Concept
Value Trading
Value trading is the discipline of never giving a concession away but exchanging it, so that every time you move on price or terms you receive something the other side can afford and you value in return.
Fisher and Ury's Getting to Yes introduces the idea as inventing options for mutual gain: the best agreements come from finding things that are cheap for one side and valuable to the other, and swapping them. Chris Voss sharpens it into a rule for the moment someone asks for a discount: never say a bare yes. Timing, scope, payment terms, a public reference, a longer commitment, an earlier start are all currency. What people get wrong is treating a concession as generosity that will be reciprocated. Unrequited concessions teach the other side that pushing moves the price. A trade teaches them that the price is a package, and packages can be reshaped for any budget without anyone losing face.
A real-life example
A client asks a studio for fifteen percent off. Instead of a discount, the studio offers the lower number if the project starts in March rather than January and the client agrees to a published case study. The client gets the price, the studio fills a quiet month and gains a reference, and the rate card itself never moved.
How to use it
- 1Write your trade list before any negotiation: three things you can afford to give, three things you will ask for in return.
- 2When asked for a discount, answer with a condition: 'I can do that if we…'
- 3Never split the difference by reflex; ask what each side actually values and trade across those.