18 Best Negotiation Books to Read in 2023
What are the top negotiation books to read? Learn all about how to persuade people with the best books on negotiation.
The business world is highly competitive, which means that anyone looking to come out on top must be willing to convince people that their ideas matter more than others. However, the only way to do this is by negotiating their standpoint in a way that makes people want to listen —and not everyone has what it takes right off the bat.
Business owners, entrepreneurs, and all other types of salespeople need to hold their own and effectively negotiate their ideas to reap the largest rewards possible. From a corporate promotion to a major sale in real estate, persuasion is an essential tool for bringing an outcome in your favor. Fortunately, negotiation books are the perfect resource for businessmen and women who would like to improve their communication and network with confidence.
Whether you are looking for the perfect way to ask your boss for a raise or need to convince the biggest CEO in the country to take your ideas into account, continue reading to see this list ranking some of the best negotiation books out there.
Key Points:
Negotiation skills are crucial for maintaining a respectable presence in the business world. In fact, knowing how to negotiate properly can bring you various levels of success as a business owner or manager, such as promotions, more sales, and improved professional relationships.
Reading books on negotiation skills can make you more likely to succeed in business through effective networking and professional communication. Some of the best business negotiation books include Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen.
No matter what stage you are at in your career, there is always room to grow and improve. The Headway app can make it easier for entrepreneurs and business professionals to build their credibility and learn new ways of persuading clients and executives with quick 15-minute book summaries.
18 Best Books That Will Help You Develop Negotiation Skills
Moving up in the business world requires a great deal of networking and forming connections through negotiation. Here are the 18 best books about negotiation that you can use to benefit yourself and your career.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson
In nearly any corporate profession, employees are made to undergo crucial conversations in various forms. From business meeting discussions to pitching your best idea to the marketing team, there is always an opportunity to show others what you can offer them or their organization. The book, Crucial Conversations, therefore, encourages readers that the key to convincing others of your credibility is to focus on yourself rather than brooding over what other people may think.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
In Never Split the Difference, Voss shares his winning belief that powerful negotiations begin and end with you. Rather than focusing on the other person’s thought processes and assuming that their feelings match yours, the author proposes a method of getting through to someone with the confidence that you will be able to overtake their ideas and walk away with more. As such, reading this book will allow you to gain the necessary knowledge in an industry that values strong communication and the ability to remain poised under pressure.
Secrets of Power Negotiating: Inside Secrets from a Master Negotiator by Roger Dawson
Calling himself the “master negotiator,” Roger Dawson provides his insider tricks to negotiating what you want from the highest classes of people in business. One of these secrets includes portraying the confidence that you deserve more than you think. Secrets of Power Negotiating, therefore, takes readers through valuable lessons on how to bargain for more and reap higher rewards with each negotiation.
Negotiating Life: Secrets for Everyday Diplomacy and Deal Making by Jeswald W. Salacuse
In the mind of Salacuse, negotiation is less about persuading someone to give you what you want and more about working toward a goal or vision. Negotiating Life, therefore, teaches a valuable lesson on conflict resolution and deal-making. Using effective tools in finding compromises and agreements, Salacuse offers a perspective on negotiation that will help you build a strategy that you can use in business deals, home life, and beyond.
The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance — What Women Should Know by Katty Kay
In male-dominated industries — especially the corporate world — women are constantly overshadowed. Luckily, there are things that successful businesswomen can do to bring up their credibility in a patriarchal society, such as presenting themselves with undefiable confidence. In The Confidence Code, Kay provides comforting advice designed to empower women in the business profession into believing that they can achieve what they want through a self-assured attitude.
The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century by Jeswald W. Salacuse
Negotiation may be practiced all over the world, but the way people negotiate and make deals is highly different from one place to the next. As a business owner or entrepreneur, you need to be fully equipped with negotiation etiquette in various parts of the world in order to see your business ventures grow globally. Without a doubt, The Global Negotiator is a must-read for anyone looking to learn the importance of building and maintaining respectable business relationships everywhere.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher
Many people who begin negotiating end up buckling under pressure or simply giving in to the other person’s demands, which can cost them some seriously high-level business opportunities. Getting to Yes focuses on training the mind to continue the task at hand no matter what happens. Consequently, Fisher stresses the importance of understanding the other person on a deeper level and showing appreciation to gain their favor in business deals and other negotiations.
Start With No: The Negotiating Tools The Pros Don’t Want You to Know by Jim Camp
Contrary to what many other authors may tell you, negotiating doesn’t always have to begin with trying to get an immediate ‘yes’ out of the other person. In fact, Start With No teaches a different approach: negotiators should prefer the word ‘no’ instead. In Jim Camp’s eyes, the perfect negotiator never rushes with a negotiation — they ask questions and listen to the answers without making assumptions or leading on with expectations. In other words, the other party should feel like they are in favor, rather than the other way around; a masterful way to sway others in your jurisdiction.
Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World by Stuart Diamond
A double bestseller in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the models presented in Getting More have been used to teach Google employees the foundations of proper communication within the company and beyond. According to Stuart Diamond, valuing the emotions and opinions of the other party is an essential factor in getting them to agree with what you say. As such, readers can expect to gain a high degree of knowledge of the way that people think during negotiations.
Persuasion Equation: The Subtle Science of Getting Your Way by Mark Rodgers
Persuading people is a skill that can increase your likelihood of gaining a promotion or making sales. However, according to Mark Rodgers, there is a specific equation involved in getting what you want from people that most individuals are unaware of. Persuasion Equation uses credible research and real-life scenarios to paint pictures of successful negotiations crafted by a five-step persuasion process.
You Can Negotiate Anything: The World’s Best Negotiator Tells You How to Get What You Want by Herb Cohen
With the right knowledge and tools in mind, anyone can negotiate anything from a lower price at the grocery store to the biggest financial deals on Wall Street. This is one of the main premises of Cohen’s insightful book, intended to teach readers how to get what they want with the least effort possible. In You Can Negotiate Anything, readers can learn everything under the sun about getting what they want by gaining respect and admiration from others.
Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston
Most people are under the impression that the best way to persuade someone is to list off all the reasons why your idea will be beneficial to them. However, Mark Goulston has another method of making people listen to you that involves going down to the root of the issue — human desire. In Just Listen, Goulston provides expert tricks in the art of persuasion that will teach you how to make others bend at your will by responding to their wants and needs.
I’ll Make You an Offer You Can’t Refuse: Insider Business Tips from a Former Mob Boss by Michael Franzese
Paying homage to the critically-acclaimed film, The Godfather, Michael Franzese takes readers through the knowledge acquired during his former years as a mob boss. In this book, you will gain interesting insights into a business notorious for its heavy negotiations to apply to your own. Beyond doubt, I’ll Make You an Offer You Can’t Refuse is a must-read for people who are hungry to make a name for themselves in the business profession and reap large financial achievements because of it.
Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond by Deepak Malhotra
The communication obstacles and resistance from the other party are often the hardest part for most negotiators. Whether you are making a multi-million dollar deal or thinking of asking your boss for a raise, Malhotra’s Negotiation Genius can teach you how to continue negotiating in the face of adversity and reap the outcome that you envision. This book will give you insight into the foundations of negotiation and building advantageous business relationships.
Perfecting Your Pitch: How to Succeed in Business and in Life by Finding Words That Work by Ronald M. Shapiro
Knowing how to market your pitches effectively can bring you several advantages in both your career and home life. In Perfecting Your Pitch, you will learn some of the leading strategies of powerful pitching that can help you succeed in various areas of business. To illustrate, Shapiro encourages pitch-takers to find their voice by piecing words together in a strategic yet highly convincing way.
Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People by G. Richard Shell
It’s no secret that expert negotiation skills can bring you fantastic results, including putting you at an advantage over your peers. Bargaining for Advantage is a testament to the fact that you certainly don’t need to be a multi-millionaire CEO or the head of a law firm to know how to effectively market your ideas and profit from them. Instead, this book preaches to a more reasonable audience who are looking to gain moderate rewards from their negotiations and leave with a winner’s satisfaction.
How to Analyze and Influence People: Decoding Body Language, Human Psychology, Speed-Reading People, Unlocking Verbal Cues, Analyzing Behavior and Personality Types by Jeremiah Bonn
How to Analyze and Influence People is a fascinating take on the complex science of negotiation tactics. In this book, readers can learn about the psychology behind human behavior during negotiation, including how to interpret body language cues and increase their understanding of a person’s thoughts and emotions. By the end, readers will become attuned to the ways people showcase their inner thoughts through non-verbal communication and use these methods to their advantage.
The Bartering Mindset: A Mostly-Forgotten Framework for Mastering Your Next Negotiation by Brian Gunia
Money is often the downfall of many potentially beneficial negotiations as it leads us to have high — and sometimes unreasonable — expectations of the situation. The Bartering Mindset brings forth a forgotten perspective in masterful negotiations — the art of bartering without money in mind. This approach allows readers to adopt the bartering mindset and release unfavorable outcomes.
Get Summaries Of The Best Negotiation Books On Headway
Learning to approach others with an idea can be frightening at first, but having the proper resources at hand can enhance your networking experiences and credibility in the business profession. Reading books about negotiation is, therefore, a worthwhile way to seize growth opportunities in the business field.
Both top-level business owners and budding entrepreneurs need more time to engage in lengthy learning intervals. In any case, the Headway app can provide anyone in the business profession with key insights into building credibility and maintaining professional relationships with expert-level negotiations. With this app, you can listen to short audio summaries and gain the main ideas outlined in full-length books.
Are you worried about how you come across in the business world? Looking for more ways to level up in your career through better communication? Boost your negotiation skills and reap the rewards by downloading the Headway app to gain access to 15-minute summaries of the best books on negotiation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best book on negotiation?
Negotiation is a broad concept that can be applied to various different fields, such as real estate, sales, and business. For instance, real estate negotiation books can provide a realtor with insights into the real estate market and how to sway clients into buying their properties. For this reason, the best book on negotiation can vary according to each field. One of the best books on international business deal negotiations is The Global Negotiator by Jeswald W. Salacuse.
How can negotiation skills improve my life?
Building your skills in negotiation can improve several parts of your life, including both professional and personal relationships. Not only can better negotiations help you reach new plateaus in your career through promotions and salary raises, but it can also allow you to persuade people in everyday life to help fulfill your wants, needs, and goals.
What is the best negotiation book for women?
Sometimes it can be challenging for women to approach others in the business world with confidence and poise, let alone try to persuade them to respect and implement your ideas. Fortunately, the book, The Confidence Code by Katty Kay, is an excellent resource for helping women to build confidence and encouraging small but monumental steps toward building credibility in business.
