The Guided Discovery Process of Negotiation | Chris Voss w/ John Barrows

I am very honored to introduce our guest today who shouldn't really need an introduction to my audience because I talked about him a lot but I'd like to introduce everybody to Chris Voss the founder of the Black Swan group and author of one of the best negotiation books on the planet never split the difference Chris how's it going today thanks Jenn it's going really well thanks for having me on I really appreciate you taking the time here and one things I want to kind of start with was Black Swan that the whole concept itself could you and how it relates to negotiation could you get the audience here on the concept of Black Swan and and kind of white swans versus nobody ever thought there was and how it relates to negotiations yeah well you know the idea on two levels little things that make a big difference the impact the highly improbable stuff that would change things in ways that no one ever expected you to change so the negotiation techniques are counterintuitive really such as you know not even balling with the word yes I mean how do you do that and have a massive impact on how effective your negotiator and then also the idea that the tiny little pieces of information that'll make all the difference in the world that the other side is holding on till you just get it out of them you know that that's so it's on two levels a dual metaphor if you will like it and so the idea is like you know and I think the original thing of Black Swan was nobody ever everybody always assumed swans were white right and so there was that perception and then all of a sudden somebody saw Black Swan it was like holy like what's that all about and it came out of nowhere and it reshaped people's mind says so is it our goal to try to uncover those black swans throughout the negotiations yeah absolutely and and and then does this accept that they're there I mean when we're training people in negotiation if you don't if you can't write down something new that you learned in the interaction that surprised you didn't do a good job all right cool so so with that what's what's the different what do you see is the major differences between hostage negotiations that you've obviously been a part of and business negotiations what are the I mean outside the the potential of death but what are what do you see is the big differences between hostage and business negotiations hostage negotiations are generally calmer oh really yeah I get to tell you something you know in hostage negotiation you know since we learned we didn't know his emotional intelligence but we learned how to dial into people faster with some neuroscience tools emotional intelligence tools they really tend to be they tend to be calmer I mean business people have far more stories of people screaming at him yelling and I'm storming out of the room trying to destroy negotiations then any of the hostage negotiators I ever worked with did and it's just just crazy if you think about it but if if you the idea is to use really tactical emotional intelligence from the beginning that it makes sense that it that ours are calmer and and probably more effective overall and is it because I my assumption here on on houses is that they might start really emotional but then I mean they might start really aggressive but then through some tactical stuff you can kind of calm down and come to an agreement whereas business do they do they keep the emotions throughout or do they keep the hostility throughout well people get mad when they don't when they're not heard I mean it seems like ridiculously obvious but very few business people go into a negotiation to hear the other side out because they're so determined to be heard I got a case I gotta make I got a value proposition I got a give I got an argument I have to make I have to explain to them what my position is and you know the Stephen Covey advice from from way back seek first to understand and be understood this is a tactical application of that you know seek first to demonstrate understanding in order to be understood I get my point across much quicker I can get it into your brain if I know that the biggest obstacle to you here in my case is you have to be heard out first I mean just it's it's so stupid that it's so true but you know we'll progress faster by applying these ideas and business negotiations you know we tell people we accelerate their deal-making ability we save a massive amounts of time and that that's how I mean it's a counterintuitive approach so why do you think that is why do you think we've been wired in business to be so I guess opinionated or forceful with our mentality of why we are so valuable and why you should do business with us is there something that is that we've done as organizations from a training standpoint or an onboarding standpoint that has wired us to be that way I think there's a couple things out there that have contributed to the problem you know this whole nonsense about the yes momentum or momentum selling where you know yeses are micro agreements and you get a bunch of micro agreements on the other side and they actually call them tie downs yeah they and they can't get away so it's this idea that you're gonna tie the other side down with a series of yes oriented questions which is basically you trying to make your case in some fashion as if the other side doesn't know what you're doing right I mean that that's so stupid and it's so commonplace that's part of it and then for whatever reason and I'm talking to an executive probably about two or three years ago and he said yeah I went to this negotiation training and they said make sure the other side other side understands your position that's your you know make sure they understand your position I thought think about impracticality if that's your goal then it's two sides talking at each other and trying to make sure the other side gets their position and which then means nobody's going to get the other side's position because you're so determined to be understood first instead of bit of understanding and I think that's that's probably a little contributor to it and so does that because because I've always been taught that win-win right you want that win-win so I know the bunch of yeses know and come back to that but then the mentality of going in win/win you talked about how we we need to understand and to me in business negotiations the goal is win-win but you're saying the mentality of that is bad could you walk me through why the mentality of walking into a negotiations with a win-win mentality is a bad thing yeah well first of all if you got a win-win mentality praat you're vulnerable to being taken advantage of yeah and so and since and since you are vulnerable they're nothing to go shooters out there that they're going to drop those words win-win on you real early on to see if you bite and and they're there the deal there the throat cutters I mean consistently when we come into companies we'll be doing a training session and some exact it's not in the training session with the company will stop me in a lunch room and you'll say I hate you guys a badmouth and win-win and I get to taste them but I make deals like that all the time and I say well you know the reality is you know the person offers to meet you in the middle is often a poor judge of distance and and they kind of smile and they go yeah you know I say win-win but I always anchor really high so I could end up where I want yeah and so these guys are out there I mean these guys know that they're getting you and and and anytime that somebody approaches us if the words win-win come out of their mouth in the first three minutes I know they're trying to cut my throat I know they they want me to do it for nothing else they are you know you're gonna get so much exposure there's so much opportunity if you if you come into business with I mean that's a con job let's try and take me hostage to the futures what that is I mean you speaking a lot more stuff than I do but a lot of these conferences allows me to come and speak for free at this point oh no we're gonna get you in front of thousand people and they're all gonna do business with you and all that other stuff and I'm just like yeah I know I've heard it and and they're trying to get something for free at the end of the day but isn't it a good mentality to have I mean I understand the actuality of if I were to say to you there's some red flags absolutely just like the word fair you talk about a lot right right there there's the there's the tactical when somebody says it but isn't it the right mentality you have to try to walk away because if somebody wins and somebody live and this is where I kind of get to the difference between hostage negotiations and business negotiations negotiations they're really I mean you again you know more than me there's it doesn't seem like there's a win-win it's like oh you don't go to jail and I get my people back like yay right so you need to make sure that those people don't die but in business when we when we sign up especially in the industry that I mostly sell into which is SAS right and we're looking for long-term contracts with clients where as customer success and all that other stuff so if we if we don't get altom utley somewhat of a win-win those renewals don't happen there's animosity and the implementation and all that other stuff so so how do you rectify that yeah well so it's a difference between the outcome and have a process felt okay um first of all it's got to be collaborative and secondly for you to be able to continue to do business with me at all you have to be better off as a result of the deal because even if you felt good about it which you should you know I don't want you to feel like you lost right so I don't want you to feel like you lost I want you to feel like you want and I need you to be better off simultaneously so but most people like I've run into so many people that tell me about this you know I you know I let me tell you about this negotiation I had the other side over barrel well if you're describing a negotiation like that that means that they felt like they lost the you hammered them and you made sure they knew you hammered yeah so you you cut your own throat because they never want to do business with you again so again it's it's it's the mentality and focusing on the outcome and not being taken hostage to a couple of ideas you know first of all I don't want to be taken hostage to yes in any way shape or form I don't want to be taken hostage to the future where you're you're painting this rosy picture for me in the future it's gonna happen and I also don't want to be taken hostage by feeling like I can't say no you know as soon as soon as I've reconciled myself to those ideas then there's pretty chance we're gonna have a highly collaborative negotiation and you're gonna want to continue to do business with me and is that the big thing that people like what I found is especially some of the younger reps that I train you know they think of negotiations as in when the price comes up right now we're negotiating I always try to say look you were literally from the minute someone picks up the phone you're negotiating yeah right so so is that one of the bigger mistakes that people think is that they're not in a negotiations from the minute they start engaging with somebody yeah exactly the most dangerous negotiation is the one you don't know your rent and you know we call that a law of negotiation gravity you may not like it but gravity's there and you step off that building you're gonna smack the concrete one way or the other anyway when you fall and if you and if you're not aware of that then yeah by the time price comes up you've been in a negotiation for a long time you didn't even know I mean when I first started working on never split the difference the first author I spoke to a writer that I tried to engage you know we went back and forth on a process of how we were gonna get together and when this writer finally made said to me you know what what the what she wanted I just flat rejected it and no and and and stopped talking to her I mean people are startled when I stop talking to them well we've been in a negotiation for a long time she said you know I I thought we were negotiating I you know I thought you were gonna give me a counteroffer and what I didn't say because I don't have to but I like you we've been negotiating since we first started talking and you've been a pain in the neck getting to this point for the last two months and the best indicator future behavior is past behavior and you've demonstrated to me what implementation with you is gonna look like every step of the way and I don't want any part of so yeah the most you've been negotiating for a long time if you think the negotiation is kicking in now did prior it started when the phone was when the phone was picked up when the cold call was made right and so let's go back to that getting to know and and I think you know from a tactical standpoint when you're making you know I deal with again when we talked about the demographics they're probably about 75% of my audience are the SDR BTR's the ones who are making the cold calls not necessarily she ating the entire you know the the entire deal but negotiating for that next step and so you talk about the power of no and and starting a cold call for instance and saying hey did I catch you at a bad time and that no gives them that like usually it's a well no but what and that you're saying that no gives them power that no right up front gives them makes them more comfortable yeah the crazy thing is is that anytime you try to get a yes out of somebody if you asking a question whether you answer you're driving for is yes it stops them it makes him worried what am I let myself in for what's the hook how much have I committed myself what am I not saying if I say yes I mean literally once I ask my girlfriend about a shirt that I wore that she complimented me on earlier in the day and and I said so you say you like this shirt right and she's like if I say yes what am i laying myself in for she literally said that but that's you know that's what everybody thinks if I say yes what am i letting myself in for now as much anxiety as yes creates no does the opposite like it's stupid that you can simply flip the question and people feel protected and safe when they said no as a parent and when your teenage kid says dad cannot I say no I used to say no before he finished the sentence but you know I said once I said no I felt protected and I'd say right now tell me again what you wanted because I felt like I can now listen with no commitment and as stupid is changing from have you got a few minutes to talk to is now a bad time I mean you could hear people dial in and focus on you when they say that they'll hesitate for a second they'll clear their head and they'll say now it's not a bad time or no it's not a bad time to woody after the point is you want their focus and yes creates distractions and and no clear distractions is that do you see a difference between us is this a good time versus is this a bad time I never asked anybody if it's a good time ever it's a you know it's counterproductive because is this a good time well I don't know what you want to talk about I don't know how long you want to talk I don't know that I want to talk to you I mean is now a good time to talk is actually a solid four individual questions do I want to talk to you do I want to talk about what you want to talk about how long are we gonna be on the phone how do I get off of the phone you can't answer that question without having all those subsequent questions running through your mind which means you're completely distracted and that's why something as simple as it's now bad time is a really bad question let's um talk about the the preparation all right some of you talked a lot about there's a fine line between preparing for a negotiations where it sometimes you prepare too much and so there you have assumptions and verses hypothesis so I've always been taught you know walk into a negotiation with as much information as you can you understand their situation you understand they're off their options your competition all of it so that what would with that preparation you can go in and be ready for whatever they throw at you but you say a couple of times in the book or when I was reading and rereading it again that you don't sometimes less is more when it comes to preparation for a negotiation could you yeah and then let me answer that after I go back to what I said a second ago because um I think I misstated the question that I said was bad have you got a few minutes to talk is a bad question yes okay and and I think somehow I misstated a moment ago okay so now let's go forward to preparation all right so we got to look at the negotiation process as an information gathering process so you don't gather your information and then negotiate you gather some information and then dive in to confirm it there's always going to be pieces of information you can only get from the negotiation to start with those are black swans no matter how much research you do there's no way you can find out what time pressures they're really under without talking to what their take is on what you think their problems are you can't find out if there's anything about your value proposition you can't research it and find out exactly what they value most without getting into the negotiation there's there's no way you can find that you can guess but you can't confirm so a lot of people are scared to get in a scare to get caught off-guard in the negotiation you better get caught off-guard like I said if you didn't discover stuff in the in the interaction then you're actually a horrible negotiator you're not discovering anything you know like and there was one guy in sales that was applying I must have talked to him two years ago he's he's getting the second meeting 80% of the time and his job is to get on the phone get a second meeting and I said so you since you're applying our skills among which is he starts out with the question have I caught you in the middle of something he said every single time the answer is no but what's this about and that sort of a response tells you that they're completely dial-in to you which is where you want to be but I I asked him how much research is he doing on are you doing more research or less and he said oh wait less they did tell me more and I could ever find out anyway their LinkedIn profiles not gonna tell me what I need to know they're their Facebook page not gonna tell me what I really need to know I got to get it from them so any would be I guess what's what is what is too much right I mean what are some of the core things that you should prepare for I mean obviously who you're talking to what their title is and their background and those type of things but I like what you talked about as far as instead of role-playing things you you create hypotheses or you create like what's up what are all the reasons they shouldn't do business with us or something like that is that the right is that what we should prepare for you know I gotta taste something and anybody that's ever asked me if I've looked at their website the only answer they wanted out of my mouth was yes like I have not had anybody grill me on the content of the website where they went to college the anything beyond the first line of their LinkedIn profile none of that stuff you know there's this they want they're dying to tell you all that stuff I mean they're dying to tell you about it and if you spend two weeks researching and learning everything about them they still want to tell you about it you just blew two weeks I mean it's insane people are dying to tell you but I mean you're proud of that LinkedIn profile they don't want you to read about it they want to brag about it to you so minimal exposure to this information is all you need can I can I ask you some on that note specifically though is is that a byproduct of their desire to want to talk or is that a byproduct in the sales world of bad sales and let me give you an example historically before LinkedIn and before website you know but not before websites but before LinkedIn and stuff like that back when I was selling early 2000s late 99 type of thing you know it was a valid question or it was a valid statement to get in front of you and say so Chris tell me about your business right and so it would promptly well we were founded in this and we did that and and that would be their chance to tell you about their business right now I actually think that very generic phrase is very insulting thing to say because they put so much effort into telling the world about their business they that you not being prepared and understanding their business and look I'm all for arsenal contextual questions about your business but not the broad statement tell me about your business and I and I feel like we've done the the prospects of disservice and there so conditions because most sales reps are still lazy they don't do homework and so people jump right into well John let me give a little background on us and and as they're doing that I like I appreciate that but it's almost like I want to preempt that and I've had it before where I've been like look Chris I appreciate you know I take a look at your quick website I know where you were founded I know what yeah now I have some qualified I have some questions about your business but we don't you we don't have to go through the history here and it's almost like they you feel them being like oh okay wait we can have a real conversation here with a sales rep who's actually done you know like isn't gonna ask me the questions so what are your thoughts on on that where we've conditioned them to do that versus their true desire to talk about all right so it's an interesting question and and I think it's really how salespeople get off track because really me not none of your clients care as much about whether or not you know their history as to whether you know their challenges now there's no shortage of b2b surveys that say the vast majority of buyers prefer to talk to experts on the industry by definition that means they prefer to talk to people that know nothing about them an expert doesn't know you from Adam an expert understands the challenges of the industry now it might be cool that you know that I was founded in 2008 and I'm a founder CEO owner it's a family business it might be cool again to give me warm and fuzzies but if you don't know anything about my industry as soon as I find out you don't know anything about the industry not me the industry I got no time for you and I will dial somebody up on the phone who's an expert on the challenges of the industry who doesn't have any idea about any of my history so you know this idea you know relationships are great but business is more important than friendship friendship should follow from business not vice-versa I can love you as a person our kids can play softball together maybe you love coaching Little League the same way I love coach if you don't understand the challenges of my industry you're wasting my time so the what people need to research which sales people need to research our actual challenges as opposed to company histories because what I was faced with back in 2008 it's not when I'm faced with today you could give me chapter and verse about what happened when I founded my company how long I've been in existed I still have no idea whether or not you understand the challenges I'm faced with right now so so let's kind of talk about that as far as challenges versus opportunities if you will I mean loss aversion is huge okay and and it's what is a three or four attacks let me stop you right there please it's not huge it's the single driving decision factor it is the biggest factor in decision-making it outweighs everything else and nothing else is close the concept here is you'd much I'd if you save to two hundred thousand or gained two hundred thousand I'm sorry not lose two hundred thousand or win two hundred thousand most people would do everything not to lose the two hundred thousand then get the opportunity to win the two hundred thousand is that effectively kind of an easy breakdown of it yeah absolutely and and then I couldn't tell you what the sources with somebody that was quoting sales stats to me not long ago saw it satisfied with the person said that seventy percent of buy decisions are made to avoid loss not to accomplish gate seventy percent to avoid a loss do you think that's dependent on who in this sense that I talked a lot about the power line right people below and above the power line people below the power line are focused on today or yesterday which is usually pain right because they're in it whereas people above the power line like decision makers those type of things are focused on the future so my general guidelines to reps is you know the the c-level executive doesn't want to talk about feature function pain stuff because that's what they delegate to they want to talk about where am I going like how are you gonna help me get to where I want to be which is aligning with their priorities so do you think that loss aversion is as strong with a with an executive leader who's trying to bring a company to the next level over the next 12 to 24 months well you're talking about what their vision is and their fear over losing that vision aren't you turn off Cena and that's why you gotta be real careful over assuming that you know what their their loss is okay and that's why you know hostage negotiation techniques are designed to get into somebody's head if find out what's in there right you know we got it we got to get in there we got to find out what's in there and simultaneously they're the same set of techniques that you can get in there you know you've gotten permission to get in and find out what their vision it's with the fear of losses and the way you got in gives you the opportunity to make some change because of the way that you got it and it gives you the opportunity to have what we call trust based influence the executive like if he's got his eyes fixed on growing to a hundred million dollars in the next two years and he's got a path what he's afraid of is not as losing that opportunities in that growth and so that the fear of loss saying you gotta be careful about what your assumptions that you're making and then also you got to be really careful about how you wield that power how you get into understanding what that potential loss is takes you from being someone who's a trusted adviser to someone who's trying to take them hostage so I mean it it's really as a matter of definition but they're there it doesn't matter where you are in the world the overriding driver of decision-making so much so that's why in a book we call a bending reality yeah because you bend people's reality when you understand what the losses that they're trying to avoid are and is this more of them is this almost always a personal thing as it relates to that person when you're talking negotiations because you know we've all been taught like people buy on emotion they back up with facts right so when you're selling and first of all I wanted to see if you believe that second of all if you do or don't when you're when you're negotiating with somebody is is your goal to understand the personal drivers of that person to be able to uncover this or is it really more to focus on the business drivers yeah well the dominating decision is gonna be how it affects them personally what's in it for me how you gonna help me you know and that's why and if it wasn't that I mean executives and business people and you know contracts people you know across the board no one would ever make a stupid decision that would hurt their company but when it comes to add to it you know people are people are worried about themselves first and depend upon the company environment you know that it might not be a team atmosphere you know they you know the culture code Daniel Daniel Coyle yeah hey culture code and talent code two great books by the same guy he talks about I I think the staff that he quoted that only six percent of people a business people know their company's values 6% well if that's true and it's probably pretty close then this is not a team oriented culture so they've got to be out for themselves you don't even know what the company's values are your executives aren't living it if your executives aren't living the values then you you better you're looking out for yourself because the other people are not looking out for you they're looking out for themselves I mean cultured cultures a dicey issue and that a lot of people overlook well we should think as a team we should think as a team it makes it's only smart to think as the team yeah it's true but should you know it's a if you're saying the word should that means that reality and philosophy are not lined up or out of alignment so I've been talking a lot about values recently so you kind of struck a nerve there first of all why don't most organism in there's mission statement vision statement stuff why don't you think more companies define and live their values from a from a leadership standpoint uh well it takes a lot of effort it's a hard thing to do and you also become fear driven and you know have did you define a few stuff and you know problem is if they just it's it's hard to get him to line up you know it's we focus on that all the time I mean internally under company we're always talking about it now work you know relatively new company were family-owned business were you know we're define ourselves as we go and we know some companies that are really good people out there I mean we just stopped doing business with one company because of values I don't know what their core values are as articulated but I could tell you the values that they live are contrary to ours so with that my I said this the other day on a panel you know communities they would ask me about building communities and I said that the most important thing about a community is that you you have shared values you can argue you can debate we can we can disagree as long as we have shared values do you think that's the same first of all do you agree with that second well do you think that the same in business negotiations where you and I at least from a value standpoint treating people right not being an you know whatever those are like we have to align at least a little bit in order for this relationship to work is that is that like a critical factor to try to uncover yeah well we're never gonna be able to implement an otherwise you know and it could be there could be little things like company that we you know we've had some value alignment mismatch recently they've been very successful lately so they're in the entertainment industry so now their risk aversion is high which means they're scared to death of not having a success you know we want to engage in something with them where there's no guarantee of success so they're horrified that they'll drop something in the entertainment industry it's not as successful as the other things that they've done now they're extremely rich risk-averse they're no longer entrepreneurial they're no longer willing to take the risks that they were willing to take three years ago they throw something out that and say you know we'll work like crazy we'll make it successful you know it's it's like somebody I can't you know on author who's a lot who's had a great book who refuses to do another one because they're afraid the second one won't be as successful as the first peoples fear of failure increases highly after their successes and they lose their entrepreneurial edge and that's really the biggest problem with our core value mismatch now which I pointed out to him I said you know we're willing to do this and it might not be that great and I said you guys are terrified that you'll drop something out there that's not as successful as your last project and then you'll be criticized over and they went yeah yeah that's it exactly so did their values change I think so I think I think that's what happens with a lot of people that they don't feel like their values have changed and they probably feel like the same people they just haven't become aware of how risk-averse they are right now so I've really been trying to think this through from the sales training but also for my own approach of you know I talk when we do when we do prospecting for instance look for triggers hey you know they up in law office they launched a new product and make a connection to that say hey I saw that happened you know we help companies we're in that stage let's talk it's just a you know personalized way but I've been really trying around the idea of trying to figure out how to align values because I think once if I can come across somebody who I can connect with pretty much immediately because I can tell their values are similar than me similar to mine like I don't say the sale takes care of itself but man it's so much easier to have that real conversation and not conversation where it's you know real surface oriented and I'm trying to figure out how do I get to that early so that so that I can get in and out of deals faster with people who I know share a core value of mine is there something you do to to uncover that part early well not as we're probably looking at the values right after the fact that we try to figure out whether or not there's a deal there anyway okay this is something that we discovered is a much bigger problem in in a business community than we realized before the book came out because we're consulting on time now but you know for example there's no such thing as an open mind period nobody that you encounter has an open mind and b2b data out there now is that 50% of people have made up their minds have made up their mind before their first contact with a salesperson half made up their mind before they contact the salesperson and nobody's closed rate is 50% which means you know what's wrong with the math problem well and I came across the book to challenge your sale recently they pegged a number at 20% of opportunities that come sales people's way to come businesses way are actually fake you know they don't usually fake they have a different different term but it's fake opportunities people are doing due diligence they're checking that you know you're the competing bit they get somebody they want to go with they need three competing bids so they go with who they want to go with they just want to price with you they just want to terms with you to prove that they can they're doing due diligence is what they're doing and in effect and why this number is low is because in this survey they're asking people how often they lie to sales people there's no way that then they're inflating then amount of time that they're lying to sales people's they're hedging on that if you know nobody's gonna admit to all the times that they like so there's that 20% number has to be low to start with and then then the second problem is there's more b2b data out there that says that even if they haven't made up their mind there's somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the way through the decision-making process before they talk to a sales person and that's admitted I mean there are a lot of people out there that I think feel that they have an open mind I'm willing to be talked into this but I'm so prejudiced to begin with you know I've made I've done so much research that you know what you've probably never had a chance at all so we got to find out in the opening conversation whether or not there's any opportunity there at all and now we'll talk about cultural values but you may be just looking for free consulting or due diligence and I got to know about those things before putting more time into us so that's I call that half years right the reps who hear what they want to I think you have it is selective listening or whatever but I call it happy years right they hear what they want to hear the crank it's a deal oh yeah I'm interested and we are negotiations it's a really simple but effective give get right so what we do is we do brainstorm all the gifts what are all the things your clients ask of you they want information they want discounts on proposals our one ROI and well all that stuff prioritize it one to talk like 20 say that's a number you know could be more could be less but easy to give away hard to give away and then flip it over and say what do we want one of the gets all right so we want so gives to the client and then gets for us which is we want decision process timeline signed contract testimonial early late and then match it up so when somebody asks for a 5 I'm asking for a 5 in return 10 10 nice core deals right so I gave away a 1 a 5 and a 6 I got a 2 a 4 and a 7 that score 12 to 13 tells me how healthy the deal is objectively and it's works off of reciprocity which I know you're a fan of which is when somebody asks for something they feel obligated to give you something in return the funny thing is is when we get everything right and don't give anything in return sometimes reps that's half years but what they're not realizing is if someone if you're not giving somebody something that means a you're consciously not doing it or B they're not asking for anything and if they're not asking for anything that's a that's a dangerous sign so how do you prevent happy years how do you prevent a rep early on from hearing what they want to hear as they and as they enter a negotiation because that that's what kills reps is that those deals that they think they say they're saying there's a chance and so they sit in their pipeline forever and those are the ones that the managers get pissed off at month over month because they share what they're so how do we prevent that well I mean you got to you got to be willing to challenge the contact from a very beginning I mean the question you got to be willing to ask is like you know that there are a lot of people out there now we got a lot of competitors you get you get people that are good I mean I'm impressed with our competitors what made you choose us now if they if they don't give you an answer that you're in trouble you know that I found you on Google right yeah well you know they if they say I found you on Google they haven't chosen you right or you know uh big one is we tell me let's go right back on you're in trouble right now but you you hope that you have such a great value proposition you can win the day you hope these sales skills are so good you could win the day and you won't take you won't you won't listen you know and that's the biggest problem I mean the biggest thing is that customers clients people who are buying they hate not being listened to more than anything else and yet every salesperson wants to make a case once they make a value proposition wants to tell why they're the best choice that by definition is not listening should you almost disqualify more than you qualify you should be ready to instantly disqualify somebody now I think the number is is well in excess of 50% so if that's any more true and we've got clients now that we're coaching on this you're telling us that the number can be as high as 80 than just by sheer numbers yeah you should be disqualifying more than you talk to I mean everybody out there you know some of the stat and some of the stats out there 3% of the 3% of the people there are you should convert 3% then that means that 95 97 percent of the meet is qualified but nobody acts like that's the case although everybody knows that those what the stats are yeah that's unfortunate because I think that we're in this world of like short-term results which is driving bad behavior which is preventing people from you know what I mean want it like forcing almost reps specially young ones who are inexperienced and haven't gone through the heart of having a huge pipeline that nothing closes in you know they so we pushed them towards these monthly things which drives bad behavior so I don't I actually am I'm worried that we're in this world where we're in there almost a transition world I think right now where it used to be a numbers game and so that's kind of how sales was approached in a lot of ways and so kind of Gen Xers like that's how we grew up I mean when I grew up in sales was here's your quota here's your territory there's a phone go okay right now I think everybody understands quality's the issue empathise qualities the answer empathy is the answer but we're stuck in this old school mentality forcing because it's way easier to coach towards numbers like did you make your fifty dials today did you hit your quota today versus actually coaching on quality so is there a way as managers for instance we can help drive and help rubs drive short term results while having that tactical empathy while having that disqualification mentality especially in you know you weren't a lot of publicly traded companies you know what I mean if they miss their numbers on a quarterly basis you know all of a sudden Wall Street comes down on them pretty hard so are there things that you talk to people about about how to put them in a position to be able to listen while still hitting their numbers and those short-term results that we're looking for yeah you know I mean it's it's stupidly simple you know all you're gonna do is change the way you evaluate and be compensated nobody's willing to do that I mean I I gave a keynote presentation to a company the other day that I'm really impressed with because of their dedication to their clients it's sa P and I'm sitting around with them at dinner and I'm like wow you guys you guys you guys learn fast you guys seem to like each other I mean I'm blown away at not only how fast you guys learn but the fact that you guys enjoy working together and one of the executives said yeah well you know one of our main core values and we can't let our clients fail which means work they all unify over this great purpose you can't let you know because they agree that they got to knock themselves out for the clients so that goes back to the value conversation right yeah but and at the same time though you know in in the train station they said alright so how do we handle a procurement guy calling us with two days left in the course I said that's easy don't make the deal but value stop grading your people and quarterly results you're taking your people hostage if you're putting them on quarterly results I Got News for you that procurement guy he's praying to God because he thinks he's got leverage for 48 hours and he or she is not prepared to wait three more months for this window to come back up so in reality the person on the other side is a lot more scared than you are if you're just willing to accept that that they think they're done if they don't cut the deal with you next 48 hours but they're taking themselves hostage over quarterly results and you just said something you know Wall Street's holding these on these people to quarterly results only if you care for Wall Street bad-mouth sure or only if you care if you stop fix dips by five five cents and as soon as you pull yourself as soon as you stop taking yourself hostage over quarterly results as soon as you stop taking your people hostage over quarterly results now they can perform now now now with two days left in a quarter they're not scared to death they're they're willing to wait so how would you do how if you would have built a company and compensate what to compensate you know we do have to drive results on a consistent basis right so it all doesn't happen at the end of the year or something like that so kind of in a utopic scenario if you will what would your best approach to organizations be as far as compensating sales reps on their on their results there's a fair amount of data out there that sales were up to do better if they just don't straight salary take take a look at the people that are working for you you know everybody responds to compensation differently I mean be willing to tailor your compensation some person just some guys just want to work on Commission they wanted all those guys to love it you know you got that guy guy or gal fine they thrive under that environment some people just want to know that they can make their monthly mortgage payment and if if they're satisfied they can make that payment then work 24/7 for I mean you know when I when I was with the FBI I was on straight salary I was I worked my last seven years on the job I don't know that I had two days off in a row because I loved what I was doing I was into it I mean people used to say to me you breathe what you do I didn't have to worry about how much money was coming in the door I knew exactly how much money was coming in on my paycheck every two weeks and I was the type of person that would just knock myself out because they didn't have to worry about the amount of money that was coming in so you know be willing to tell your compensation to your people so that they can thrive and then have an ongoing conversation with them and make sure they continue to thrive because there's a pretty good chance that however you dial it up for them at the very beginning is gonna be wrong or at least need adjustment so stay all right so here's a compensation package that we're gonna start out with and then let's talk about how things are gone in three months in four months in five months to see whether or not you're thriving and let's make the adjustments so you can thrive I mean and look I'm running my company and that's the way that that's we're changing our compensation slightly tweaking it all the time because we want our people to thrive going back to that procurement example that you used and and also bad behavior by reps when I one of the things I come across all the time and and I you know biggest challenge I see sales reps having is creating urgency like how do you how to create urgency when it's seemingly not there right when when they don't have to do it it's like to have not a must-have those type of things right what do you try to do to uncover urgency so that the Rebbe's don't default to end of the month discounting and those type of sad sad things any insights on urgency in the issue what's top of mind with people and what can you count on to consistently either people you know the great question you know what's keeping you up at night alright so yeah you get you got to get in their head and find out what's keeping them up at night and then you know you know there's a presumption here that what you're offering actually has value I mean one of the one of the great your greatest sales pitches I ever heard a gentleman had a company that put together compensation packages retirement packages for executives you know effectively golden handcuffs no we put together such a great package for you you're never gonna leave so was pension investing golden handcuffs if you will so his pitch to companies wasn't here's how much money I can make for you here's how much I can help you retain your executives he said let us take a look at the package that you've got now and we'll compare what we could do versus what you're doing and then he would come back and say alright stay where you are now don't change the thing and this is how much it's gonna cost you every day okay that keeps people up at night when the status quo you need top of mind when your vision of what's going on now when will you perceive the status quo to be to be costing you every day day in and day out that's what keeps people tough that's what keep saying keeps things top of mind and so because I believe that you know there's I don't know if you follow Gong but you know the gong dot IO blog I don't so if you quote a lot of stats go to Gong IO and check out their blog they got one blog post it's fifty five sales tips that the best sales tips you've ever read and it's and it's off the charts because as they do they use artificial intelligence to analyze phone calls like millions of phone calls that reps make through their system and they tailor like what you know great people do versus what average people do and one of their things is you know the number one goal that we have as sales professionals is to get you to a before I can sell you anything I have to get you to agree that status quo is not okay like you have to make a change and if you can if I can't convince you that you have to make a change then the rest of that stuff doesn't matter so there for instance like selling to the c-suite it's about coming up with your Nexus like what do you believe that that that in this industry there is a polarizing statement that either people get people to say holy yes or no I completely disagree so in our world right now you know sales training one of my nexuses is I think sales methodologies of I think the historical sales methodology is and because if you're not in agile sales right now and constantly iterating and trying new things you're gonna be a dinosaur if you subscribe to anyone sing our methodology now there are people out there that are flat-out methodology people you know I'm a Miller Heiman guy I'm at as guy I'm a sailor guy that's like the stuff and going back to values like you and I aren't on the same page so let's stop talking now but once you hit that Nexus then it's what's the statistic that says we're you know whether you like it or not the industry is changing and so you have to make a change and then you talked about your unique piece there and then you share a story so it's kind of a four-step process of selling to the c-suite which I'm a huge fan of so do you agree that it's our first job to get people to commit to the fact that they have to make a change the status quo is got to be the problem yeah yeah the status quos got to be the source of loss how big of a loss does that have to be in order to get you to move it's interesting question I mean lost things twice as much as as an equivalent game according to prospect theory which they won the Nobel Prize for in behavioral economics and Danny Kahneman then gave an interview where he said that it's actually five times as much we just lowered the number to two because we want two fewer arguments from our academic colleagues so in any loss is a distorted perception so you got to find out what to the other guy's head you know guide generic guy or gal and it's not something you can calculate in advance because your calculations are not bent by the feeling of loss the way it is when a person you're talking to and so there's a lot so so I'm trying to focus a lot more these days on like impact questions like how can I ask questions that uncover the impact of you making this or not making this decision but what are your thoughts on like quantifying that impact and like you know and going to down the road of like ROI calculator type stuff because and you know some reason I ask is because I've always looked at are like calculators even if a rep uses my numbers and all that other stuff you know okay fine that dollar figure you're good but there's still something that I don't trust about it so what's your stance on quantify Payne if you will and then using that but but it's not always as obvious that now I don't I don't think he can do it not at all I mean because that and here's an example one of the one of the negotiation cases at Harvard that we stek sir sighs all the times called radio station the sale of a radio station where the guy who was selling was just not taking any sort of offer whatsoever for his radio station that ended up being a real case that Roger Fisher you know the author of getting to yes actually solved the interesting thing about Roger Fisher is his emotional intelligence was through the roof there isn't any emotional intelligence in getting to yes it is utterly rational and people are utterly emotional which is why unfortunately getting jess is not going to do any good but I remember hearing this story and when Roger Fisher solved this and get the guy to sell the radio station you would talk to the guy the guy said my wife's gonna kill me if I sell this radio station so how do you calculate that ROI yeah I forget I think gary vaynerchuk's the one who says how do you calculate the ROI of your mom you know what I mean yeah I mean so what would what's really driving at people is not gonna be quantifiable in a spreadsheet and you can sit down and run every number that they give you and have them agree that everything about your analysis is flawless and it's gonna cost them this amount of money and it's not going to matter to them because of what's really driving them is gonna be some emotional factor that you can't put on a spreadsheet and so with that to your point of you know going back to urgency they're losing you know by not doing this they're losing every day like that that example that you use right there okay so great I'm losing you know by not doing this I'm yeah okay I'm losing a hundred thousand dollars a day what is that is there is there that the emotional connection to it like hey I don't like yeah that makes sense and we're losing 100 hundred thousand dollars a day by not doing this I get it was there something else other than that number they've got that deal to go through well yeah now if somebody if you if you're not making a case based on your numbers and you're not paying any attention to what's driving them okay so yeah you you you got to you got to get in there and find out what's going on this gets us back into get into their head and find out what they're really seeing and you're not gonna be able to find that out unless you unless you come in with an emotional intelligence approach which assumes that people are not rational and that you know it's it's the iceberg is the cliche to everything but the unfortunately the reason it keeps coming up is there's more here than meets the eye and your analysis is based on what meets the eye so how does it possible your analysis could be accurate I could keep this conversation going forever I got one more question that I'm personally curious about you talk a lot about mirroring where you say the last three words or what somebody says and the power of that and then you just shut up the mirroring versus layering example when you object okay or when you say something that's like look we don't have the budget for this right mirroring is so you don't have the budget so let it sit so layering would be helped me understand what do you mean by you don't have the budget is one more powerful than the other because what you're both trying to do is get them to talk more and and really uncover their true like meaning behind what they're saying there is there a difference between that and and do you see one as more valid than the other in certain circumstances to begin with if you're at the point where somebody says we don't have a budget and you say help me understand what do you mean by you don't have a budget you're telling them that you have not been paying attention up to now kind of a very simple example plate but you just see what I'm saying like layering questions does it tell me more about that could you explain to me could you give me an example of versus all that by the first thing you said tell me more about that's not a question it's command and then you followed up with two straight yes oriented questions with your trap questions okay but nobody wants to say yes to anything she hit me with but three straight bad communication tag techniques okay that tell me more about that it's not a question it's a command it's a grant for autonomy it's an attempt to take control of a conversation taking control is taking away somebody's autonomy which we will die to preserve our time but when you talk about calibrated questions isn't don't you talk about how you want to make the illusion of of them on in control when you're actually in command well we want to have the upper hand we want to have control yes and and I'll tell you something else we don't try to get information by asking questions these questions to shape thoughts questioning to gather information is a third of the people that you run into will be so so with it and two-thirds of them are not gonna like it at all the very the very analytical person every time you ask them a question they stop and I think I have to think through the implications of every possible answer before I get back to you so I can't answer you for at least two days so yeah so so I mean we don't really use questions all right so if somebody somebody says what was that it's too much what was your example before so it's like it's we don't have the budget for this yeah we don't have a bunch of it this is out of our budget range or something right so you you want to demonstrate understanding what do they tell you if they don't have the budget for it they're telling you one of two things they either under pressure or what you're offering is not delivering adequate value the value alignment so a demonstration of understanding would be seek first understand and be understood demonstrate understanding sounds like the values just not there for you they had just communicated to you very clearly that something's wrong with your proposition and instead of you demonstrating any understanding of that in any way shape or form instead you want to challenge them as if they weren't listening help me understand here well what's not here for you which is equivalent I'm saying you know you haven't been paying attention so I'm gonna have to go back over my value proposition again because you're not paying attention so let me let me see if I can isolate where you weren't paying attention so I can go back and correct you I mean that's what you're communicating when you say help me understand what about this isn't valuable for you and and in most cases a lot of people probably say it in a tone of voice that indicates that you think they're stupid yeah so but to say sounds like the values is not here for you is it is an indication of understanding and it's an invitation to fix it and it's taking responsibility on your side to be to be responsive to them instead of them being responsive to you and what you're searching for is the that's right not your right and well exactly at some point of time you get you you you if somebody saying you're right to you they are trying to finish the interaction you go home you want gonna watch it's the same reason why you don't say I understand cuz what's the what's the negative part of me like after you tell me so just one about summarizing and rephrasing back to you but then after you tell me something of me saying I understand what's the danger of that well alright let's pretend like you actually do understand right but when you say that they're not clear on what you understand I mean you're trying to give them the Cliff Notes version of it I mean how do they if you say ah I understand how did they know how do they really know that they got their points across if you don't repeat back to them the points that they in fact got across I mean you know since we were kids we played the telephone game you know tell somebody a secret by the time you tell for other people the secrets completely changed I mean it's it's nearly impossible to hear somebody's side of things the first time and get it right so to say I understand even if you do chances or let's see you invest listen in the world chances are you got it 80% right and you're taking a real risk on a percentage that you got wrong so I understand is that's just too nebulous you tell me that you understand I'm not sure I'm getting a warm and fuzzy feeling they actually do in most cases I understand proceeds but here's where you're wrong is it is it okay to say let me make sure I heard you correctly and then rephrase it back to them or is there a better way of of summarizing what you heard from them that makes them more open so understand that you really do understand no it's not bad at all I mean you know we don't coach people to say it like that there are other ways of saying it I mean let me make sure I heard you correctly as a command and it's a it's a grab at control again and it's to take autonomy from the other side and you know i mean i just--that's just commands just they just don't sit well with other people I mean if you're a frontline salesperson and your CEO set you down you you might be a little bit slow to say tell me more about that or let me make sure I understand you know you might you might want to demonstrate your understanding or you might change the tone of voice but you know we like a deference to begin with which is not to take control you know we love deference as an approach because there's great there's great power in deference I mean we love deference because everybody loves it if I'm deferential to you you're gonna give me a lot more opportunity to talk cuz I'm deferential you're gonna feel like you can stop me at any time I mean we love we love deference so it's more in the sense of it seems like you're those that instead of let me make sure I heard this correctly scenario yeah and again tone of voice is gonna make a big difference when you get away with a lot of bad words with great tongue you know and we were or on a coaching call just the other day and you know we coach people to identify negatives identifying a negative diffuses and you say okay that makes sense to me and we say and identifying a negative never plants it and they go okay that makes sense to me and then we say all right so let's be proactive let's say are you proud you probably upset with us oh my god that's you know they they're gonna respond to us well I wasn't but I am now but wait a second two seconds ago you agreed that we couldn't plant negatives and now you're now you're arguing so we'll get somebody arguing with us and so I just stopped and I said so it sounds like when I said identifying negatives doesn't plan him you thought it was wrong now listen listen that my tone was clear there right and I could have said so it sounds to me like when I said identify negatives doesn't plan him you thought I was wrong same words different tone of voice on a second one kills me but the first one you know I'm the the tunnel voice I'm it's all the difference in the world I mean I'm a thousand percent convinced that you know the wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort hey you know everybody wants to learn from Jordan Belfort god no sir and what they do right yeah so what what was there what was there to learn from them and in my view well the guy I think the guy mastered tonality I mean a thousand and and clearly mastered something because he wouldn't know 100 million dollars in restitution which means he stole way more than that you know but I mean so what did he do because yet you you take a look at straight-line selling and it's no matter what the client says your widget is the answer I mean that by definition is not listening so how did how did he how did he get over so much and in my view the guy mastered tonality and and that is something that's fair for anybody to master I'm not a fan otherwise I mean don't get me wrong I you know guy was the only reason that if you should ever consider buying his book would be to help give some of the hundred million dollars back because he owes restitution based on books yeah tell me whenever anybody asked me what my favorite sales movies are you know they wolf of wallstreet boiler room Glengarry Glen Ross they tell him no was a little literally the worst sales movies I've ever seen in my life you know the great movie is they're funny but they're literally everything that's wrong about selling yeah everything that's wrong about selling and I tell them to go look the two best sales movies doesn't actually I'll finish with this I'm going to understand what yours are my two favorite sales movies pursuit of happiness right will smell Wow and Tommy Boy you ever watch Tommy Boy I didn't I never thought it was the salesman but you know it's a it's a great thought go watch it because I talk about catching your sales groove right and there's there there's a moment in every sales reps life when they wake up and it's just a little bit easier today than it was yesterday and you don't know what it was but it's when you stop pitching your solutions and you start having conversations about your solutions more about the clients needs than you do about your commission check and there's that beautiful moment in Tommy Boy where he catches the sales group Helen look like a Helen let me tell you why I suck as a sales rep and he goes through this whole like Jojo the idiot circus boy what a pretty new pet and she's like wow you're twisted you know I'll go fire up those wings I'll tell me like you tell me what wing knee you know in that moment he was he would be caught in sales groove because before that he was pitching he was trying to be like his dad you could stick your head up a butcher's ass type of stuff right and couldn't figure it out and then after then it was just him and it was empathy it was self deprecation and so it's a it's a beautiful sales movie if you should get a chance to go see it again I'll probably go back and watch it again yeah because why you fight your first as I guess that's fun you know big fat guy making fun of himself but look at what the sales lens on its it's a blast that's really cool yeah all right very good look at it through a different lens I look at it through negotiation right and as opposed to I suppose a sales but it's a lens I'm gonna have to go back and take another look at it awesome well Chris this has been like I said I think I'd love to have an entire day with you asking all these questions just for myself and me learning on my end but some but I think we're gonna cut this up tell everybody how they can learn more I know you got public workshops I know you got your blog I know you got a bunch of things so tell everybody how they can find out more information and pretty much mandate I'm gonna everybody who listens to me go pick up never split the difference if they haven't already because it's it's one of my favorite negotiation thanks so how can people learn more yeah well our newsletter slash blog is a great supplement to the book I mean a lot of people get a long way out just a book in the blower alone well you know the newsletter is a gateway to everything it training announcements a gateway to the website you know we're training across the country the announcements are in the newsletter is short it's sweet as free it's it's not a lot of work some newsletters are a lot of work yeah and the best way to sign up for the newsletters and we got a text to sign up function okay to the number 22 828 and the number you're texting to again is 2 to 8 to 8 the message you send to that number is FBI empathy all one word don't let the spellcheck put a space between FBI and empathy make sure it's one word then FBI empathy one word to two to eight to eight you get a response back asking for your email address you signed up off to the races interview here refresh myself but one of the biggest things I went to was that blog and just picked up a lot of them nuggets and the tips along the way that really are if you put that entire blog together you'd pretty much have never split the difference but I'm a big micro learner as far as those tips and nuggets and small things that we can do a long way so I really appreciate what you do Chris thanks man cool this has been awesome Oh everybody hopefully yet as much value out of this as I did check out Chris's blog check out his workshops that he's doing bring him in to your company and hope everybody got some value thank you all very much have a great week and go make somebody happy today if you do nothing else and you make somebody smile you know you had a good day thank y'all very much make it happen thanks Chris alright man my pleasure thanks for having me [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: NegotiationMastery

Views: 43,586

Keywords: john barrows, communication at work, methods of persuasion, negotiation training, how to improve communication, components of emotional intelligence, effective communication techniques, negotiation skills training, internal communication strategy, influencing skills, increase sales, tactical empathy

Id: jQmj7rxbG2M

Length: 70min 6sec (4206 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019