Monday, February 9, 2009

The Art of Negotiations

On Saturday night my youngest daughter lost a tooth (actually she yanked it out) while we were watching TV. Even though her gums were bleeding she was pretty happy about the prospect of loosing a tooth because she loves visits from the tooth fairy. Before she went to bed she got a zip lock bag and put her tooth in it for safe keeping under her pillow and off to bed she went.

Little did we know that she also wrote a note of negotiation asking for a raise in tooth compensation that she included with her tooth. Luckily, I’m good friends with the tooth fairy and she shared the note with us. Below is her negotiation letter.



The tooth fairy also shared with us the note that she wrote in reply to my daughters note. Here it is.


My daughter usually gets 1.50 per tooth from the tooth fairy so she actually netted out an additional 50 cents from her letter.

I was very impressed with her letter. She used the classic high ball technique of negotiating with a perfect line of justification. She asked for a 1333% increase in tooth compensation and got a 33% increase. For a cute little girl she drives a hard bargain.

I guess all of those arguments with her older siblings through the years have fine tuned her negotiation skills. Looks like she’s got a fine future ahead of her. I’m thinking the next time I buy a used car or ask for a raise at work I’m going to bring her along to negotiate for me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

love the post! I'm impressed that she had the guts to ask for so much and I think you should take her along on negotiations next time, maybe the cuteness will be an added benefit.

Dawn said...

You may not see this but I have to comment. I Love that smart little girl!