Every negotiation has one variable that determines the outcome. It's not rapport, technique, or who talks first. It's leverage — and it's almost never where either party thinks it is.
The negotiation industry is built on decorative complexity. Books on body language. Courses on tactical empathy. Seminars on anchoring, mirroring, labeling, the power of silence. All of it sits on top of a single structural variable that most people never identify.
The person with leverage sets the terms. The person without leverage negotiates within them. Everything else — the techniques, the rapport-building, the strategic pauses — is performance art layered on top of a power dynamic that was established before anyone sat down.
This sounds reductive. It is. That's the point. Most negotiators spend 80% of their preparation on the 20% that affects tone and 20% of their preparation on the 80% that affects outcome. CT10 inverts that ratio.
Three errors account for the majority of negotiation failures among competent people:
Most people assess leverage based on who is bigger, richer, or more established. This is almost always wrong. Leverage is not about size. It's about dependency. The question isn't "who has more resources?" It's "who has fewer alternatives?"
A $50M company negotiating with a $5B company can hold all the leverage — if the $5B company needs something only the $50M company has and can't get it elsewhere in the required timeframe. Size is decorative. Dependency is structural.
Most people jump into the specifics — price, timeline, deliverables — before establishing the power dynamic. This is like decorating a house before pouring the foundation. If you negotiate terms without first ensuring the other party understands your leverage position, every concession you make is unnecessary. They're conceding from a position they never needed to be in.
Being liked is pleasant. It is not leverage. The most dangerous negotiation error is believing that a good relationship with the counterparty is a substitute for a strong position. It isn't. Rapport determines whether the process is enjoyable. Leverage determines whether the outcome is favorable. These are unrelated variables, and confusing them is how smart people give away terms they didn't need to.
A founder is approached by an acquirer. The acquirer offers $8M. The founder's instinct is to counteroffer on price — $10M, $12M, a multiple negotiation. That's negotiating terms.
CT10: What does the acquirer need that they can't build? If the answer is your distribution network, your community, your regulatory license, or your data — the leverage is yours. The acquirer isn't buying your revenue. They're buying something that would cost them more than $8M and more than two years to replicate. The negotiation isn't about price. It's about making them see the alternative to buying you: the cost of NOT having what you have, for the duration it would take to build it. That's the structural number. Everything else is decorative.
If the answer is "nothing they can't build" — you have no leverage and no amount of negotiation technique changes that. The honest move is to either build something they can't replicate, or accept the terms. Pretending you have leverage you don't have wastes everyone's time and damages your credibility for future deals.
A VP is offered a role at $280K. Market rate for the role is $250K-$320K. The conventional approach: research the range, practice the ask, negotiate confidently.
CT10: What does this company need that you specifically provide — and how painful is their alternative? If you have a rare combination of skills (say, deep technical knowledge plus executive presence in a niche market), and the hiring pipeline for that combination is thin, the leverage is yours. The company's alternative isn't "hire someone for $250K." Their alternative is "search for six more months, lose the revenue the unfilled role costs them, and probably settle for someone who has half the qualifications." Quantify that alternative. That's your floor.
If you're one of fifty qualified candidates — your leverage is limited and the range is the range. The skill isn't "negotiate harder." It's accurately assessing whether you have leverage and acting accordingly.
Two companies are structuring a revenue-share partnership. Company A has the product. Company B has the distribution. The standard negotiation: argue over the split — 60/40, 50/50, 70/30.
CT10: Which side of this partnership is harder to replace? If Company A's product is one of many similar offerings, but Company B's distribution is a unique, established channel that took years to build — the leverage sits with B, regardless of who "created" the product. The split should reflect replaceability, not effort. A product that took three years to build but has ten competitors is less valuable to the partnership than a distribution channel that took ten years to build and has none.
The emotional trap: founders overvalue their own creation because it cost them the most in effort and identity. CT10 strips effort from the equation. The only variable is replaceability. The side that's harder to replace sets the terms.
A company is renegotiating an annual contract with a key vendor. The vendor quotes a 15% increase. The instinct: push back on price, cite the relationship, threaten to shop around.
CT10: Can you actually switch vendors without disrupting operations? If yes — you have leverage. Get competing quotes before the conversation. Present them. The negotiation is over in one email. If no — if switching costs are high, if the migration would take months, if the vendor's product is embedded in your workflows — you don't have leverage. You have dependency. And negotiating from dependency while pretending you have alternatives is transparent and counterproductive.
The honest path when you lack leverage: acknowledge the dependency, negotiate for value-adds instead of price reductions (longer terms, additional services, priority support), and immediately begin building the alternative so you have real leverage at next renewal. Short-term loss, long-term positioning.