Barbara Corcoran stocks her easy but efficient negotiating technique: It is about ‘ego and timing,’ no longer ‘value’

Barbara Corcoran is aware of excellent offers don’t seem to be only constructed on greenback indicators. They rely on timing and emotional intelligence, too.

The name of the game is to focal point extra on appeasing the character of the individual around the desk than cash, says the 73-year-old entrepreneur and investor on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” That is true whether or not you might be purchasing an condo, promoting your corporate or looking to land a promotion, she provides.

“Negotiation in point of fact has to do with ego and timing,” Corcoran tells CNBC Make It. “A lot more so than value.”

It is a lesson she discovered thru failure. More or less 3 a long time in the past, Corcoran was once approached with an be offering to promote her actual property industry The Corcoran Workforce, and he or she was once excited by cashing out, she says.

The possible purchaser rejected her preliminary asking value, and he or she took a few days to mull over a counteroffer, she says. When she despatched again a brand new quantity, the consumer did not simply reject it — they pulled out of negotiations solely.

“I misplaced the deal [that] was once crucial to me,” she says.

Corcoran’s error wasn’t inquiring for an excessive amount of cash, she says: Reasonably, the consumer felt disrespected when she did not answer quickly sufficient. So, when actual property corporate NRT introduced her $22 million for The Corcoran Workforce kind of 10 years later, in 2001, she briefly submitted her counteroffer — inquiring for $66 million as a substitute.

The fee was once “grasping,” she says, however NRT authorised anyway.

To Corcoran, it was once affirmation: She landed the deal as a result of was once “fast to provide a counter bid,” thereby appearing pastime in operating with the crowd. And each time she taught that lesson to her staff, she spotted a fascinating pattern, she provides.

“As an actual property dealer operating 1,000 gross sales brokers, I needed to educate them negotiating abilities,” Corcoran says. “We discovered to regulate egos greater than numbers, and my predominantly feminine workforce have been exceptional, and significantly better than my males.”

That runs counter to a stereotype that males are higher at negotiating than girls, which some professionals say contributes to the U.S. gender pay hole. American girls earned best 82% in their male opposite numbers’ median annual profits in 2022, in keeping with the Pew Analysis Heart.

That quantity has crawled up simply two proportion issues within the ultimate two decades.

Girls appear to watch for extra backlash and concede extra briefly when negotiating salaries than their male opposite numbers, in keeping with a 2010 Magazine of Character and Social Psychology learn about. However the pattern dissipates as girls acquire negotiating enjoy, famous a 2015 moderator research revealed in The Mental Bulletin.

That have is essential, Corcoran says — particularly as it comes to finding out to stand up and take a look at once more after creating a mistake.

“[Negotiation] is the second-most essential ability, upon getting again up after rejection,” she says. “Sadly, the one option to in point of fact be informed is … through tripping up and making many, many errors.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the unique off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”

DON’T MISS: Wish to be smarter and extra a success along with your cash, paintings & existence? Join our new e-newsletter!

Get CNBC’s loose Warren Buffett Information to Making an investment, which distills the billionaire’s No. 1 best possible piece of recommendation for normal buyers, do’s and don’ts, and 3 key making an investment ideas into a transparent and easy guidebook.