(upbeat music) - So yeah. You've now moved into the business world where you're working with entrepreneurs. How have you found the
ability to negotiate? - Well hostage negotiators
really kind of dealt with two types of people on a regular basis, people that are kind of
upset or concerned or worried or felt like they had a lot on the line, or real mercenary types. - Mm-hm. - It's what entrepreneurs deal with. Entrepreneurs are dealing
with real mercenary types. You know, an entrepreneur, hopefully your small company
will get that big contract, or the big contract with that big company. But the representatives
from the big company are mercenaries. - Absolutely. They will screw you into the ground. - They will screw you into the ground. And the crazy thing that it
took me a while to catch up on after I left the FBI, the person that will
screw you into the ground is the exact profile of an international
kidnapper's negotiator. - Really? - Exactly, same. They'll push you around, they pick on you, they're harsh, they can be threatening, they can be demanding, or in a really nice way they can ask you for really bad things. - And you know what? A lot of the people tuning in
can absolutely relate to that because in the UK especially, some of these really big corporations, especially the construction
companies and everything, that's exactly what they do. And in fact there's a company that's just gone bankrupt in the UK-- - Mm-hm.
- They're called Carillion. They were the UK's largest
construction company and actually do you know what? Their behavior, they just used to take the little man and they used to just take
advantage of the entrepreneur. - Yep. - And I think the entrepreneur just didn't know how to deal with it. They just felt totally powerless. And I think that--
- Yeah, absolutely. You feel powerless because the other half of the people the entrepreneur is dealing with are not trying to screw him. So you try to be collaborative with someone and you're
trying to help 'em. An entrepreneur wants to help people. If you become an entrepreneur,
if you start a business, you want to create a business that is driven by your passion-- - Absolutely. - That literally you have a vision to help make the world a better place. I'm gonna change the world. I'm gonna bring in this product. I'm gonna help people. And so half the people you deal with, they're not trying to screw you and you work collaboratively with them and you can make great deals. You take that exact same vulnerability to the guys trying to screw you-- - Mm. - And he's gonna beat you up, he's gonna pound you into the ground. So those were the two types of people that as a hostage negotiator we dealt with and had to deal with daily. - So you take an entrepreneur, you know the two situations
they're dealing with, how do you help them? - Well, what we like to
call two millimeter tweaks. - Okay. - We put in the two millimeter changes, the two millimeter slight adjustments. And a lot of them are, none of the adjustments were big, most are very counterintuitive. - Mm-hm. - Or most are, like you have an experience that tells you that it won't work when in fact you just
weren't doing it right. A great one is if there's a negative
dynamic between two people, if I'm doing business with you, and I sense a negativity from you, then my experience is if I say, look, I don't want you to
feel negative about this, it's gonna make you mad. - Mm. - And it's gonna backfire. I don't want you to think
I'm pushing you around. Any negative you wanna deny, your emotional intelligence,
your gut instinct is appropriately picking up
there's a negative there. You wanna say don't feel that way 'cause it's not true. You do that and it didn't work or it either fell on deaf
ears or made things worse. So the two millimeter change,
the hostage negotiator, don't deny it, but observe it. - Mm.
- 'Cause empathy, again, is understanding the other side's side without agreeing or disagreeing. So in theory that sounds okay but in practicality the other
guy thinks I'm a bad guy. Or if you think I'm pushing you around you don't wanna call it out in a soft way. You wanna say either don't
do that, don't think that, or stop doing it. But the hostage negotiator's
way is just to observe it. You know, it seems like you
think I'm picking on you. Seems like you think
I'm pushing you around. Or again, flip side, bully's threatening. What do you say to a threatening bully? One of our CEOs that we coach
who loves this, loves it, and he's a super quiet guy. You don't gotta be loud,
annoying, obnoxious, the loudest guy in the room
to be the best negotiator. Usually the quietest guys
are the most dangerous guys. This guy's a quiet dude. He gets invited in to dinner with the biggest player in his industry, the biggest bully. - Right. - And he thinks it's a
get-to-know-you dinner. The bully's there to
pound him into a deal. Completely catching him off guard. And there not that long and the bully from the
other side literally says "Look you guys gotta understand, "if you guys don't sign these contracts, "make these agreements, "there's gonna be
consequences in the industry." So he just goes real quietly, "Sounds like you're "threatening me?" And the guy goes "No, no, no, "not threatening you at all. "Not at all, don't take it that way. "But, you know, I want you to understand, "you know, things are gonna be bad "if you don't sign." And he goes "Sounds like you're gonna
make bad things happen to us?" "No, no, no, no, no." So he fed it back to him four times and the bully backed off completely. Now the brand new CEO happened to have his secretary with him, she'd been in that
position for a long time. - Uh-huh. - So she'd seen that
bully screw people down, all of his predecessors and have them give in or
get mad or any sort of, and she's shocked that in
less than a minute and a 1/2 he's got the guy completely settled down. But it's a very counterintuitive approach. - Mm. Yeah, most people would
just attack, capitulate, and just fall apart. I mean that's-- - So many different bad choices. - Yeah. - But all he did was,
you know, we taught him identification is not agreement,
it's not disagreement, deference is power. Say things in a very, you'd be shocked what you can
get away with with deference. So in a very deferential way, the guy, he is in fact being threatened, he could say "Sounds like
you're threatening me!" Or "Are you threatening me?" So just with deference he
went like "Sounds like", you know, kind of innocently too, innocence, there's great
power in the delivery. "Sounds like you're threatening me?" And the guy had to do it four times, but the fourth time, maybe
a minute, it's all gone. - Yeah, normally the bullies
are used to somebody trying to come at them and they've got all the power when you start, yeah. - They want one or two things. They want you to fight back
'cause they like a good fight, or they want you to turn and run 'cause as a predator, they
like the prey to run from them. - Mm.
- They love that. And this is really kind
of not being rattled, it's just kind of being curious. You know, being fearless
enough to be deferential. You know, the power in deference
is through the roof. You got to be fearless to be deferential. Most people it's a very
counterintuitive thing. I don't wanna look weak. Well that means you're not fearless, you're very fearful, you're fearful of looking weak. You're so confident in your strength. I can't remember, I think I saw a quote one time that was attributed to Indira Gandhi who was
prime minister of India at one point in time? And she said "Don't be so humble,
you're not that great." (laughing)
- Brilliant. - But yes, you know, the people on their A+ game are quiet, they're calm, even deferential. There's a um... One of the greatest trial
attorneys in Los Angeles, brilliant trial attorney. And me when I think of trial attorney, I think of an attack dog. - Yeah. - Somebody you know is gonna "Hey, wouldn't you admit!" I get him to talk to my class and he walks in and he says "Secret to negotiation is
being nice and gentle." 'Cause he knows, first of all you look fearless, you look like nothing rattles you, and the bully will drop their guard. And you want the bully to drop his guard. And that's the only way to get the bully to drop their guard. - Absolutely. So your book. And entrepreneurs watching this, they're thinking okay, how is the book gonna help them? - Right. As an easy read I tell a lot of people, read the first five pages. Don't read after five pages if you like, promise me you'll read
the first five pages. Because in the first five pages there's a very counterintuitive
way of defending yourself - Mm-hm.
- That's really digestible. Like you know, you see how it works, you know what I want you to do. You don't have to be Elon Musk. You don't have to be the most, Stephen Hawking, you don't have to be the most
brilliant man on the planet, or woman, to understand what I'm
trying to get you to do. It's counterintuitive,
some of it will scare you. But it's very digestible and all you have to do
is be willing to try 'cause it's simple to learn. It's not complicated. It's scary. - Yeah. - Counterintuitive stuff will scare you, but that doesn't mean
that you don't understand the methods I'm trying to get across. - Well they need to
practice it really though. That's the thing. It's actually, when you're
exposed to something new, yeah, it is scary. - Yeah.
- But the reality if you're gonna want to, sort of, be successful and actually
be a great negotiator, guess what you're gonna have to do? Practice. - You gotta take it for a road test right? - Absolutely. - Gotta take it for a test drive. - Well, Elizabeth earlier
in her keynote speech today, she did say "Well
practice makes permanent." - Ah, yeah. - And that's an absolutely great quote. - That's a great quote. Very good. And that's exactly what happens because you build the neuro synapses. You build that unconscious
competence from practicing. - So what would be the top tips you would give to entrepreneurs? They're tuning in. What would you say to them? What are your top tips about negotiation? - Um. With just a little bit more
time upfront in the negotiations makes implementation far easier. We like to say yes is
nothing without a how. People love yes. Yes doesn't do you any good. - Mm. - How is where money is made. How is in the implementation,
how is in the profits. And, you know, the other tip is there's a significant number of people you're doing business with that are only gonna waste your time. You know, entrepreneur's
desperate for the first deal, or they're living deal to deal and the idea of saying
like no, push people away. Well, what ends up happening is you get a lot of people wasting your time. If you can eliminate the
people wasting your time, then, you know, they say
air rushes into a vacuum, the people that won't waste your time are gonna appear in front of you. - Absolutely.
- Or I'm no longer marketing to
the guy who's not gonna buy, soon as I put my efforts someplace else, the person who is gonna
buy, I'm gonna find him. So, get rid of bad deals, bad
customers, bad prospects first. We actually call that
proof of life of the deal. - Okay. - Find out, you know, 'cause
as a hostage negotiator if they haven't got my victim on it, well why would I want
to negotiate with them? And that happens a lot in a hostage, in international kidnapping, fake groups will call the family
claiming to have the person trying to get a quick payment, and sometimes get it. They never had the person. - Yeah. - No proof of life. - And it's the same thing
with business really. - Exactly right. - And actually do you know
what's quite interesting, one thing I've picked up today
is a lot people go out there and they get all the best
sales training in the world, but actually that still
doesn't get the results because they're still not
asking the right questions. As you say, they don't find
the proof of life for the deal. - Proof of life for the deal. Yeah, so which means be
willing to understand that the, you gotta get proof of life from the person that
you're talking to first. - Yeah. - I'll give you one of
our insider's tricks. Early on in the deal you
need to say to somebody, why me? You know, why would you
ever do business with me? There's all sorts of vendors out there, there's a lot of people that deliver, you've got great relationships already, why me? Now what you need to know is you already know why you, but you don't know the
parts of the why for you that fit to them. - Yeah. - So what they will do is a value proposition if you will, that will trigger them into telling you which part of your value proposition is actually valuable to them. - Mm. - Or if they don't respond, you're the fool in the game. - Yeah. - They're trying to get
information from you. They never plan on
doing business with you, but they want as much
information from you as possible. - In the UK we call it the yardstick. - Yeah.
- When they'll get you to come out. They'll squeeze you for information and then use that information to then trade with other people, batter down their price. - Exactly right. - Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah. And so that probably, chasing a deal that will never happen is... hurts entrepreneurs
more than anything else. - It happens all the time. It's day-in day-out for many of them. - Yeah. And so we coach people how
to get rid of that stuff, clear the way. So you can find the people that do wanna do business with you. 'Cause air rushes into a vacuum. You're gonna find those people. - And again, same thing. I mean whether you're
dealing in a sales scenario, whether you're dealing with teams as well, with your own team, this stuff really does help doesn't it? - Yeah. Yeah. - Creates good, positive,
healthy relationships. - Yep. - And probably allows you to
become that stronger leader within your organization.
- Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah it does. - So, I mean there's a lot of
great learnings to be had here and for those of you that
are on today's episode, I would highly recommend you go out there, and your book's available
on audio as well? - Yep. - So you can either get
it in the book format or the audio format. Start looking at negotiation 'cause the reality is
sales training is crucial, but like negotiation, well,
that's part of any process whether it's sales,
whether it's leadership. If you can negotiate, you're 3/4 of the way there. Well Chris, you know
what, thank you so much for joining us today. - My pleasure. - If there's anything
that you related today that you want more information on, you want to dig a bit deeper, head over to boolkah.com
and get in contact. We've got Chris's details on file if you want to get a hold
of Chris, let us know. We'll introduce you. And again, once again,
thank you for coming in. - Pleasure is mine. - And remember failing to learn is learning to fail. (inspirational music)
