Hey everyone and welcome to our throwback episode.

In our throwback episodes, we are reintroducing you to some of our most popular episodes.

This is great for new listeners who want to learn more about the work we've done in the past,

and it's a great refresher if you've been a listener for a long time.

Enjoy.

Today we're going to talk about a very common and controversial technique

in negotiations, and that is bluffing. And so let me tell you up front that this is a strategy

that I do not subscribe to. But it's important for us to review these strategies, even if we don't plan on using them,

because someone could use it against us, and we need to know how to protect ourselves in those circumstances.

So what is bluffing? Bluffing is a threat to do something that you don't plan on doing.

So let me give you a non-negotiation example just to make it really clear.

If I'm walking down the street and somebody says, hey, I'm going to punch you in the face,

and I say no, you're not.

And then the person says, yeah, you're right.

I'm not going to do that.

That would be a bluff.

The person told me they were going to do that that would be a bluff the person told me they were

going to do something and they didn't follow through now let's say same situation they say

hey I'm going to punch you in the face and I say no you're not and then they punched me

in the face then that wasn't a bluff that that was more like a promise. So essentially, a bluff is another version of a lie.

So the reason why bluffing is effective is because it creates pressure on the other side.

And in an effort to alleviate that pressure, the other side gives the bluffing party what they want.

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