The Hovering Pen or the Nibble Strategy

You have worked long and hard to reach an agreement. Finally, you think everything has been agreed to and that all you have to do is write it up and sign it. You are blissfully contemplating the hero's welcome that you will receive when you come back to the office with the signed agreement. Then suddenly the buyer "just happens to remember" some small item that you hadn't resolved.

•  “You know, it occurs to me that we never really did finalize the issue of how long the warranty would be. Six months is really short. Don’t you think we could move that up to 12 months?”

Moving from a six to a 12 month warranty is not that big a deal, so you agree. Nothing should stand in the way of getting this deal finalized now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there.

•  “That reminds me. We did agree that the minimum order quantity could be 10 units and not 50, right? And you will pick up the freight charges, even if the order is only 10 units, right?”

You are starting to get a little nervous. You don't want this sale to get away, so of course you give in. While you are waiting for the revisions to be included in the agreement, the buyer brings up a few other issues that they also want to discuss with you. And so it goes.

You are the victim of the Hovering Pen strategy, also called the Nibble.

As far as you are concerned, you had a done deal. As far as the buyer was concerned, the negotiation was far from over. They are just using your anxiety to get the sale closed in order to extract additional concessions.

So how do you defend against the nibble? The first key is to remember what Yogi said: "It ain't over till it's over." Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. You see, if you count this as a done deal, then the nibble looks like just a little impediment. You know you have the sale, and well, you can throw in the little nibble, that's OK. And then there's just one more. And then just one more. And you're heading down the slippery slope to nowhere until you realize that you've got a nibble game going on.

When you get that first nibble, make a mental switch—hey, this isn't over, we're still negotiating. It's just taking on a new form. The best way to deal with the nibble is to nip it in the bud. There are several ways you can do that.

One approach is to use the purchase order close discussed in the section on Authority Limits.

•  "I've given you the best deal we could, but I'll tell you what: If you write up a purchase order and include that one little extra thing you wanted, I'll see if my boss will approve it. I know he won't approve it if I just call him up and ask him, but if I have that signed purchase order, maybe he'll just say OK."

If the buyer agrees, you will stop the nibble game with just one little item and you have a signed purchase order and the deal is done.

A second approach is to just say no. Sometimes, a polite but firm no will end the process right there. How many times have you heard the buyer say,

•  "Well, it never hurts to ask."

A third approach is to start to reconfigure the deal. You might say,

•  "If that is really important to you, we might be able to do that, but the only way I could would be if we went back and changed something else."

What you're doing here is saying,

•  "Look, you've reached my LAS. I gave you my best possible deal. If I'm going to give you something else, I have to take away something somewhere else." In other words, you're continuing to work to manage their perception of your LAS. When you say, "Yes, I'll give it to you but we'll have to change something else," that's a pretty credible message that you really have reached your bottom line.

Of course you can use the nibble strategy yourself toward the end of the negotiation to things that you want. And if the other side doesn’t see what you’re doing, it can be a very effective strategy indeed.