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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Any famous Elvis deals or negotiations you'd want us to do an episode about?

Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

That answer tells you what you're actually negotiating. A discount fixes exactly one of those problems. It's also the first thing a nervous seller offers, even when they don't need to.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Then pay attention to which one they pick. They'll stop and think about the wrong ones. The true one comes back fast, and usually with an edge, because it's the thing that has been bothering them all along.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Ask a different question, like "Is the problem the budget, the approval process, or the timing?"

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The usual reply is "What number did you have in mind?", but that reply assumes it's about money. Now you're haggling over something that may not be the problem.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

That sentence covers a lot of different potential problems. The budget for the year is already spent. The CFO wants three quotes before anyone signs. The last vendor burned them, and nobody wants their name on the next contract. Their billing system can't handle the way you invoice.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Ever heard this one? "Your price is too high."

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I've used tit for tat most of my career. If the other side makes an aggressive move, you answer it right away. But it only works if you read the move correctly. A frustrated buyer and a hostile buyer can say the exact same sentence, and the difference is in her voice.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This isn't a technique you can turn on. It depends on where your attention is when the insult lands. If you're putting your answer together, you can't hear her voice, only her words. Her words were an attack, so you'd answer them as one.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Hearing it in her voice doesn't tell you what the problem is. It DOES, however, tell you there is one and that it's worth asking about. That's a different conversation from the one the insult was inviting.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

That matters because frustration and hostility want different things. A hostile buyer is trying to beat you. A frustrated buyer has something in her way and has run out of patience with it, and your company just happened to be closest. You'd never find out what was in her way by getting defensive.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The frustration was there for anyone to hear. Everyone on that call heard the same sentence. What he heard and the others probably didn't was a buyer stuck on a problem who didn't see a way out of it.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

But Todd was still paying attention to her, so he heard the tone under the words.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

She used his name. She called him and his whole company out of touch. When somebody does that, your attention goes to yourself: whether it's fair, how it sounds to everyone else on the call, and what you're going to say back.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It reads like just another sentence in his story. But most people in his seat wouldn't have heard it.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

In his book "Four Levers Negotiating," Todd writes: "I could hear the frustration in her voice."

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A buyer named Annika said that to Todd Caponi on an escalation call. She was upset that his company wanted a year's payment upfront when every other vendor billed monthly.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"Todd, you and your entire company are totally out of touch with the digital marketing industry."

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Good catch, you're right: no 1974 studio dates. Martha Ackmann's Dolly bio dates Parker's call to 1974, and Dolly said he called the night before a session. We merged the two on air. Maybe one was planned and scrapped. Our focus was the publishing standoff. Thanks for keeping us honest!

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Listen to episode 69 now: www.station4negotiation.com/listen-now

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

A special thank you to our friend Professor Jeffrey Hoyle, Ed.D., MBA of Central Michigan University for putting this book in Gene's hands.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Being straight about how your price is built doesn't weaken your position. It may be the strongest position you have.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

You've been on both sides of this. The counterpart who's venting but sounds like they're attacking. The "policy" that turns out to be habit. The discount you gave away before you'd thought it through.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The moves that close the deal are the same ones great negotiators have always relied on, from FBI hostage negotiators to diplomats. They just happen in a different room.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

As he walks through one of the book's stories, about a frustrated buyer who insists on monthly billing because that's how everyone does it, he shows that Caponi's approach works well beyond the sales call.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This week on S4N, Gene digs into Caponi's system. Caponi wrote his framework for B2B sellers up against corporate procurement, and he's modest about how far it reaches. Gene thinks he's selling it short.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Todd Caponi's book "Four Levers Negotiating" asks a simple question: what happens when one side stops playing that game?

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Most price negotiations begin with a lie. Each side asks for more than it expects to get, both sides know it, and the rest is a slow shuffle of offers, counteroffers, and "that's the best I can do."

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

If you're going to buy one book on negotiation this year, make it this one.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The negotiators who get hurt aren't the ones who feel too much. They're the ones who don't know what they're feeling while they sign.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Feeling something about a deal and deciding the deal are two separate jobs. You're allowed to do the first. The second needs one question, asked with the feeling set to one side: is this deal in my best interest right now?

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Like we talk about on the most recent episode of the podcast, Dolly Parton cried all night after she turned down Elvis. She still turned him down.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If you've told yourself you don't feel anything, you won't notice the attachment. You'll just notice that walking away suddenly seems unreasonable.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A good counterparty will try to get you attached before they talk terms. The car dealer wants you on a test drive before you see a number. The buyer wants your team meeting theirs, planning the rollout. Once you're attached, the hard term shows up. Usually late & framed as a condition.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The people who say they feel none of it aren't calmer than everyone else. They've just stopped looking at their feelings.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Everyone at the table feels something. Fear that the deal will die. Relief when the other side finally moves. Irritation at the lawyer re-trading the indemnity at 11 p.m.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

That belief is wrong, and it costs people money.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There's a belief in a lot of senior rooms that the best negotiators don't feel anything. They walk in cold and leave cold. If a deal gets to you, you've already lost.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But if she'd agreed, do you REALLY think she would've settled for anything more than 50% of the publishing once she heard what the Colonel said?

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Dolly actually didn't haggle over the half. She said no, and Elvis never recorded the song.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And when someone hands you a range, you've learned something. Their soft end is where they already expect to land. Start negotiating from there, not from the top.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you have a number, say one number, and say the one you want. If you aren't ready to commit to a number yet, don't use a range to hedge. Ask a question and make them go first.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

People offer ranges because a single number feels exposed. A range feels safer and more reasonable. But it isn't safer. It just hands the other side your worst acceptable outcome and lets them pretend it was your idea.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Here's the deal: when you give a range, the end that favors the other side is your offer. The rest is decoration.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The buyer who tells a vendor the budget is "around half a million, maybe a little more" has just set the floor for every line item that follows.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The candidate who says she's looking for "150 to 175" will be offered 150, and the recruiter will call it meeting her expectations.

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Station 4 Negotiation Podcast @stn4negotiation.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The consultant who writes "fees typically run $80,000 to $120,000" has quoted $80,000.

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