Practise spotting and answering tactics while under mild pressure.
You are on the phone renewing your mobile plan, and the retention agent says they can do S$32 a month (an invented example), but only if you confirm on this call. You wrote a reply for exactly this moment in lesson 6.2, but with your heart rate up and your face warm, you cannot remember what it said.
Knowing the right response to a tactic and producing it under pressure are separate skills. When someone flinches at your number or pushes a deadline at you, your heart rate rises, your face gets warm, and the reply you wrote in lesson 6.2 can vanish from memory. The only reliable fix is to go through that moment several times beforehand in a safe setting. The drill below takes about 20 minutes and needs a partner. It works best if your partner is willing to be somewhat more difficult than they normally would be.
Pick one simple scenario you can both picture and keep it for every round, so the facts stay fixed and your attention goes entirely to the tactics. Two that work well:
Renewing a phone plan. You pay S$40 a month now and a competitor offers similar data for S$30 (both figures made up for the drill). Your partner plays the telco's retention agent. Buying a second-hand bicycle listed online for S$600, where similar bikes are listed between S$450 and S$550 (also made up for the drill). Your partner plays the seller.
Next, write the six tactics from lesson 6.1, The pressure tactics you will meet, on slips of paper or as a numbered list on your partner's phone: the exploding deadline, take it or leave it, the higher authority, the flinch, the nibble and the long silence. Leave out good cop bad cop, because it needs two people on one side, and include it only if a third person can join you.
You do five rounds of about two minutes each. Each round, open with a request plus a reason, as you learned in module 4. At some point in the round, your partner uses a tactic they picked at random by drawing a slip or rolling a die, and they do not announce which one it is.
When the tactic arrives, silently name it to yourself first, then respond using this module's approaches. You can name the tactic neutrally and ask a question, ask who decides, go back to interests and criteria, wait out a silence, treat a nibble as a new trade, or ask for time instead of deciding under pressure. Once you have given a good response, stop and wait for your partner to answer.
In the phone plan scenario, your partner might use the exploding deadline: S$32, only if you confirm on this call, and the offer is gone once you hang up. A good response notes neutrally that the offer seems time-limited, says you want to compare properly first, and asks what the best price would be if you called back tomorrow, and then you stop and wait.
In the bicycle scenario, you offer S$480 and the seller flinches: "Wah, that's very low." A good response can ignore the flinch entirely. You say nothing about it and carry on with criteria: similar bikes are listed between S$450 and S$550, this one needs new brake pads, and S$480 is fair for that.
After each round, your partner reveals which tactic they used, you say whether you spotted it, and you both spend thirty seconds on what you would say differently next time.
After five rounds, swap. Your partner makes the request and you use the tactics on them for five more rounds, picked at random in the same way. This half matters as much as the first. Using a tactic shows you how it works from the inside: how much pressure a simple silence creates, and how easily a pleasant voice turns "I'll need to check with my manager" into a wall. You also see how quickly a calm response takes away a tactic's force, which helps you trust those responses when you are on the receiving end.
Many people find using the tactics uncomfortable, and that discomfort is worth noticing. Pay attention to which tactics felt like fair play and which felt close to the personal line you drew in lesson 6.3, Where hard bargaining becomes dishonest.
When both halves are done, review your rounds together and each pick the tactic you found hardest to answer. Most people have one that gets under their skin, such as a silence they cannot bear, a flinch that makes them feel greedy, or a take-it-or-leave-it that makes them feel trapped.
For that tactic, write a fuller response that covers what to do if your first line does not work. For the long silence, it might be: wait at least ten seconds before speaking; if nothing comes, ask "What are your thoughts?"; if there is still nothing, say "Take your time, I'm happy to wait."
Then put all your lines on one card, on paper or in your phone notes. This is your tactic response card, the thing this module builds towards: one line for each of the six tactics, with your own rules from lesson 6.3 at the bottom.
Now complete the five rounds in each role, then write out your prepared response for the tactic you found hardest.
Do five rounds in each role. Then write a prepared response to the tactic you found hardest.
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