Their Standards
Hold the counterpart to their own stated principles, policies, and prior public commitments.
Diamond''s most distinctive move: every counterpart has principles they''ve committed to publicly — a brand promise, a stated procurement policy, a quoted CEO statement, an industry pledge. The technique is to surface those, name them precisely, and ask the counterpart to behave consistently with them. People will violate your standards happily; they''ll have a much harder time violating their own. It works on individuals too — bring up something they personally said earlier in the negotiation and they''ll feel obligated to honour it.
Example
Counterpart
"We can''t process invoices in under 60 days, it''s policy."
You
"I read your CFO''s LinkedIn post last quarter about being a partner-of-choice for SMEs — and one of the specific things she cited was 30-day terms for vendors with three years of clean delivery. We have four. Can you point me to where the 60-day policy applies inside that program?"
Counterpart
"Let me come back to you."
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