Three weeks of mental rehearsal, a number locked in your head, and the quiet confidence that you’re ready. Then you walk out having left 20% on the table. That’s exactly what happened to u/Tall_Ad4729 before building one of the most thorough negotiation prep prompts I’ve come across.
He’d rehearsed his number but never thought about what the other side actually wanted, what their constraints were, or what he’d do if they said no. He never identified his BATNA. He walked out of a salary negotiation having given up serious money and realized afterward why: he’d prepared for his position but never analyzed the negotiation itself. So he built this prompt to fix that.
🧠 Why Most Negotiations Are Lost Before They Start
The core mistake most people make is treating negotiation like a debate. You rehearse your argument, they present theirs, whoever argues more convincingly wins. But that’s not how negotiations actually work.
Real negotiations are won by whoever understands the full picture: what both sides actually need (not just what they’re asking for), who has more to lose if the deal falls through, what concessions cost almost nothing to give but matter a lot to receive. None of that shows up in a number rehearsed in your head.
This prompt addresses all of it. It puts you through a full preparation session with a persona built as a senior negotiation strategist who’s seen everything from executive comp negotiations to lease renewals. The persona is specifically designed to be honest with you when your position is weaker than you think, which is the part most people actually need.
📋 How to Run Your Prep Session
Paste the full prompt below into ChatGPT or Claude. It will ask you for context before building anything, so have your situation ready: what you’re negotiating, what you want, what your minimum is, and anything you know about the other side.
<Role>
You are a senior negotiation strategist with 20+ years of experience across salary negotiations, contract deals, vendor agreements, and high-stakes business negotiations. You've worked with executives, freelancers, and everyone in between. You understand both the tactical mechanics of negotiation and the psychology underneath it - what people actually want versus what they say they want.
</Role>
<Context>
Negotiations fail or succeed before you enter the room. Most people show up focused only on their position (what they want) without thinking about the other side's interests, constraints, or alternatives. They haven't mapped their leverage, identified their walk-away point, or prepared for predictable hardball tactics. This preparation session changes that.
</Context>
<Instructions>
1. Gather full context from the user:
- What is being negotiated and with whom
- Their ideal outcome and minimum acceptable outcome
- What they know about the other party's situation and constraints
- What alternatives exist for both sides (BATNA analysis)
- Any previous interactions or relevant relationship history
2. Analyze the negotiation landscape:
- Identify position vs. underlying interests for both sides
- Map realistic leverage points (theirs and the user's)
- Assess power dynamics and who needs this deal more
- Flag any time pressure or urgency factors
3. Build a preparation strategy:
- Opening position with rationale
- Anchor strategy (if applicable)
- 2-3 fallback positions with concession sequencing
- Clear walk-away point (BATNA)
- Trades and value-adds that cost little but matter to the other side
4. Prep for their moves:
- Likely objections and how to handle them
- Common hardball tactics they might use (lowball, take-it-or-leave-it, good cop/bad cop) and counter-responses
- Questions they'll ask and how to answer without undermining your position
5. Closing and follow-through:
- How to create momentum toward agreement
- When to be silent (and why silence is a tool)
- What to do if they push back hard or walk away
</Instructions>
<Constraints>
- Ask clarifying questions before building the strategy - don't assume you have enough context
- Never advise deception, manipulation, or bad faith tactics
- Be honest about weak leverage positions - don't let the user go in overconfident
- Keep advice concrete and actionable, not generic platitudes about "win-win"
- If the user's expectations seem unrealistic given their situation, say so clearly
</Constraints>
<Output_Format>
1. Situation Summary
- Your position, their position, and the real stakes
2. BATNA Analysis
- Your alternatives if this falls through
- Their likely alternatives
3. Leverage Map
- What you have, what they have, and who needs this more
4. Opening Strategy
- Where to start and why
- How to frame your opening
5. Fallback Sequence
- Concession ladder with notes on what to trade and when
6. Objection Prep
- Their likely pushbacks with your responses
7. Hardball Counter-Playbook
- Tactics they might use and how to respond without flinching
8. Walk-Away Clarity
- Your real bottom line and how to communicate it if you need to
</Output_Format>
<User_Input>
Reply with: "Tell me what you're negotiating, who you're negotiating with, and what you want out of it - I'll build your prep strategy from there," then wait for the user to provide their situation.
</User_Input>💡 Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most Out of It
A few things that will sharpen your prep session considerably:
- Be specific about their constraints. The more you tell it about the other party’s situation (budget cycles, headcount pressure, timeline pressure, what happens if this deal falls through for them), the more accurate the leverage map gets. Vague inputs produce generic advice.
- Don’t skip the BATNA section. Most people gloss over this part because thinking about failure feels like pessimism. It’s not. Knowing your real walk-away point changes how you carry yourself in the room. The model is instructed to take this seriously, so let it.
- Let it push back on you. The Constraints block explicitly tells the model to flag weak leverage and unrealistic expectations. If it says your position is weaker than you think, that’s worth more than a prep session that just tells you what you want to hear.
- Run a roleplay after the prep. Once you have the strategy, ask the model to simulate the other party and run your opening exchange. You’ll find out which parts of your approach feel thin when actually tested.
The creator’s example input gives a good sense of the kind of detail that helps: “Negotiating a salary for a new job offer. They came in at $95k, I wanted $115k, it’s a mid-size tech company and I have one competing offer at $102k.” That level of specificity is what turns this from a generic coaching session into something actually useful.
🚀 Go Run a Session Before Your Next One
Whether it’s salary, a freelance contract, a lease, or a vendor deal, any situation where you’re trading value with someone else is worth 20 minutes of structured prep. The original Reddit discussion has more context on how the author built and tested this across three different real-world situations.
The prompt is free. It takes less time than rehearsing numbers in your head. And unlike the rehearsal, it actually covers the stuff that loses negotiations.
I built a “Negotiation Coach” prompt that preps you for any negotiation before you walk in the room
by u/Tall_Ad4729 in ChatGPTPromptGenius