This is part 7 of our negotiation book, asking questions.

Alright, that seems very simple, right? We're going to do a quick introduction,

asking questions that seem so easy, right?

Well, of course in negotiation you always ask questions, don't you? You begin by saying:

what's the price?

What's the quality? So of course negotiation is at it's very core, the

very beginning is about questions. But, in this chapter what we're really looking

at is: how do you use questions in your negotiation as a tactic? Where are the

tactics you use?

So, of course we can look at the different kinds of negotiation

situations,

namely integrated and distributive. So, if you're beginning your negotiation or if

you're in a negotiation that is aiming to be integrated that is win- win,

and of course you want to make sure that all of your meaning is very clear, that

you can contact you can communicate with the other side and they understand what

your needs are, remember that's a key part of integrative win-win negotiation.

On the other hand, if you're distributive negotiation which would be more common,

you use questions in a way to also send signals to make the other side think

something is true even though it may not be true. Where you use questions to send a

signal about what your resistance point is, your resistance price maybe even though

that may not be it.

So, you can use questions in a kind of what we say rhetorical way in English,

which means it's not really a question, it's more like sending

information. So, I think very simply in this chapter, what we're looking at is:

how do you use questions in these two context of integrative and distributive?

and the more questions you use of course, the better, the more you can get

information and maybe you can even use questions to get secret information from

the other side, or you send information which they think is your secret

information but really it's not your secret information.

so questions?