repair you want done. Get whatever you agree to written into the lease.

The most useful sentence in negotiation is a question: “Is there any flexibility on that?” It is polite, it cannot insult anyone and it makes the other side answer in words rather than in your imagination. Ask it once. Then say nothing. The pause will feel long, and the urge to fill it with a lower request will be strong. Anything you add before they answer is a discount you gave away.

The real opponent in most negotiations is not the recruiter, the salesperson or the landlord. It is the voice that lowers the figure before you have said it aloud, and lowers it again when nobody replies quickly. Write down three numbers before the meeting: the one you will ask for, the one you would be glad to get and the one at which you will walk away. Ask for the first, and keep the other two to yourself. Name the number, give one reason and stop talking.

Stay honest while you do it. Never invent a competing offer or a price you were not quoted, because the people on the other side talk to each other and remember. A fair request made plainly, and backed by a real alternative, lets both sides shake hands and mean it.

Keep a single page with every raise, car deal and lease renewal you have negotiated, including what you asked for and what you got, and read it before the next one. Over ten years it becomes a record of something larger than money. Control in a negotiation was never the power to make the other side say yes. It is the discipline to say your number once and let the answer be theirs.