How to negotiate over email.

What email does well

G. Richard Shell tells a story in Bargaining for Advantage about deliberately moving a property negotiation onto email after a good first meeting. His reasons were practical. The other side could take as long as they wanted over each proposal, there would be a clear record of every offer, and nobody had to worry about being outmanoeuvred on the spot.

Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman suggest another good use in Negotiation Genius. If tough questions tend to throw you when you're put on the spot, raise the difficult ones by email first so you can think before you answer. In bigger deals, they recommend agreeing a timeline in which each side emails its top priorities and concerns before anyone proposes a package.

Where it goes wrong

Shell is just as honest about the downside. Studies of email negotiation find a higher risk of impasse. Written messages read as more aggressive than the same words said out loud, the other person fires back, and it escalates from there. His fix sounds almost too simple: put real effort into building rapport in writing, and schmooze a little even when it feels unnecessary.

How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, from Dale Carnegie & Associates, gets at the root of it. Digital messages lose the nonverbal cues we rely on, and the speed of it all tempts people to skip basic courtesy.

It's also a mistake to assume a slower channel means more careful negotiating. Leigh Thompson describes an experiment in which some negotiators had an hour to finish an exercise and others had a week over email. The ones with a whole week didn't reach better agreements.

Start with a voice

One of Thompson's suggestions for negotiating through technology is to meet in person or have a video call before the emails start, and to leave room for a bit of small talk. Even a ten-minute call helps. Once someone has heard your voice, they tend to read your later emails in it, and a blunt sentence lands more gently.

How to write the offer email

Put the whole proposal in one message rather than drip-feeding terms over several days. Keep your reasons brief and attach the evidence, the way Shell attached comparable listings and recent sales to his opening offer. Finish with a clear next step and a date.

It's also worth writing as though the email will be forwarded, because it might be. Leave out sarcasm, along with anything that only makes sense between the two of you.

Close the hard gaps on the phone

Email is good for narrowing a gap and not very good at closing the last of it. In Shell's property deal, the two sides worked toward a bargaining range by email over a couple of weeks, and then he picked up the phone to settle the final $5,000. If a thread is getting tense or going round in circles, suggest a call. Afterwards, confirm what you agreed in writing.

When they stop replying

Going silent works as a tactic whether anyone means it to or not. Chris Voss, in Never Split the Difference, suggests replying with a short question that invites a no and signals you're ready to move on. His go-to for someone who's stopped responding: "Have you given up on this project?"

It tends to work because it gives them control and turns the silence into a decision they have to make. Use it once, keep the tone neutral, and only send it if you'd genuinely be fine with a no.