Chris Voss on Why You Want a Seller/Buyer to Say “NO”

this is the BiggerPockets podcast show 683 people feel trapped they feel like they're being led into a trap concern is a negative emotion they're automatically getting dumped if they say no and they don't feel trapped then they're not going to be getting Dumber in the moment they're going to be more likely to hear you out they're going to be more likely to consider the options they're going to be more likely to think of the next steps it's the same Neuroscience rule let me keep you at a negative thought the chances we can collaborate effectively are much higher because neither one of us are getting Dumber what's going on everyone this is David Green your host of the BiggerPockets real estate podcast the best the highest ranked and the baddest real estate podcast in the world I am joined today by my co-host Rob abasolo who I love dearly as well as a fantastic guest on today's show we have none other than world renowned expert negotiator Chris Voss author of never split the difference and other books coming in to talk with us about how to negotiate real estate specifically Chris has recently been introduced into the world of real estate and the negotiation that happens they're in and he shares tons of amazing advice for how you can do a better job negotiating for the houses you want and if you're an agent or a loan officer how you can do a better job negotiating for your clients Rob what were some of your favorite parts of today's show honestly man I just I felt you were in your your element on this one you're you're given all these anecdotes about your real estate career and your brokerage and then he was like yeah and this is how the negotiation should have gone and then he was like you're like yeah and then in this situation and I was just like why would I talk why would I talk I I am watching a master class between two Class Acts on the art of negotiation so we get into things like tactical empathy and really kind of understanding people where they're at and and kind of de-escalating a situation and we even talk about a deal that I'm kind of working out right now and hopefully pulling off the coolest seller finance deal that that you know that I've done thus far TBD on that but uh yeah we get into some really cool stuff here yeah you use some of the tactics that we're actually talking about in the show to get to the point where you're very close to putting that house in contract and everybody here's what you gotta understand we have as buyers more negotiation leverage than it we've ever had in my entire career of investing in real estate outside of 2010. sellers need to sell homes there's more Supply than there is demand the tables have finally turned and as a buyer if you have strong negotiation skills it will get you further along than at any other time than I've seen so we're bringing you an expert negotiator to teach you how to do a better job negotiating because it's worth more money now than it ever has been before so Rob I'd love to see you get that deal and I remember you actually calling me and we us talking about it and you were like how do I get the person to to do this thing and the advice I gave you was like explain and articulate it much better by Chris than me but it was along the same lines if you got to reset the communication you got to get it to an emotional state that's different don't bring up seller financing right now get to this point and then do it and it sounds like you're super close so I'm really happy to hear that that's the case today's quick tip consider embracing tactical empathy how can you understand where someone is coming from without conceding your own position this is what Wizards do that negotiate it's a way of acknowledging the other person's position getting them to let their guard down getting them to hear what you have to say without actually giving up anything of value for yourself very valuable uh tactic to understand a great strategy to use you're going to be very excited to hear what we have to say today and I don't think that there's a better person on the planet to be bringing it than Chris Voss Rob anything you want to say before bring in Chris no man let's get into it Chris Voss welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast we originally had you on on episode 260 and we've got you back now you've been kind enough to give us your time as you're traveling I believe you're in Montreal right now getting ready to give the keynote uh speech at a big conference is that the case that is the case I am in Montreal it's nice to see I was I was kidding around with my girlfriend earlier because I spent so much time in Vegas where I live these days and also just got back from the Middle East I said you know it's crazy that in the fall the the trees here are different colors what color is it well the red and they're orange and they're green like I'm not used to that everything's Brown in the desert I think it's hilarious that you're in Vegas I picture you like like this Celine Dion character that people are traveling all across the world to come listen to and you just stay there and they go they learn how to negotiate from you and so you don't have to travel as much but something tells me that's probably not the case what what had you moving out to Vegas come on in Vegas Celine Dion like Sting was in Vegas compare me to sting you know he did them like see England for that see I just don't know enough about Vegas Celine Dion was the first one I'd heard of where I'm like that's brilliant she doesn't have to travel she just lives there but yeah you're definitely much more of a Elvis there we go you're the Elvis of negotiating in fact I don't think there's anyone in the space if people think negotiating they immediately think Chris Foss you've got that level of uh notoriety when it comes to this so your first book never split the difference is probably the most often quoted book in the space of negotiating you've done an amazing job of carving out a reputation for yourself and frankly helping millions of people across the world with understanding how to negotiate better for themselves you have a fascinating story I'll sum up some of it because we want to get as much information as we can on the podcast you started off as a police officer in New York City you work some of the toughest beats there were you were sharpened and forged in the fires of a very difficult time to be a cop in New York when crime was incredibly High uh you were transferred to a little bit of a slower beat didn't like it as much started to realize that I've got skills you haven't said this but I'm imagining there's a part of you that's like look I can't grow without better competition for lack of a better word I need a more challenging environment so you ended up going Federal you met some people that introduced you to Federal officers you went to I believe it was Quantico and you got your FBI training you joined the academy there and you got out and because you were a police officer you were sort of delegated to certain tasks that needed a little bit of a like law enforcement experience and eventually you went you were trying to get into the swap program and you ended up in the negotiation program is there any big key pieces that I missed in that backstory no no uh that's uh you hit the high points pretty well you know didn't say anything about me spending time as a country and western singer but I think that was just a dream and so I never did that at all actually well you're in Vegas right so Never Say Never there's always an opportunity there listen if you'd like to revive your your career right here on the BiggerPockets podcast and break off a tune we'd welcome it yeah yeah you're saying I could sing often is that what you meant when you said break off into them yeah exactly well one of your strategies is you have what I believe you described as like the late night DJ voice right it's one of the ways you sort of lull the opponent into uh putting their uh defenses down and so I can see that working for you in the country isn't there a country guy right now that talks when he's singing I wish I could remember his name Rob's not gonna know it you know what I'm talking about Chris Hunt something hunt he'll be singing and he just starts talking in the middle of a song it's it's very weird like you could sort of expand on that style so never split the difference completely changed the game when it comes to negotiating you explain the psychology behind what makes people do what they do I find that absolutely fascinating about you is you're not just saying all right here's your Tactical answer when they do a you do B you really dive deep into what makes people make decisions and how you can influence what people do one of my favorite books is called pitch anything written by Oren Clough are you familiar with that one I am familiar with that I haven't read it yet I intend to read it yeah you'd probably love it it's it's a similar type of thing when you're trying to get someone to understand your point I'm sure if you read it you'd be like this is Elementary this is exactly what I've been doing and you're maybe the first person ever much like a Gracie that taught the world Jiu Jitsu you sort of unlock the key to what makes people decide how they make decisions and then taught the masses this is how you can cop copy that and in the space of real estate this is incredibly important deals can be made or lost simply on the power of negotiation so I want to ask you what sort of prompted your interest in bringing your skill set particularly to the world of real estate which is the new book that you've got coming out well as people are applying the negotiation Concepts across the board a lack of negotiation guidance for the real estate industry whether you be buying selling commercial residential agent the there's a lack of guidance there and it's still human nature and people were applying it over and over and over again successfully in that uh in that area so started got approached by Steve Shull who was coaching residential real estate agents in Los Angeles still is and Steve said look this is exactly what we need to be coaching these people on for the real estate profession and started collaborating with Steve Steve is one interesting cat like I knew Steve for well over a year before I knew that he played in the NFL normally somebody played in the NFL you know that within the first five minutes about three years after that I found out he was a Super Bowl captain like normally those guys are waving their trophies around because that's all they got to talk about Steve had involved his life so beyond that that it made sense when I found that out about him but I thought this is an interesting guy he's uh he's not an insecure ego driven guy he just likes to help people so collaborating with him has been a a ball I really like the guy so he has a background in real estate yeah well when he let when he left uh when he got out of the NFL um he went to Wall Street to make a lot of money on Wall Street and then somebody stumbled across he got across a opportunity to be a residential real estate agent and Steve is Steve is a give me a system I'll outwork everybody else out there and turn around made a ton of money in real estate and then decided that he he loved to help people get better so having been a football player and having coaches coach him to be a better human being he wanted to do the same for other people and then he ran across and never split the difference and and changed the approach on everything so I gotta imagine with with never split the difference you probably have people reach out fairly often to to talk about some of the crazy deals that they've successfully executed uh well just by you know using a lot of the the philosophies and a lot of your tactics and that do you have a lot of people that reach out with like success stories in that vein we get one way or another somebody shares a story of a life-changing deal with me or my team almost every week I mean we hear from people all the time this deal is going to change my life whether it's uh an employee negotiating with their employer or whoever it is or like we got a brand new guy on the team that's their experienced hostage negotiated now teaching how to apply in real life who's learning the skills in real life and he was yeah I just was on the phone with him earlier today talking to me about how he got upgraded to a suite in a hotel it's kind of our standard our standard routine you know getting a pre-upgrade to a suite if they have them and the crazy thing about it is the way we do it the hotel clerk doesn't feel like he took advantage of him as a matter of fact they bond to you he says every time he passes front desk guy calls hey how you doing you join you stay you know they just they bond to us so even in little ways it starts to eliminate the friction out of your life and suddenly life is a lot more fun yeah do you feel like you're do you feel like you negotiate now like or is it just second nature like like just something that you live by and so it always just feels very seamless like how how often in your mind are you like I'm about to turn on the negotiation switch does that ever happen well you know and we forget that what we feel is ourselves or our natural abilities we learn like everything is learned so you know what's my motivation I like to connect and I and I do like to get be left better off as a result of the connection so yeah I'm negotiating all the time but I don't negotiate against people I negotiate with people or I just just connect with them like let what happens if they don't have uh uh a suite available in a hotel that's that's one of the key issues on us sweet upgrade like they can't give you what they don't have I still want to connect with the person behind the counter so that maybe I need something the next day uh and that's what that's what Don was telling me he came back to the counter the next day because he ran out of coffee in his room any young lady that gave him the free upgrade comes out with like an arm load of coffee pots like he just wanted to she almost brought the box out to him because he connected with her so we just want to connect with people and then good things have a tendency to happen as a result so in this book we uh obviously in the world of real estate there is the tension seem a little bit high do you feel like in general the way that the process is laid out with making an offer and negotiating an offer and trying to get into escrow do you feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect between all parties going into it because for me I feel like I go into real estate very often and there's it immediately feels like when I submit an offer I'm definitely not connected with the other party and there's just tensions always feel high as soon as we we hit the the the send button on that kind of stuff yeah well unfortunately it's applied in a lot of instances is agents are basically trying to keep buyer and seller apart because they're afraid it's the emotions are going to get out of control and that but what that does is create even more uncertainty you know they don't get the opportunity to really get to know each other's human beings and so people are left in the dark a long time ago I I tried out for the FBI's hostage Rescue Team uh the FBI's version of the Navy Seals they wanted to stress this out maximally psychologically not just physically but psychologically even more and so what they did was they kept us in the dark about what we were going to do they take us for a run and the unknown is the stressor like you couldn't endure anything if you know when it's going to be over or if you know that it's going to be over if you know it but when the definition of traumatic stress is uh overwhelming and unrelenting which means you don't know when it's going to be over you're kept in the dark the unknown is the stressor so what does that have to do with real estate well agents are keeping people apart which just as you said now you're launched in a an offer into the unknown you're not connected to the people on the other side they're not connected to you you've got nothing but unknown going on there which is a defensive move on the agent's part but increases the stress on everybody involved which is not good for the process because then if the offer is rejected or there are inspection issues you created a process where stress is increasing every step of the way and then a seven million dollar deal will get tanked over fifteen hundred dollar inspection because people were kept in the dark people kept apart and the stress levels were kept high and people get fed up and like I'm not doing this anymore you know that's probably one of the biggest complaints that my real estate team receives from our clients is an offer is written and the agent reaches out and they gather what information they can from the other side and it's just like you said both sides are trying to keep their cards as close to the chest as possible because when you're afraid or you're not confident that's your natural response it's just to close off so they don't they don't know what to say they're going to try to say as little as possible then the agent isn't communicating with their client what's going on they know in their own head what they think that needs to happen but hey there's no news so they're just not reaching out and the buyers are over there just marinating in worry and stress they're just getting cooked from the inside out and knowing what's happening and in that state it's almost like you feel like the world's against you you're not assuming oh the sellers are gonna accept my offer and it's a great offer you're thinking the worst of everything now you're mad at your agent and just like you said when you finally do get a counter offer that can be a great solid thing you are receiving it from this lens of mistrust and anger and stress and all this this negative State you're in and the knee-jerk response is like screw them I'm not giving them a dimer I'm not I'm not gonna you know up my offer by 400 or whatever the case would be what's your experience with seeing that element of human nature as it plays out and how do you try to combat against it well that plays out all the time and what ends up happening is it's one of the big problems for especially the residential real estate market or any real estate market you're never going to refer your agent like the process was so painful that you are the only way you can avoid it is with that person is to never go through it with that person ever again and agents are not are not taught the right way to do it I mean you can't really blame them from doing it the wrong way you can blame them only if they haven't known what the right way is and the right way in many cases is counterintuitive or the right way isn't well modeled for them and you you just you you touch on one of the points uh that you know you're in the dark because the age is not communicating because agents communicate when there's good news or they're bad or or there's bad news when is there going to be good news or bad news you don't know so what are you going to hear from your agent you don't know so you're sitting there left in the dark waiting to see now we manage this I manage this personally somebody finally showed me how to manage in a kidnapping scenario and I didn't know the proper way until somebody finally told me the right way to do it because we're kind of kidnapping in the Philippines and I've got my hostage negotiators in touch with family members of the kidnap victims across the U.S because you never know who the bad guy is going to call bad guys call up family members to get money so you got to get hostage negotiators next to every family member however many of them there are wherever they are and the family does not like any of my people and there's one guy from the Department of State that they love student name Tech great guy quirky dude sweetheart of a guy and Ted finally calls me on the phone he says the families never know when they're going to hear from the hostage negotiators that's why they don't like you they like me because they always know when they're going to hear from me I'm going to set an appointment for a call and whether I got good news or bad news I call on the appointment and if I got nothing to say I call and say just letting you know there's nothing new and they love me so we shifted this over with the families always call on schedule no matter what if you got nothing to say say I got nothing to say I didn't realize this applied to the real estate market until I'm at a conference in Australia and there's a woman running an operation in Australia that's got a referral rate that is through the roof her referral rate exceeds the referral rate of everybody else in the Australian industry nobody's even close and she gives a presentation and she says we call all our clients at scheduled times they never wonder when they're going to hear from us we always call them at the appointed time and if we got nothing to tell them we call them on a phone and say hey nothing new no new offers nobody's been through the house nothing's changed in the market there's nothing new and they love us for it and I thought how more obvious could it be but until somebody pointed it out to me I didn't know that was a way to communicate so one of the ways that we work with the clients that we're serving is we'll I'll have my agents ask them how do you like to be communicated with do you prefer phone calls emails text messages and if there's if there's no news do you want me to tell you there's no news do you only want me to call you if you have to make a decision or do you want to know everything and I'd say most people say no I want to know everything they want the power of deciding if they want to put their feedback or their input in or if they're just going to let the agent make the decision but not everyone is the same so in your experience what are the different kinds of people and what advice do you have about how to communicate with different personality types well you know and there's also the issue of whether or not they know what the best way to communicate with them is and and until they've been communicated with properly they probably don't know I mean it's what uh jobs used to say he doesn't design products based on what people want he designs them based on what they don't know they want yet I mean it's an anticipation he he trusted his gut instinct and his understanding of what people wanted he didn't ask and you know if if if if I don't know that there's a better way to communicate with me then I'm going to reflect on my past history of how it's happened to me in the past what I liked what I didn't like and I'm going to give you an answer based on what's been done with me in the past so I may not know the best way like the the scheduled communication very few people really understand what a huge difference that makes until they've been through it so that that first problem is you know how do they know for sure and then the other thing you as a real estate professional what you've got data when you don't realize you have it like to say okay so there's the you know the Clone say Hey listen nothing new well the point of fact the fact that there's nothing new is information it's telling you got information about the velocity of the market the way the market is moving has the market changed has there had there been interest rate changes have there been have there been any sort of changes in the market that should have had an impact and didn't or is having an impact but it's yet to be seen so the fact that there's no news doesn't necessarily mean that there's no data that's awesome that's honestly my main frustration with Realtors is that is I think there is a bit of a I don't know I feel like my realtors that I've worked with they always feel guilty that they don't have new news and so they don't want to like text me and get me excited you know and so they'll just you know I may not hear for a day or two and I don't want to be high maintenance so I'm just like I I want to ask but I know what the answer is going to be but I felt like when you hearing you say that I'm like I actually do appreciate when I get a text from a realtor that's like hey no new use or whatever the whatever they could report back with whether it's no news or good news or bad news but having a scheduled check-in at least doesn't leave me in the dark quite so long it's a it's a tiny little thing um but like I said before when you're under stress if you know when the next touch point is you can deal with the stress you know I'm coaching a family through kidnapping if I say hey I'll call you when it's good news they're going to go out of their minds I mean they're gonna lose their minds if I say hey you're going to hear from me in an hour even if even if they're family members under risk of death at the moment they know I can't I only got to wait an hour in one hour I'm gonna hear from them or tomorrow at 10 I only have to wait till that moment your people's ability to deal with stress and they unless it's they're taught they just don't know how much of a stressor the unknown is yeah and you mentioned that earlier in the show it's a very very powerful idea it's what causes the client to be upset is they don't know when the phone call is going to be coming and it made me think about when I was in the academy we all got tased and I'm watching grown men strong men SWAT officers like the people that were leading you in the academy these are your Heroes like literally making making unflattering sounds begging for it to stop so what they said is if you can say the word stop we'll turn it off if it's too much right but they hooked us up so one probe was in our shoulder and the other one was in our opposite foot so you're literally getting your entire body is becoming the circuit other than maybe your neck and above it's it's it's much worse than if you just got shot with a taser and you get two of them in the chest or something like that so I'm sitting in there and I'm like look this is my first job I'm gonna make a good impression I'm not making a sound and I'm gonna take that full five second ride and they hit me with it and maybe half a second in I just lost track of time like the pain is so much my my ability to estimate time just I lost it I didn't know how long it was gonna go for and it was that feeling that was the worst like I was having thoughts go through my head like I think the taser broke and they can't stop it they're behind me like hitting it like oh we're gonna fry them like it it's not turning off because it that five seconds felt so long and uh if there had been like a timer I could have looked at or something it would have absolutely made the experience like possible like I could get through this if I can look at that timer but when you don't know when it's gonna end it's so discouraging yeah a thousand percent you you captured that a thousand percent because when you're in the midst of the stress you do lose track of time and it's much harder yeah if there was a person there like hey man hang in there you got three more seconds you got two more seconds it's an immediate relief and so I mean that's a powerful thing to think about when you're in a stressful situation is giving someone sort of the GPS coordinates of where they're at where the next break is going to be that's one of the things I've heard Jocko willing talk about with uh uh advice to get through buds training for the seals to say focus on your next break don't think about how much pain you're in think about in two hours they have to give us a break because legally they're obligated to feed us if I could get through two hours and I could get to that break I can make it and then after that's done you're gonna start your next moment of hell and you got to think the same question four hours it can only do this be for four hours I'm gonna get a break they literally describe that time chunking as a way to get through stressful so situations I wanted to ask you about one of the things that it feels to me like you're one of the forward-leaning thought leaders in this topic of tactical empathy a way of acknowledging where someone's at without conceding anything actual uh of a practical nature can you describe what tactical empathy is and how this applies to negotiating yeah that's well let's break it down into two components um and so empathy empathy is demonstrating and understanding the other side's perspective it's not sympathy it's not agreeing it's not compassion a friend of mine Steven Tyler would say empathies about the transmission of information compassion is a reaction to that transmission so the first problem is most people in today's terminology equate empathy to sympathy or agreement it's not it never was its Origins if you Tracy uh etymology of the word the origin of the word it's it was never meant to be agreement it is meant to be understanding now it's also a little bit more putting yourself in the other person's shoes that's necessary but inadequate you pull yourself a receipt from their perspective necessary but inadequate to make it adequate you got to articulate what you see what you think they see now what you see but we think they see so empathy is the articulation of the other person's perspective not fair not accurate not inaccurate you could you could think I'm a horrible person I don't think I'm a horrible person an empathic statement would be for me to say you feel like I'm a horrible person period just stop right there because that's articulating your perspective not agreeing not disagreeing not saying but I'm a nice guy but I'm moral but I have integrity the word but were to come across your lips you're out of empathy all right so Tactical you know we dropped the word in there first of all to sort of disabuse it from being sympathy and then Tactical what what tactics are we employing well the tactics that Neuroscience tells us the way the brain works Neuroscience tells us that the brain is largely negative number one not sunshine and roses survival mode is negative we wake up in survival mode every human being if left alone is in survival mode largely negative roughly as a Layman's estimate that I'm comfortable with 75 negative my Neuroscience brothers and sisters would say okay well that's probably accurate just why you're saying it is wrong well I don't care if I didn't explain the mechanism properly it's still pretty doggone accurate especially for layman's terms now what's the next thing about Neuroscience tell us about negativity best movies call it out not deny it not explain it just call it out that's why if if if you think I'm a jerk my best move for deactivating you thinking I'm a jerk I could spend hours attempting to charm you and that might or might not work eventually it probably will work it's highly inefficient or I could say look you think I'm a jerk and shut up and the amount of negativity that it might take me four or five hours a charm to make go away I could probably make that go away in a space that it took me to make that statement and I have in many cases because if I need you to listen to me I'm like look you think I'm selfish you think I'm a jerk you think I don't have any regard for your position at all and in your head you're going to say wow that's a straight shooter I'm interested to hear what they have to say next and so that's that's what where the tax bar comes from is that because our wiring psychologically is it is so important to us that we are understood that we will just go for hours and hours and hours trying to explain where we're at until we feel heard and you're just like shortcutting this whole process by giving it to him right in the beginning that is exactly it I mean that's a great analogy people will go on and on and on until they felt they've been understood right that's why people go on for hours it's exactly right I think so there's certain people that I'll study I'll listen to them speak because I like how they articulate themselves Henry Gracie is one of them the guy is just so captivating he could he could say the ABCs and I I could listen to him for hours saying the ABCs uh Ben Shapiro is a person who who'd probably just won't lose an argument in his entire life and one of the things I notice he'll do is rather than arguing with someone if they make a point factually true he will immediately say yeah you're right the study does show that that's the case I agree with you about that and it's so disarming with the other side that's like geared up for this big fight and you immediately just give it to him they almost don't know what to do and it elicits this like well now that you gave me that I the law of reciprocity with dictate I feel like almost compelled to give you something and now you're steering the conversation in a place where tactically it makes more sense do I have a decent understanding of what you're describing here yeah very much I mean so certain aspects additional mechanisms I think are going on there and is it reciprocity or um when a person feels hurt or they're satisfied and they therefore don't have to they don't have to get concessions from you anymore I've noticed that works very well when when I was in the stage of my business where I was the agent negotiating with the other agent okay so I'm the buyer and I'm negotiating with the listing agent it is incredibly easy it's like a flammable relationship that it goes from we're getting along to immediately defenses go up both sides are incredibly sensitive that the other side is going to rip them off and they're very defensive over their client and I agents blow up more deals than they help because of their egos they can't handle it and I notice what you're saying would work wonders when when we would come back and say hey we need a 25 000 credit because of the stuff in the inspection report we don't really need a twenty five thousand dollar credit okay I want to get that from my client they would immediately jump in and say no I'm not gonna do it end of story we're not even gonna talk which usually means they don't know how to sort of navigate the conversation and if I said something like well this is the deal take it or leave it I'm almost pushing them towards divorce they're gonna say leave it if I would say you think we're over here trying to rip your client off and you don't want to go back and look like a butt head and say you got out negotiated I can understand that what would need to be different so that you didn't think I was trying to rip you off you could tell I was trying to save the deal it started the conversation where almost every time they'd come back and say well it's not going to cost 25 000 to do it you're probably right we could probably find a person do it for 18 000 maybe 15 000. this is about the time that it's going to take to do it and the fact they could find another house it doesn't need any of this work that's why we need to do it now the question is is it make more sense for your seller to sell to us three weeks into the escrow or do you think you're going to get more money if you go put your house back on the market find another buyer interest rates have gone up it's a little bit trickier we're having a conversation where they're actually starting to see where we're coming from and I can actually say things like what would what could we change about this so that it felt like it was better for the your client but it never happened if I didn't start off with exactly what you said you think I'm trying to rip you off right or sometimes they'd Google me and they'd see I'm like a big shot and they'd get more defensive oh this guy thinks he's gonna come push us around right and I'd say something like hey man I actually would rather not put a lot of time into this I'm trying to get this thing solved as quick as possible I know it looks like we're trying to rip you off what do we need to do here immediately the whole story would change um where did you first learn that like did you have an experience where that moment clicked similar for you like it did for me when I was negotiating with other agents well I think you know uh it's an accumulation and it probably was for you I mean you're seeing bits and pieces here you struggle against problems I mean I first started seeing it when I was volunteering on a suicide hotline and I was saying how just the the act of understanding and articulating the understanding where the other side was coming from was rapidly putting people in different decision-making modes I mean regardless what you're talking about whether you're on a suicide hotline whether you're on a sales call whether you're in a negotiations is about three phases and you know how quickly can we move through the three phases which is establish a relationship boil down a problem make a decision on a hotline we call you know the last part challenge call it act sales um you call it you know what you call to action they're gonna are they going to buy they're going to close in negotiations have we got ourselves to a point where we're going to make a deal it's kind of three phases and as you struggle through the phases when you start seeing somebody else uh accelerate because they eliminated friction like you don't always accelerate by going faster sometimes you accelerate by eliminating emotional friction maybe that's your tone of voice maybe you found you could get to your point quicker you want to say look what do we got to do to fix this you could that's a great one question but somewhere along the line either you felt like saying I'm sure it looks like we're trying to rip you off what do we got to do to fix this and bang they went right into problem solving because you deactivated with that first piece of empathy now either you saw somebody do that or just out of desperation you just decided on your own to just try it one day and anyone like holy cow that worked so I think we have these moments of insight that come as a result of an accumulation of experience and demonstration in front of us I'm curious if you agree with this I've sort of developed a new perspective on the concept of Truth mainly after listening to the different news Medias that can take the same story and describe it so radically differently that there almost isn't like no human being knows the truth they have a perspective of what we call truth you can't handle the truth yeah that's well a lot of the time that limits our perspective of it because if it hurts us emotionally we don't want to see it that literally does like our heart dictates what our head can see so you take an issue that happens in the news and uh in the world and the news reports on it and this side shows you this element of it and this side shows you this element and we're arguing because what we're looking at looks very different from different sides but the problem isn't that one side is necessarily lying it's that they're only focusing on the element of the issue that emotionally they agree with right that they can handle they don't want to look at the part that they can't handle the truth or in Psychology we call this confirmation bias right this part supports what they believe this part causes cognitive dissonance I don't like how that feels and when that clicked it I was able to say to somebody like you're right that's true that does make sense to me I can see that without conceding that I was wrong okay because I what I'm looking at is just as valid as what you're looking at but they're different is that a is that a piece that has to sort of play into what you're describing so that people can use the strategies you're describing here yeah you know how does it how does it affect somebody emotionally how does it affect their identity how does it affect their perception of gain or loss what are the comparisons you know especially in real estate I mean good Lord you know somebody three-bedroom house determined to get the price of a four bedroom house because his brother-in-law sold a four bedroom house for the same amount of money hates his brother I mean you know that's just it's all kind of crazy stuff out there like that so yeah you know what's going on in somebody's head and most people don't even know what they're being held back by which is the great thing about as you pointed out before when you're articulating somebody else's point of view people are held back by principally two things stuff that they're hiding emotional issues they're hiding or emotional issues they've become blind to like they're experiencing an emotion but they're blind to it like you people get clarity of thought when you simply just point this stuff out it looks like you know it looks like you've you feel like I'm I'm being greedy here and that Clarity will help them level out and sees things uh with less negative bias so Chris that was another thing that I've recently sort of come to terms with I've wrestled with this for a while and I finally just submitted and Tapped Out people's feelings dictate what their brain thinks I we all see ourselves as logical rational creatures but it's very difficult to get a person to see your point of view if it emotionally hurts or it doesn't feel good or it creates anger it's like our emotions are the rudder of the ship and we're we think we're steering it and we're really not was there an element of that in human personality that you came to grips it because you're dealing with people in a hostage situation the tensions are so high you're almost having to acknowledge that person's emotional reality for 99 of the country you're not going to get them to understand your point of view you're not going to go to somebody there and say look man I've been working for 16 hours I really need something to eat in the shower I don't want to listen to your right now can we just cut to the chase like that's not an option when you're in that scenario right do you agree that like you got to start with the heart and the feelings before you can get to the Head a thousand percent I mean um emotion drives decision uh just does uh our emotions there's some data there's a TED Talk that I like to quote on a regular basis um Sean Acker uh the Happiness Advantage I think is the name of the Ted Talk he says you're 31 smarter in a positive frame of mind Harvard psychologists I'm satisfied that that's a decent source what is so what does that mean it means you're 31 dumber when you're in a bad mood so like you can't make good decisions when you're angry or unhappy because you're Dumber you just you're by definition if you're going to buy that stat your 31 smarter in a positive frame of mind and there's a fair amount of other separate data out there that supports that when you're in a bad mood you're you are angry or disappointed or frustrated or concerned you're by definition Dumber yeah it's the best best to simmer down before you you make the the multi hundred thousand dollar Investments probably um so Chris I know David kind of alluded to this earlier with kind of this whole no thing right I know that you're a believer of starting with no or with a calibrated question I want to understand why that is if you're going into a deal my my thought here is you just sort of want to know how someone reacts but what is the intention with starting with a calibrated question whenever you're going into like a real estate negotiation well um human beings have conditioned themselves since they were old enough to make sentences that when they say the word no it makes them feel safe and protected and it doesn't it you know it doesn't even matter what they're saying though too they just like I've heard people tell me about their counterparts and they say you know what they're in no mode no matter what we say they say no and my answer has been we'll change your questions like you can't be that simple unfortunately it is and if you just go from do you agree do you disagree to do you agree people change is this is this a good idea is this a bad idea are you in favor of are you against is it a ridiculous idea like that tiny little change there's something about saying no that makes people feel safe automatically right off the bat and I haven't seen a scenario yet on Earth whether that wasn't the case um and even The Stereotype cultures the cultures that are stereotyped for they never say no are the Arabs and the Asians and they're human beings and I say to them all the time are you against this proposition no I'm not against that proposition I mean I get them to say no all the time because they're human beings human beings globally feel safer when they say no so the ridiculous answer is change your questions so that you get what you want via no instead of yes it's a little bit a little bit mind-melting right there honestly I'm like it's like it's not it's like this reverse like okay now I'm gonna be like all right every question I ever write I'm gonna write it out and flip flip the script a little bit so that makes sense so you effectively they just because they feel safer when you when you kind of phrase it this way now it sort of sets the floor to actually start having the conversation towards that shared end goal well if they feel safer then they feel less anxiety or less concerned because as soon as I start trying to get you to say yes you start getting concerned about where I'm going with that you know would you like to make more money all right that feels like a trap you know and and traps so many traps have been laid with yes that then it's it's a stimulus response you're ever we're Pavlov's dog we've been trapped by yes every time somebody tries to get us to say yes it's a trap so the negative emotions I was talking about before people feel trapped they feel like they're being led into a trap concern is a negative emotion they're automatically getting Dumber if they say no and they don't feel trapped then they're not going to be getting Dumber in the moment they're going to be more likely to hear you out they're going to be more likely to consider the options they're going to be more likely to think of the next steps it's the same Neuroscience rule let me keep you at a negative thought the chances that we can collaborate effectively are much higher because neither one of us are getting Dumber so for example Chris rather than saying would you like to make money it might be safer to say would you like to hear about how I'll protect you from losing money it's a form of a note or is that still they're saying yes I want to hear about it and so that would count as a as a not a no but well you're close I mean what you hit on the second part which is a really strong one is loss avoidance and I don't know the source of the stat but somebody told me uh several years ago that 70 percent of buy decisions are made to avoid loss versus accomplished gains I mean people are more likely to take a risk to avoid a loss than they are to take a risk to accomplish a game in the second part of that statement was about loss avoidance which is people want to know people want to hear how to protect themselves now this is particularly important in the beginning of a relationship where there isn't trust established right this doesn't mean you have to communicate this way for the entire time you know somebody no you don't I mean uh on my team you know we use the Black Swan method with each other all the time and we ask each other no we call that a no oriented question this is a ridiculous idea are you against we we do that stuff all the time but yeah occasionally I say you know if I got that right to somebody on my team because we our trust factor is so high that we don't worry about the ask questions automatically now if somebody calls me on a phone on my team who I trust and ask me a question where the answer is yes right off the bat immediately I'm gonna go all right where's this going yeah you're trying to get ahead of where they're at and you're not like you said the the primary emotional condition of a human being is defensive it's I gotta stay alive your brain's constantly filtering information to describe to you how's this going to hurt you how's this going to kill you how's this going to waste your time how's this going to take your resources so when you're trying to figure out where it's going it's not like oh this is so exciting what's Santa going to bring me for Christmas this year it's how's this person going to hurt me what are they trying to take from me what are they trying to get me to lull my defenses down and when you're talking to somebody and they're in that state of where's this going like I've noticed that they're always trying to like when you're trying to lead someone down that path and you're building a case with logic and they don't trust you there it feels like they're dragging their feet at every single turn and what you're saying is don't try to drag them along go right back to where they're at acknowledge what they're feeling put it out on the table let them make sure that that feels heard before you you move forward yeah yeah and if you gotta if you gotta move somebody down a path make sure that you you stop and you know they gotta they get the freedom to stop the process whenever they want is when people think the process is out of control and this is you know this this momentum is just unstoppable that's when they really stop listening so you know there are times we got to share points with the other side doing small doses this is all incredibly interesting really honestly hearing it I feel like both of you all are like same wavelength of a year and I'm over here just thinking about all the negotiations and the offers that have gone wrong I called David like two weeks ago and I was like all right man here's what they said they said this and that what do you think should I go and he's like no no and really David's advice is always like very common like this is how you have to approach it this is probably how they're feeling if you can accept that and really like lean into that they'll be a lot less defensive and so I I actually feel actually David I never gave you the follow-up on this because there were tensions right I came in with a lower offer they weren't happy about it and they kind of countered with a not my favorite offer either but then after having our conversation I was like well you know what I can totally see that they were probably offended with my offer what if we just waited we did this and this and this and then now we actually are in a completely new negotiation outside of what that original offer was to go inside seller financing and trying to lock up yeah completely reset it all and honestly where a lot of it started to to accelerate a lot is I stopped wanting to be such buddy buddy with the realtor right because it's like you're always both parties are scheming with their realtor on how they can you know combat each other but I was just like I told my realtor like look I think your mission is to go meet the other realtor where they're at you know chat with them like out want y'all to really connect more than us because I feel like that right now the tensions are so high that y'all are trying to defend your clients and what I really want is hey we're buds how can we make this deal work so yeah now it's very possible that I'm gonna get a I'm I'm hoping I don't want to say it too out loud just because I don't want to jinx it but I'm hoping to get a 1.8 million dollar property under contract with with very little to no money down as a seller finance deal and it's all because it's like we kind of rethought how we wanted to approach the negotiation nice yeah good stuff yeah give people a chance to work it out with you right yeah it's not natural to think that way you tend to think like it's just a number is it yes or no are you accepting my offer or not but no one makes decisions if they think that he's trying to rip them off just out of principle they'll knee-jerk response will be no versus if it's being received from a different lens you know one of the last things I want to ask you Chris I wrote a book for Bigger Pockets for real estate agents it's called skill and one of the concepts in the book is what I call Triangle Theory so the idea behind it this is something we teach all of our agents is I never want to be in conflict with the person I'm talking to whether that's my own client it's the other agent when we have a disagreement let's say you believe your house is worth 700 000 I believe it's worth six hundred thousand I may use Superior experience numbers data to beat you down and get you to agree to list your house at 600 but if I win that battle I will lose the war because there will be resentment our relationship is hurt you're looking for any little mistake that you think I make so you can get me right back because I left you with your like your defenses up so what what we teach or what I teach is create a third party or concept or anything that is the actual enemy align yourself with the person you're talking with against that enemy so in this case I would bring a list of of homes that have sold in the neighborhood and a list of Market data and I'd say look I agree that your house is worth seven hundred thousand dollars I'd love to sell it for that price but here's what the data says I need you to show me a house on this list that's seven hundred thousand dollars that takes into effect a b or c the stupid Market is just turned against us here and it's screwing us and we gotta work together to overcome what's happened in the the market now you're not mad at me you're mad at this concept right and I'll do the same thing when I'm talking to my agent or I'm talking sorry a client I'll make the agent the person that we're aligned against right sometimes I'll go to the buyer's agent when I'm the listing agent and I'll be like hey man I don't know what to tell you like my seller's stubborn he doesn't want to bend at all can you give me something so he feels like he's not just like take get in the shaft right now what if you guys came back and phrase it this way and then when I go talk to my client I'm doing the same thing there like yeah this this seller he doesn't want to budge at all we got to figure out some way to get him to understand why your offer is good is is there any uh similarities with the stuff you're teaching to that concept or is that completely unrelated to the stuff in your books well I like the idea of keeping yourself out of a position of being in conflict with who your partners are and one thing that I've always believed is the adversaries the situation like anybody that you're talking to you guys are both faced with different aspects of the same problem you're trying to collaboratively problem solve so the critical thing about that that I love is the emotional intelligence of not being in conflict with the person that you're talking to is there any is there a different tactical approach that you might advise for real estate agents to take that differs from what I call Triangle Theory well I you know I like the idea of keeping it when when you talked about the market like hear the listings here's a market here's the issue like the market is always going to be which is the situation that that's always going to be the issue now I'm uh depending upon how how much you shift around us against MDS against them stuff is very powerful you know I'd have to think about that some more to uh think through where I was coming from on being sort of flexible and fungible uh I can't think of the proper term in you know who the adversary is I like it I like it with the adversary remaining the situation that makes a lot of sense as opposed to the person that that you are trying to get on your side you it's very important that we that like in Rob's situation he needed his realtor to go to the other realtor form an alliance and make Rob the problem or the seller the problem so the two of them could have some kind of uh camaraderie there and then when they communicated with their respective clients it was coming as this isn't the enemy that we have to go take down this is a problem that we can solve right the seller thinks this house I think that in Rob's situation the guy wanted around 2 million and Rob offered 1.4 and the guy came back at 1.8 so the two million guy felt insulted that Rob offered 1.4 Rob felt insulted that he only brought it down to 1.8 when the house has been on the market for six months or something it's not worth that much money and they're both viewing that scenario from like screw this guy like they basically needed to just get out of that frame of mind and like you're saying rob you reset it so now you're going forward I would just encourage everybody who's in the real estate space to maybe get honest with themselves that your emotions play a very big role in the decisions you make I thought Chris that was fantastic statistic that you are 31 dumber when you're in a bad mood and it makes sense because if you're if you're holding your cards to your chest and you're all tight and you're like No One's Gonna Take what I have you get like you were in law enforcement you know what it's like when there's a threat you get tunnel vision you can't see anything but that threat you don't know what's happening outside there could be very easy I mean how many times did you see people in a foot pursuit running all over the place and then the suspect would make a big circle and come and get in their car take out Drive is the most humiliating thing that ever happened and when when you're on the outside looking in you're like oh that's that's exactly what's gonna happen right like if you if you get super afraid what we say is zoom out like when you zoom in on what's concerning you you get dumb you can't see the big picture you got to zoom out to be able to see the whole thing is there any last pieces of advice you can give before we let you get out of here for people that want to become better negotiators want to experience tactical empathy they want to start this journey of understanding because how to be better communicators where they can start the first impression is the second most important impression the last impression is the most important impression you know in interactions particularly is something's at stake when there's conflict the last impression people usually leave are cheap shots you know I would remind you you know uh you can't sell this house uh you can leave it on the market I mean the last impression is a lasting impression you really put a lot of great um encouragement for further conversations to make sure the end all your interactions positively and whatever you said to try to open a conversation positively probably Bears repeating at the end just to make sure that the Lasting Impression is a positive one so your new book can you tell us what it's called where people can find it and where they can find out more about you the new book is the full fee agent like the number of real estate agents that don't get full free just because they don't ask so how do you ask how do you set that out from the very beginning how do you stick to it in a way that gains a client's Trust like literally we've had agents that have adopted this whole methodology work half as much and make the same amount of money because what a lot of it is in being a full fee agent is not wasting your time on long drawn ideas that you don't make any money on because if you're a full fee agent you have a tendency to close and you have a tendency to repeat with clients it's going to be up on Amazon uh as of right now November the 15th is a target release date best way to know for sure on how to get a hold of it is to subscribe to the Black Swan newsletter because we'll be putting the announcement on in the coming weeks go to the website blackswoneltd.com upper right hand side of the home page click for the newsletter slash blog look through our articles and also sign up for the weekly announcement uh new new article on negotiation comes out every Tuesday morning information about how to buy the book will be coming out in the newsletter as well Black Swan ltd.com is that website the best way for people to follow or get in touch with you it is yeah b l a c k s w a n ltd.com what's LTD stand for limited it's a legal term nice great okay I like that Rob any any last questions before we let Chris get out of here and get back to his uh conference in Montreal no no I just have one last question or request rather for the audience and it's if you've enjoyed today's episode and you like hearing from us and you you want our content to get pushed up in the podcast algorithms then I ask that you leave us a review on the Apple podcast website or whatever podcast streaming platform that you use Chris want to thank you personally really appreciate you being here I know this is probably not your first option of how to spend your time while you're on the road traveling I know we also had to reschedule because I was out of town so I want to personally thank you for being flexible with that and giving our audience a lot of your time your attention in your wisdom when it came at An Inconvenient moment for you so thank you you're a class act any last words before we let you get out of here no thanks for having me on I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation all right thanks a lot Chris this is David Green for Rob just listening and wonder ABA solo signing up [Music]

Channel: BiggerPockets

Views: 19,856

Keywords: chris voss, negotiation, negotiation tactics, negotiating, never split the difference, never split the difference chris voss, chris voss never split the difference, real estate agent, realtor, new realtor, new real estate agent, tactical empathy, black swan group, real estate negotiation, real estate negotiation tips, real estate investing, housing market, invest in real estate, business negotiation, real estate, investing, tips for real estate agents, biggerpockets, podcast

Id: a1QPepBhl_Q

Length: 61min 19sec (3679 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2022