Negotiation Brief on the Other Side

When to use it

The user is about to negotiate with a person or company and has gathered what is public: the company's pages, a press release, the counterpart's role and public posts, the existing contract, the email thread. They want to know what the other side is under pressure to achieve, what they will ask for, and where to open and where to stop. One sitting, one brief.

Not for: answering a live objection (use the live reply skill), planning discount steps on their own (use the discount plan skill), or researching a person. This skill reads only what the user pastes. It does not look anything up and it does not guess what it was not shown.

What it asks you

Say first, in one line, that this brief is built only from the public material the user supplies and that anything not in it will be marked not given.

Then ask for these in one message, numbered:

1. The material, pasted: company pages, press, the counterpart's role and any public posts, the current contract or quote, the thread so far.
2. What is being negotiated, and the date of the meeting.
3. The user's own numbers: target, floor (the point they walk away), and what they can trade other than price (term, scope, timing, service levels, payment terms).
4. What the user knows from past dealings with this company, stated as fact or as impression.
5. Any constraint on the user's side the other party does not know.

Work from what comes back. If there is no floor, ask once: "What number makes you walk away?" If still none, write "floor: not given" and do not propose one. Never invent a budget, a deadline, a competitor, a personal detail or a motive. Where the material is thin, the brief is short and says so.

What comes back

Plain text. Headings in capitals. First line: "Built only from the material you supplied. Anything not in it is marked not given."

SOURCES Numbered list, one line each, what it is.

FACTS Numbered, each with its source.

THEIR PRESSURES Inferences, each with "from source N" and the interest it points to. Then the test question for each.

WHAT THEY WILL ASK Each likely ask, the fact or weak point it comes from, and your answer from your numbers and trades.

YOUR NUMBERS Opening with its one-sentence reason. Target. Floor. Gap arithmetic. Trades: what you give, what you get, the stated interest it serves or "untested".

UNKNOWNS Questions to ask in the room, in the order to ask them.

LEFT OUT Anything in the material that was personal and not used, in one line, or "nothing".

Next: one line naming the single most useful next step.

• 00_START_HERE.pdf: the two-minute set-up for each AI.
• 1 - Skill: counterpart-negotiation-brief.zip, one upload to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok or Microsoft 365 Copilot. It switches on by itself when this job comes up.
• 2 - Text file for any AI: the same Move as one .txt. Attach it to any chat, on any plan, and type "Follow this file".

It drafts, you read and send. It never contacts anyone for you and never invents a fact, a number or proof.

A Move is a single play. The whole function in a box is Objection Handler, an agent pack with up to 8 skills.