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Posted on September 03, 2010 at 10:01am I love the show, Pawn Stars. Even if you've never watched it, you can likely tell by the name that it's a reality-based show based on a pawn shop, and the wheeling and dealing done between the shop's employees and its customers. As a professional negotiator, I've been riveted to many episodes simply to watch people's negotiation styles and techniques. The unfortunate truth, however, is that most people don't really have a style - they have the foundation for a single technique: anchoring. They walk into the store with an item they want to sell and a gut-feeling about the price they want. They play show-and-tell with the employees and then usually simply name a far-fetched price. In fact, in the dozens of episodes I've watched, I've hardly (if ever) seen a customer come in with anything to support their desired amount. Why is this important? The basis for the anchoring technique is that you set your desired outcome higher than you expect to actually receive. This sets an "anchor" in the other person's mind about where your expectations lay. And if the other side is at all malleable, or if your anchor is near their BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), you end up discovering the ZOPA (zone of possible agreement). But anchoring has to be done within the realm of possibility. If you're not even in the same ballpark as the other party, you can name whatever price/outcome you desire and have absolutely no chance of getting it. The Pawn Star employees thus use what I'll term anchoring+ for the purposes of this discussion. They also (eventually) state a desired outcome (the lowball offer), but they ALWAYS start with a story. Again, why? Because in order to legitimize their anchor point, they want to make it sound like they're going to name an offer based more firmly in reality. So they talk about the historical significance of the item. They discuss its use and its age. And, sandwiched between positive statements about the item, they always include at least one "but if" or "if only" or "however" wherein they make a statement about how this PARTICULAR item isn't worthy of the highest associated value for items such as the one presented. For example, a customer brings in a flint-lock pistol for sale. The employee talks about its authenticity and its probable value. But in the middle of all of the value-increasing comments, they insert one about the commonality of such an item. For antique collectors/sellers, commonly accessible items are less valuable. The result is that Pawn Star employees are going to anchor the price well south of the asking price, with legitimizing support (even if they're just making it up on the spot). The net result, of course, is that if the deal is actually completed, it's done much closer to the Pawn Star employee anchor point than the customer anchor point. This situation directly applies to technology purchases.

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