“Get a competing offer first.”
That’s the advice everyone gives you before a negotiation. It’s also the advice that quietly teaches you that you have no voice until someone else validates you.
I don’t buy it. In 15 years of commercial negotiation consulting, not once did we end up with zero leverage. Less than we wanted, sometimes. Zero, never.
Negotiation isn’t a power contest where the side with more chips wins. It’s a search for what each side actually values. And everyone has something the other side values, even when it doesn’t look like leverage at all.
Three places I’ve found it, when it wasn’t supposed to be there:
1. Understand their world.
We once negotiated with Japanese suppliers who held the highest-quality raw materials at the lowest price in the market. Every one of them was locked into long-term contracts. Demand outstripped supply. On paper: zero leverage.
But in Japanese business culture, relationship is currency. So we didn’t compete on price. We showed we’d be long-term partners, by hand-delivering signed letters from our regional Managing Directors. Not an email. A person, in front of them, showing respect for how they do business.
The leverage was never in the market. It was in understanding what they valued and meeting it on their terms.
2. Recognize what you bring that isn’t on your CV.
My first job was in London. I had zero expertise worth negotiating over. What I did have was energy. My weekend stories lightened the mood in a buttoned-up office. Showing up slightly tipsy on a Monday reminded my colleagues of their own younger, wilder days.
It sounds small. It wasn’t. It was value nobody could hire around, and no interview process was built to spot it. Once I named it, to myself, first, I had something real to stand on.
3. Own your patience.
After that first job, I’d landed on a salary both sides were happy with. But I wanted a title change, and my manager wouldn’t move.
I was single, no dependents, had saved some money, and had a trip to Thailand with a friend lined up. If the negotiation did not go my way, I had a back up. Not another job, an opportunity to invest in myself and come back stronger to interview.
I wasn’t threatening to leave. I just wasn’t afraid of the calendar the way my manager was. Time cost me nothing. It cost them something. Being able to wait was the leverage.
Before your next negotiation, don’t ask “what leverage do I have.” Ask:
- What do they value that I can meet? 2. What do I bring that’s hard to replace? 3. Who actually needs this resolved faster — me, or them?
That’s a leverage audit. Not zero leverage. Three questions.
Quiet boldness isn’t borrowing someone else’s negotiating position to feel entitled to ask. It’s knowing your value well enough that you don’t have to.
The Black Negotiator 