Allow for options: Yes. Cornering or being cornered tend to make people defensive and closed minded as they invoke the "fight-or-flight" response.

Look at the long-term: Yes. Don't forget that you are more likely to be successful in the long term if you focus on every business deal as if it were focusing on the long-term relationship in your dealings. Why? It's cheaper and easier to keep business with existing customers by a 10-1 margin than to find new ones, and your existing customers are your best source of referrals for new business!

If you haven't read Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", I encourage you to do so. That book is all about strategies to win the war WITHOUT having to fight it in the first place and the ideas apply very well to business dealings.