When you don’t know
what you’re talking about,
it’s hard to know
when you’re finished
- Tommy Smothers

This page is still under construction.

People don't like to reject the requests of others and people don't like to be rejected.

As a result, people sometimes try to save face or make it easier to say no by being cagey. They don't give straight answers, but they beat around the bush. These cagey answers don't really reject the person's request, but they are certainly annoying. Things like, "I will give your idea some thought and consideration, and then perhaps we can talk about it again."

That's an annoying way of saying no. The guy is going to have to instead of getting a straight answer and going about his life, the guy is going to have to keep coming back and at a certain point he will realize that you have rejected what he had to say. It wastes your time. It wastes his time. But at the moment it seems better. At the moment you feel that you have not hurt anybody.

Of course you have, but at the time you don't feel bad about it because you haven't said no, and the other fellow lives with a false hope of thinking that perhaps the next time he'll be able to accomplish his goal. You certainly have done the other fellow a disservice by building up false hopes.

There are other ways of saying the same thing. Such as

"We'll have to talk about that sometime."

"At some point we will have to get together and discuss the issue."

"Let's get together sometime and go over the details of what you want."

Of course, the proper response to that would be, "No, I don't want to talk about it later. Let's discuss it now." But that rarely happens.

Good negotiators know that if they don't finalize things right away the first time, their chances of doing so are vastly reduced. For this reason it may help to take those wishy-washy or vague responses and be a little bit more pushy. One way of doing that is by asking the person to clarify his position.

If they say "Let's stay in touch," then you can say possibly, "That's a good idea. So I understand that you do plan to go ahead with this idea. When do you plan to go on to the next step?"

If the person says, "I'll look it over and then after I think about it we'll move on from there." You might respond, "Fine, I think that's good. Please tell me the criteria and conditions that you are going to consider when you make your decision."

If the person says, "I'll bounce that idea around and talk to some other people about it." You might respond, "That sounds good. I understand from that that you personally are ready to go through with it."

If the person says, "I'll consider the possibility," then you can give several answers. Such as,

"That's wonderful. Which parts or aspects of it are you going to consider most seriously or which will you weigh most heavily in your decision?"

Another answer would be, "I'm very happy to hear that. Can you tell me just what you're going to be looking at?"

Another answer might be, "I'm very happy. Where do you stand right now about moving forward with it?"

The important thing with each of these is to get a specific answer instead of not knowing where each party stands.

This is very important. It means that you may or may not succeed in getting through or in accomplishing your goal, but you have accomplished something else and that is you know where you stand. Neither of you will be up in the air about things.

In a case like this it would be worth getting either a yes or a no answer, so that you can go about your life and go and handle other things.

Knowing where you stand is very important.

It's very important to get a straight answer.