New: Roadmaps ordered paths through our cheat sheets and flashcards, so you always know what to study next.
Explore themSee what's new on GitHubFrom Cialdini's principles of yes to closing deals and asking for what you're worth.
A 12-step learning path. Follow it in order, or jump to what you need.
This path is for anyone who has to reach yes with someone who doesn't report to them: closing a vendor deal, winning over a skeptical stakeholder, or asking for what they're worth. Plan on about 5 to 8 weeks at a few hours a week. It stays inside deal-making and organizational influence and skips everyday listening, writing, and public-speaking skills, which live in the Communicating with Impact path. By the end you can walk into a negotiation with a real plan instead of hope, build influence with people who don't answer to you, and advocate for the raise, promotion, or resources you've earned.
No prior experience needed. Start from zero.
Every step in this path assumes people can be moved, so start with the seven principles, reciprocity, scarcity, social proof, and the rest, that explain why anyone says yes to anything: skills you can use in your very next conversation.
Influence only works if you also know what you're asking for; here you build the I-statements and DESC scripts that turn a vague ask into a clear one, so nobody talks you out of your own position.
This is where persuasion and a clear ask turn into an actual process: BATNA, ZOPA, and Harvard's seven elements are where most people stall the first time, so expect to reread this one after your first real negotiation.
You can read why someone just said yes, hold your ground on what you actually need, and walk into a negotiation with a BATNA and a plan instead of hope. Next up: what happens when the other side doesn't play along.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
The process from step 3 assumes a reasonable counterpart; this is your playbook for when they aren't, the boundary scripts and de-escalation moves that keep a hard negotiation from turning into a standoff.
Not every deal has a counterpart across a table: when the person you need to move is a peer or another team's lead with no reporting line to you, these currencies and exchange tactics replace formal leverage with earned credibility.
Take the currencies from step 5 and apply them systematically: map who actually holds power and interest in your outcome before you spend your influence on the wrong person.
You can keep a negotiation from derailing when the other side turns difficult, move a peer or another team's lead using nothing but credibility, and map exactly who holds power over your outcome. Next up: turning that map into a pitch for the person who actually signs off, while a few minutes of due flashcards keeps your BATNA and tactics sharp as you build on them.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Your manager is the highest-leverage stakeholder on that map from step 6, and the one most people negotiate with worst; here you adapt your pitch to how they actually make decisions.
Take this if you want to see the anchoring, framing, and overconfidence traps from the other side of the table too: a fuller catalog of the roughly 40 biases quietly shaping every offer and every pitch you've just learned to make.
Every tactic in this path spends down or builds up one resource, trust; this step gives you Covey's four levels and thirteen behaviors so the deals and stakeholder relationships you've built so far compound instead of resetting each time.
You can pitch your own manager on their own terms, catch the anchoring and overconfidence traps skewing an offer, and see why the deals you win today either bank trust for tomorrow or burn it. Next up: cashing in everything you've built, starting with your own advancement.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Reach for this if your next negotiation is about your own paycheck: it applies step 3's process and step 9's trust thinking to the one conversation Carnegie Mellon found costs the average non-negotiator $600,000 over a career.
Open this if the deals you're in involve a budget or a P&L: reading financial statements and unit economics tells you how big the pie actually is before you negotiate over your slice of it.
Everything so far, reading people, holding your ground, running a process, and building stakeholder trust, now turns inward: this is how you document your own impact and ask for the promotion or raise you've actually earned.
From reading why people say yes to closing your own deals, raises, and case for advancement, you've built a full toolkit for getting to yes with people who don't report to you, and earned your Dealmaker badge.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Finish every required step, at least 70% of them genuinely done (not skipped), to earn this badge and 500 XP.