Hi Reader,

This week on Gentle Power, we reacted to a short video from Alex Hormozi on negotiations. It's about a line you can use when a buyer asks you for a discount, and it's been shared a lot. We watched it live on the episode and then picked it apart.

To be fair, there’s a real negotiation principle buried in it, but there’s also a few assumptions that subtly undermine it.

Alex also shared a story about his most embarrassing moment, which illustrates why using this line is risky.

Listen to the full episode and hear Alex’s most embarrassing moment here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple​

1. The tactic and what it's actually claiming

Hormozi's suggestion: when someone asks, “can you do it for less?”, respond with "well, I could do it for more." Here's the full clip:

The logic is that anyone asking for a discount has already decided to buy. They're just testing to see if they can get a lower price. By anchoring upward instead of down, you flip the dynamic and often close without giving anything away.

On the surface, it’s clever. Anchoring does matter in some negotiations. And yes, tone matters a lot in how you deliver it.

2. The assumption that breaks the whole thing

But here’s the problem.

Hormozi says that when someone asks for a discount, they've already decided to buy. If that's true, the rest of his advice doesn’t matter much. They were going to buy anyway.

And if it's not true? If the person is genuinely on the fence and you respond with "I could do it for more", they might get turned off and you just might lose them. We've seen it happen.

This one unstated assumption does a lot of work in Hormozi’s clip. It's the kind of thing you miss when you're getting 30 seconds of advice with no context.

3. The gimmick problem

This is also why we've largely stayed away from short-form tip content. That format rewards novelty and memorability. It doesn't leave room for the caveats, the exceptions, or the part where you actually have to execute it under pressure.

We've worked with clients who get very fixated on the exact phrasing of things. What should I say when the recruiter asks me this? What's the exact line? They get so locked in on a script that they stop listening to what's actually happening in the conversation.

Ironically, that's when you're most likely to say something that lands wrong.

4. Authenticity isn't just a soft concept

There's another real risk when you borrow someone else's line wholesale: it shows.

We pointed out on the episode that if Hormozi has millions of followers and this clip has gone viral like much of his content, the person you're talking to may have seen it too. The moment they recognize the move, you risk collapsing the whole conversation. Now it's awkward and you look like you've been running plays.

Same thing happened when people started using ChatGPT to write emails. The language got more polished, robotic, and littered with em-dashes.

There’s a dating analogy here too. Memorizing pickup lines is the wrong investment. Building confidence, showing genuine interest when engaging with others, being present in the conversation: that's what actually works. Negotiation is often not that different.

5. What we actually teach instead

We never tell clients what to say word for word. When you're focused on recalling a specific phrase, you're not present. You're not reading the room. You're running a rehearsal in your head while the real conversation is happening in front of you.

What we give people instead are principles with logic behind them. Show genuine excitement upfront, don’t volunteer a number, turn the question back onto them if you need space. And of course, we'll hop on as many calls with our clients for them to practice saying things in their own voice.

This works better because once you understand why a principle makes sense, you can apply it in the best way that fits the moment and deliver things in a way that sounds authentic to you. You don't need to memorize anything, you just need to understand the logic.

6. The elevator pitch story (Alex’s most embarrassing moment)

We took a side quest on this episode where Alex shared one of his most embarrassing moments. This mortifying but hilarious story is a great example of why not to memorize scripts.

Senior year in college, Alex competed in a business plan competition. As part of the contest, he had to give a 60-second elevator pitch for a movie trailer website called The Trailer Post. He wrote the pitch the night before, memorized it word for word, timed it to exactly 60 seconds.

The next day during the actual pitch, Alex started off flawlessly. Every word, every beat, every pause, was delivered perfectly on cue. Then around second 45, Alex paused. His brain went blank and he couldn’t remember the next sentence. Mind you, this was in a university gymnasium full of hundreds of people.

What followed was an incredibly painful 10 seconds (though it felt like 10 minutes to Alex) of pausing, freezing, stuttering, mumbling, a full “deer in the headlights” episode. He did remember the final line – “...and that’s The Trailer Post!” – so Alex exclaimed it with overcompensated enthusiasm, which caused his voice to crack. The applause at the end of his pitch was the kind you hear when the crowd feels sorry for the person on stage. To add insult to injury, in order to return to his seat, Alex had to walk through the entire crowd looking at him with pitiful stares.

"That's the Trailer Post" has now been a running joke in his family and amongst close friends for years (in fact, we’re cracking up right now writing this 😂). But the point is that this whole ordeal could have been avoided by just knowing the idea well enough to talk around it naturally.

That's exhibit A.

7. what SHOULD you take from the Hormozi clip?

The anchoring idea is worth keeping. If someone's asking for a discount, they've revealed something. You can use that signal rather than immediately conceding.

But the specific line? Use it with care. Understand why it might work before you deploy it. Make sure it fits the context and, honestly, make sure it fits you. If it doesn't come out naturally, it'll probably come out weird.

Tactics aren't transferable the way they look in short clips, but the logic is transferable. Start there.

Listen to the full episode here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple​
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Best,

Gerta & Alex​
​Founders, YourNegotiations.com

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $250 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.