⚓ The First Number Wins

The old negotiation advice to let the other side go first might be exactly backwards.

📈 The Play

Why the Old Negotiation Advice Has It Backwards

Conventional wisdom says never make the first offer in a negotiation — let the other side go first so you don't lowball yourself. Psychologists Adam Galinsky and Thomas Mussweiler tested that advice directly in a series of negotiation experiments, and the data pushed back on it.

⚓ Galinsky and Mussweiler found that whoever makes the first offer in a negotiation tends to pull the final agreement closer to their own number — a negotiation-specific version of the anchoring effect that Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman first documented in the 1970s, where an initial number quietly shapes every judgment that follows it.

The advantage isn't automatic. Galinsky and Mussweiler found it can shrink if the other side deliberately focuses on your alternatives instead of your number. And later research on extreme opening offers found a real ceiling: a number seen as insulting made people walk away far more often, erasing any anchoring edge entirely. A well-researched, ambitious-but-defensible first number tends to beat waiting — a reckless one doesn't.

⚓ Use the Anchor, Don't Just Absorb It

Research a real range before any conversation about salary or price — you can't set a smart anchor without one.
Make the first reasonable offer when you're able to. It's not rude — it's strategic.
If they anchor first, name it out loud ("that's outside the range I've researched") instead of negotiating from their number.
Never accept the first counteroffer. The anchor is a starting point for the conversation, not a verdict on it.

👉 Try This Today

The first number spoken in a negotiation shapes everything that follows it. Make sure it's yours. ⚓

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