The Secret Way To Use “Why” & “No” in Your Next Negotiation | Chris Voss

how can we use why why in a way that works for us and we literally will say to people there are a lot of competitors out here that could teach you you know Harvard could teach a negotiation you can learn negotiation from Wharton Karis is out there there are no shortage of credible competitors for negotiation knowledge why would you ever come to the Black Swan group we asked that question all the time before the book came out we'd be standing up in front of a group and I'd say guys why listen to a hostage negotiator and what happens what do you think happens why would you listen to a hostage negotiate why would you your skills have to work your skills have to work is what he said here's what happens on the people that haven't made up their mind yet they tell you which part of your value proposition appeals to them I could say you should listen to a hostage negotiator because my skills have to work or I can look at you and say why would you do this and you say the same thing now when does it matter more to you when you say it and I begin to understand what aspect now if if he's a potential client I say why would you ever listen to a hostage negotiator and he says to me because your skills have to work now I use that to continually frame my value proposition because I know that's an element of my value proposition and those are the words that speak to him and if their mind is 80 made up ahead of time you have to diagnose what aspects of what you bring to the table matter to them because more than likely every single one of you have anywhere from 10 to 20 reasons why people should do business with you and if you start out on stuff that doesn't matter to me how long before I tune you out five seconds is a pretty accurate guess it's roughly three to ten seconds some data says seven seconds but you're gonna blow five seven ten seconds on a wrong issue and I'm going to tune you out I mean and there's no shortage I don't know how many of you have been in Pitch presentations and have pitched presentations or have have product presentations people hate having a CEO in a room because they're like damn CEOs gonna interrupt start asking questions where I get all the way through my presentation well actually what does that tell you it tells you number one that he didn't care about everything you set up to that point in time and what he interrupted John was what he really cared about right but and we see this in an industry after industry after industry I worked hard on that presentation I want them to sit there for two hours why give the whole thing that's when people are really happy when they get a chance to get through their whole proposal and then and ideally they don't get any hard questions and they roll out of their happy as hell right and then what happens no sale right what a why question sound accusatory even if used with a right tone of voice the question why if you have kids grandkids or as you went through life and somebody said something to you you always ask why why my grandkids do it all the time if I say you can't have something why why and when you get the why so many times it's it's always like you're questioning you're questioning somebody you're making them not even want to answer when we talk about why we use it sparingly for the purpose of Proof of Life no out of all the people you could deal with today why did you come on to this this fireside chat with me so we're asking it in a way to get get you to tell us what you're thinking what your thoughts are you're selling us you're selling me I want to talk about some of your open-ended questions I think these are really powerful so the the way that why questions are accusatory but how questions invite people to do the thinking for you and explain that like the explain the power of how yeah well it uh to use common common phraseology it triggers slow thinking or in-depth thinking you know because it's logistical uh yeah you know how how largely is implementation or logistical there's another how's this going to get done um it feels deferential so I'm gonna kill these [ __ ] if you don't give me 20 million dollars right now and you say how am I supposed to do that go to the bank call the president do whatever you need to do this is somebody's life give me the 20 million right now how am I supposed to do that right now you want me to call the president you want me to go to the bank do they not just keep trying yes that's exactly what I want you to do all they got to do is come down a little at a time now I'm not resisting I'm in implementation and it triggers in-depth thinking any point of fact those are legitimate questions you know the the ask a question that the well the other side likes it or not is actually a legitimate question it's not resisting I'm asking in a way where I'm deferential I'm not saying I ain't doing it I'm asking for your help now how you respond to that is going to tell me where this is really going you know there's 93 success rate means seven percent of the time that ain't gonna go anywhere this is nothing but bad I don't know which one I'm dealing with and some you know my how and what questions early on and occasionally the the strategical use of why surgical use of Y I gotta diagnose what I'm really dealing with and I got to do it in a way where you're not feeling like you're being diagnosed but you know because I got to do everything I can do to avoid triggering you but I got I got I got to get a diagnostic on what I'm actually dealing with to begin with and how do you handle telling people no in a way that doesn't shut them down yeah you know uh a friend of mine here in town Ned colletti used to be the GM for the Dodgers brilliant negotiator good guy like him a lot Ned is still around I'm still affiliated with the Dodgers first year he was uh GM they went from Wars to first that's a sign of a capable GM say you know and we were talking about this one time and Ned said that someone had taught him to let out know a little at a time I'm like that's exactly what we're doing like you have to be able to say no to people what your job is to not let them get blindsided by it where they feel like they were clotheslined and caught off guard so you let it out a little at a time and how am I supposed to do that is really a way to get the other side thinking about the difficulty of the situation about the difficulty that you ask and it's the first way to start letting you know say that's really going to be hard further down the line we're going to get there but first I really kind of need the how question is designed to get to stop you in your chat in your tracks and get you thinking it's calibrated which is why we call them calibrated questions to start to trigger a state change in the other side now we gotta let out a little more no in a little firmer way as we go along then we got we got a whole succession of ways to eventually ultimately if forced into it to say no which then also is not no it's no but we don't need to go like if if you hear no from me or my side we've been hinting at it for a while so you're not going to be CL feel blindsided by it you you're gonna yeah and we're gonna continue to demonstrate collaboration because I you know I don't want to go all the way to now if we're talking there's a reason for us to talk you have to say is the situation so if there's a reason for us to collaborate and talk we can both be better off I also don't want to let out know too quickly because there might be a better way and I want to discover that so let's let me let me let me start telegraphing that there are problems here inviting collaboration see if we can tease out a solution before this thing goes down to Tops have you ever had a negotiator or a hostage taker give you an answer to something that you were like I actually don't have a rebuttal to that we should try that not yet yeah I was I I'm running these scenarios through my head and I'm like what would I do if they like offered a suggestion I'm like yeah like actually sounds maybe we should try that like how do you because there are scenarios where you end up paying apparently 20 million dollars well we first of all it wasn't a us that paid that or anybody on the U.S side so the US would never do that uh correct the U.S does not pay Ransom now that doesn't mean that there can't be bait money go down range because give them money that you know you're going to take back or you're going to trace like like money is ridiculously easy to trace like ridiculously easy and it could be a very smart move it's like eject injecting dye into their financial circulatory system where are they buying weapons who they paying safe houses for they got a larger criminal Network terrorists are not supported by the Red Cross they are supported by a larger criminal network of illegal arms dealers and illegal this and illegal that and you want to know who they're buying their guns from and a best way to find out who they're buying their guns from is to give them some money that you could trace and find out where it goes follow the money as they said a long time ago in in the Watergate scandal that's a tremendous investigative tool and if you yeah there was a uh in 2000 that was exactly what happened because there was a criminal gang out of Ecuador that had been taking hostages on oil platforms every year about October and they were a combination of former terrorists and criminals and so the third time it went down a payment was made because if they'd assaulted the the oil platform they'd only got the kidnappers who are the low end of the food chain but they made a payment and they ended up dismantling the gang in its entirety and they never hit again over 50 people were rounded up because they were tracking the money back in the money the whole organization was dismantled as a result of the ransom payment so it became a great way to take out a criminal organization that had been operating completely freely prior to that and a rescue would have only taken out the bad guys on the platform it would not have taken out the whole organization they took the whole thing down and these guys never resurfed it resurfaced as an organization again so going back to the magic words that you use as a negotiator why is getting them to say no more important or better much better if I remember your words correctly yeah then yes yeah it's it's shocking um and a friend of mine that I'm flattered that we're acquainted Andrew huberman huberman Labs podcast I'm well amazing guy brilliant Neuroscience stuff uh met him for the first time recently was sitting down at lunch and I'm like all right so I don't know what the Neuroscience behind us is but people feel safe and protected when they say no they feel better they're more likely to collaborate and then plus we know so weird the other thing that's crazy that we know for sure is like when you're exhausted mentally you could still say no but yes it's hard yes is hard or even as answering how like if if you uh if if you're tired and one of my colleagues did this to me recently and I could instantly tell the difference they wanted to follow up with me when I was exhausted and I knew that if they'd asked me what are you thinking what great question triggered deep thinking I didn't have the mental gas in a tank to answer that question but they answered me a question that was built around no and I went boom boom boom boom boom I laid it all out and I was like wow I don't know how that happens I just know it does and we've seen Time After Time if I need to close a deal at all especially if I know that you're tired instead of saying do you agree do you want to do this are you in favor of this I say do you disagree is this a bad idea are you against this is this ridiculous and you'll either go no let's do it or you go no but here are their problems and you'll lay them all out for me and feel no obligation which means you're going to lay them out to me honestly like if I say do you agree with this you're going to afraid to say yes but here are the problems because you feel that yes is an obligation and you're gonna be worried about digging yourself deeper in by saying anything after that but having said no you feel you have no obligation I think it might be that simple so you will you will lay the rest of the stuff out not being worried about digging yourself into a hole really interesting that some part of our brain is tracking the even though it's not like obviously a contract but that some part of our brain is like yeah we've just agreed to that and now I have a sense of obligation and they have the right to like take me to task on it it's very interesting yeah yeah and we stumbled over that one by by accident and it is just the the good and the bad about getting people to say no is it makes such a huge difference in all interactions that sometimes that's the only thing somebody learns and we're like look there is so much more here like I know you're making a lot more money now and you're doing better than anybody that you see around you but you're not doing as good as you could be doing and you cannot stop there but a lot of people I see it all the time they just learn how to trigger no instead of yes and they're instantly significantly more successful and they quit that they don't keep going all right what then if you were going to bring this all together if no is that first bit that shows people like whoa you can frame this in a new way what are the the few key tenets of like all right if you had to bestow quickly upon somebody what the core tenants of the Black Swan Way are yeah you know let the other side go first um and then you know the cliche the other side's got to talk five times as much as you not twice as much five times as much it doesn't mean that you go uh There You Go mute you drop in occasionally you let the other person know that whatever they're thinking is it's okay to share it like one of our favorite things you got to have some go-to labels go to labels yeah label is one of our negotiation techniques seems like sounds like looks like feels like no matter what anybody says you can say seems like he had a reason for saying that like no matter what they say I hate you and everything you stand for seems like you got a reason for saying that it's disarming they'll talk with you about it I want to do business with you and I want to deal with you right now seems like I had a reason for saying that well yeah here's what I want to do business with you um one of my son came up with again like bring a guy we you know we would not be our team without him clients call on a phone say how are you today how are you today is a diagnostic they want to know if they could talk if you're in a mood to talk about what they want to talk about Brandon's response is seems like you got something on your mind yes matter of fact you know because they've been they've been planning this call how are you today is not like genuinely how some people really want to know but most people want to know are you prepared to listen to what I have on my mind how are you as a temperature check are you in a bad mood because I'm wasting my time you're in a good mood we could talk and you'll the only pushback he ever got on that was he had a guy say yeah you know there's stuff I want to talk about really I want to know how we are today and so Brad said yeah I'm good you know we talked about it and then they got down to business so you know the more you encourage the other side to talk the more likely it is that you're going to get to this moment of collaboration quicker never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better how do you get something better you get the other side to talk you spend a lot less time talking and appreciate that they're bringing something to the table that you could use the Black Swan the tiny little thing is going to change everything you trigger that you're going to make great deals that's it it's got our our basic principles remember you don't get in life what's fair you get what you negotiate if you want to become a better negotiator click the link in the description below when we talk about thought shaping questions we're talking primarily what and how questions these are our old calibrated questions we used to use calibrated questions to gather information from moving away from that now and using the calibrated questions to provoke thought or to engage them in problem solving uh collaboration how are we gathering information now we're not asking questions we're using what we're referring to at this point as asking labels any question that you want to ask the other side if you want to take um offensiveness out of the question you want it to feel less like an interrogation take that uh what or how question and turn it into a label simply by upward inflecting it sounds like X is important to you as opposed to asking them what's important to you and if you notice also um as of late I've really become enamored with the word Envision or vision uh because when you talk about somebody's thought process there's a mental movie that's playing in their vein in their brain there's always a vision of how they see things in the future and it's a powerful word to get them to really use their imagination and engage their creativity so I purposely insert the word Envision or Vision in to um into the thought shaping question as a way of review you know the last or just two slides ago it was LMP label mirror paraphrase labeling is just used to identify driving forces and Dynamics simply it looks like it seems like it sounds like it looks like or it feels like if you want to be more engaging you look you've seen you sound Etc um mirroring is just repeating back the last one to three words a great way to have them continue on a thought process by just repeating back the last one two three words great for getting them to expound over a point or continuing the conversation tells them that you are attending and listening at the same time you are present in the moment um the there's an age-old adage that a fool tries to convince me with his words a wise man tries to convince me with my own that's just what labeling does there's no better way to demonstrate for the other side that you are listening to every word that comes out of their mouth then by repeating back the last one to three words Brandon what'd you have so a couple couple things here um because when you put up the how question reminding me we do have something on the survey in regards to you know how dealing with the boss that does not respond well to have questions like what do you do if you've asked how questions and you don't get a response well a couple things first of all if that is you and that's the situation you deal with as Derek mentioned earlier if you're going to ask how questions you want those to be centered around vision because the reality is especially if they're a Boss part of their job is to have the vision in their head and so if you're asking how questions around the vision is going to be a little bit easier to tease that stuff out because the vision is ever present now for your other how questions that you try to ask that you may not get a good response to simply change those how questions to what right if you've been asking how how and you're not getting very far take some time and turn all of those half questions into what questions now it does go into great detail in the survey but part of the thing here is I was surmise that any boss that's got trouble dealing with how questions is probably tired of defining implementation for everyone that works for them how do we make this work boss well with the first on your boss's head espresso if they're juggling a bunch of things at once is that's why you're on the team that's why I hired you to figure this out and so stop coming to me for all the how answers come up with some of them yourself and so I would imagine that's probably some of what's getting in the way it's probably not all of what's getting in the way but there's probably some of it and so instead of asking your boss how do we Define next steps or how do we move forward from here put your suggestions in simply what's wrong with these next steps instead of waiting for them to Define it and them having to go through the mental process of all right let me lay out all these steps for you you've probably got some steps in mind of your own and so you know boss what's wrong with this as our next steps what problems do you see with tackling it this way and that's a that's a really slight a really a two millimeter shift on changing your how questions to what questions especially when it when it deals with implementation yeah and so and this is the point that Brandon just made because I I remember a couple years ago we had an intern and all he ever asked me was what do you want me to do how do you want me to do it and that indicated to me no thought whatsoever and finally I told them after one o'clock in the afternoon never asked me a how or what question ever again because his his questions indicated no thought and and how or what question puts you in um the Danny Kahneman called slow thinking or in-depth thinking which is is exhausting it's exhausting to be asset but notice the elements that is questioning Derek strung together in this in this question here how do you envision I mean a thought-shaping question is designed to shape thought in the other side and if that same intern instead of asking me how do you want me to handle this if he said how do you envision we move forward it would have triggered my thought pattern in a completely different way and I could have laid out a couple of steps for him really quickly in that instance so I I love how this the first time I've seen uh this question constructed the way Derek's got it here and as usual I love I love the stuff that he puts together this is a great question it's a it's a how question starts with the word how but there are components here that are designed to trigger specific thinking to shape thinking and that's the difference between just a flat how am I supposed to handle this to how do you envision and move forward there are elements in there that get the person's brain thinking the way you want them that's perfect that's that's a great ad and so a couple things just in regards to the chat because I know we got some questions around how do I remember this stuff how do I recall it when I'm in game right how do I recall what's in what we talked about today well first thing is probably going to want to review the recording but as many people are saying here in the chat you're just gonna there's no way around low stakes practice practice on Family Practice you know and and it's really every opportunity you get to speak to someone is an opportunity to try out one of these skills and that's how you start committing it to memory so that when you get in the championship game right you get in that big interaction with your boss over the implementation of an issue you've done this a bunch of times already in small conversations and now it comes more naturally let's start with talking about mastering mastering the note this is letting them hear no letting them feel no without actually saying the words no and so for your best results it's going to be tactical empathy on the front end and then however you're going to say no and we'll talk about the four phases of no you know in a later session but you're letting them hear it letting them feel it without you actually saying it um that Ned colletti used to manage the Dodgers back in the day and um he was famous for saying I like to let out know a little bit at a time and so we're going to talk about ways to actually push back against the other side without cornering themselves and without cornering you mastering their weaknesses that their weaknesses where do you think where do you think the Cutthroats weakness lies not having control that's one of them they need to feel like they're in control the service the Cutthroat negotiators are looked upon as some of the most difficult people to deal with in a difficult conversation and negotiation from my perspective they're the easiest because they want to feel like they're in control and they want to feel like they got the best deal that they could the operative word in both of those is feel yeah Chris tells a story all the time about um being an international kidnapping market and the powers that be wanting to know when are they going to be released when are they going to release the kidnap victim and Chris's standard response was when they feel like they've gotten everything that they could when they feel like they got the best price possible it doesn't mean that they actually end up with the best price possible they just need to feel like they did and and so we're talking about feelings and how stupid is that when you're talking about International kidnappers and terrorists we're talking about how they how they feel and so our job is to make them feel in control as early as possible using deference using subordination you may even want to say you know it's it's clear that you've got the upper hand here it's clear that you're in control here they'll eat it up they'll eat it up you try it one time when you when you go into an area a space in your organization where you don't have the same cachet as you do on your own but you bring to the table a special knowledge or skill or ability that's going to help this other space improve their ability to do their job and when you come in there you're viewed as an intro or you're viewed as an outsider and so as a result you'll likely get pushback for any idea any suggestion that you make because it's not your area and you're encroaching and the sooner you recognize that and defer to that the more cooperation and and non-obligatory buy-in you'll get from the other side why do we use the no oriented question we use the no oriented question because it protects the autonomy of the other side people know when you're driving them for yes and most of the time they resent it the people on the globe are yes addicted and yes battered at the same time we're seduced by yes when we hear it we get all giddy inside and uh when it's used against us we resent it because it we feel like our ability to say no has been encroached upon but they're very effective at breaking them past helping people to think clearly or getting them to respond to you when they've dropped off the face of the Earth some examples of no oriented questions appear on the right side of the screen and these are all alternatives to the yes oriented questions that are on the left side of the screen would it be ridiculous is it out of the question am I out of line would it be off-putting have you given up on are you against is also one that I like to use quite frequently are you against that Chris did you have something or are you spazzing we're having my favorite no oriented question which is is it be ridiculous oh it would be ridiculous yeah we got rid of that once we got you through grammar school we felt it was no longer necessary to keep that up thank you all right um so yeah that's any any question where you're driving for yes a little bit of mental power can be changed to a no oriented question and I am continually amazed at what people will agree to by saying the word no that they would never agree to or say or say yes to and and this is not a Heckle but it's one more I want to thought because this is particularly in in dealing with the bosses guys we have counseled people to say to a boss do you want me to fail and it has broken impasse and uncovered answers and reoriented the negotiations and no warranted questions originally started the first trigger point on this came from a woman negotiating with her boss and she ultimately completely got her way by starting with the no oriented question so understand do you want me to fail do you want this to fail is a legitimate question to a boss who has given you an impossible task the bad news if they've given you an impossible task it's an impossible task and point of fact the good news if they've given you an impossible task they think a lot of you and they're looking for you to save the day so no into questions with the bosses are very effective thanks we look at this as basically it's a bear trap at the end of that rainbow if you're on the yes path and so what's our alternative alternative is no oriented questions all of you that have read the book have seen this we have some feel for it and so real quick I'm going to share a short story with you some of you may have even heard this on Chris's Keynotes about dealing with Jack Welsh so Jackson La several years ago while Chris is living in the area he and I at the time are actually teaching a negotiation course at the Marshall School of Business at USC for the uh the graduate program he goes to a book signing to CJ oh and if you don't know who Jack Welsh is obviously he's an author we're talking about Chris going to a book signs to get an author from him but he was a huge businessman he's not with us anymore but he ran GE in the 80s and 90s turned it into one of the fastest growing companies in the United States he was actually named manager of the century in 1999 which I don't know if there's a higher Accolade than that and he he developed this Rank and yank system at GE and was also adopted in many other places in the corporate world which essentially means you don't hit certain standards you got there is no second chance you got a standard to me if you don't get there we're gonna roll you out and bring in somebody that can get the job done so very big guy philanthropist author a lot of people look up to him and and follow his doctrines as a businessman even still today so Chris is at the signing he wants to see if Jack will come teach at his class at USC now if you know anything about book signings you got about five seconds with the author Securities job is to keep people moving through Chris doesn't have time to have a full conversation with Jack doing accusations audit to do a summary labeling mirrors responses he doesn't have time to do any of that he's gotta he's got to do a quick hitter and it's got to be emotionally intelligent and he's got to do it now and so he walks up to Jack and if you've heard the story you know that he says is it ridiculous for you to come speak in my class at USC and as The Story Goes jacket's a very intense look on his face looks up and to the left and just kind of freezes with this very angry look in that moment Chris thinks to himself I just killed Jack Welsh he's an old guy and he's so angry at my question that he's actually having a stroke in front of me and he's going to drop dead and security is going to drag me out of here by my ankles and I'm going to jail and after about 10 seconds of this intense look Jack looks back at Chris and he says here's a Twitter handle that's private that only people use internally in my company my assistant actually runs this as me I'm gonna let her know that you're gonna reach out to her through this Twitter handle so that we can keep in touch and I think we're supposed to be back in LA in the fall this is sometime in the spring of that year he says if we're back in La at that time frame I will come speak at your class at USC now the long of it is Jack wasn't in fact back in the fall a very busy guy couldn't make it so it didn't happen however he got the commitment in the moment why is that obviously the no warranted question but what happened what happened in Jack Welsh's brain in that moment that made it so easy for him to answer and the crazy thing about knowing to questions and I wish we could point to a specific brain science study that lays this out maybe there will be soon right with fmri machines and this wonderful technology and being able to plug electrodes into people's brains I'm sure there'll be a study at some point that explains how this works what we've observed as negotiators as content experts as former hostage and crisis negotiators when you allow someone to say no to you and in fact when you aim at someone saying no to you it clears their thought process as a lot of you thrown into the chat some of the problems with yes because yes makes people nervous the instant reaction is how do I defend myself in this moment and that clutters up the brain it doesn't allow us to be cognitively flexible when we're worried about how we have to defend ourselves and so he confronted Jack over a very specific want did it without a confrontational reaction and cleared Jack's thought process to lay out the implementation of how it would work all at the same time with a very simple question and so you can take our word for it or you can do what we're going to implore you to do as a result of this class and our next two go out and start executing this stuff if you're not already if you are executing this stuff already then you should start developing your go-to list if you listen to anything we've talked about before you know we talk a lot about go-to labels the reality is when the heat is on you fall to your highest level of preparation and as a result of that we like to have go-to lists of every single skill that we talk about and we keep that stuff near to us right laminated putting a jacket pocket make a list put it on your desk we even had a a good client and now friend of ours sent us a picture of his office and he had what we would refer to as situation boards set up in different frames all over his office that had lists of skills that he executes on a daily basis in his negotiations so it's going to help you to have a cheat sheet cheat sheet never get beat that's what we like to say and so that should apply to the anointed questions as well as you can see on the slide here on the left we have our classic yes questions on the right we have our classic versions of how to begin annoying to questions would it be impossible is it a bad idea am I out of line is it would it be out of the question and so what I'm going to ask from you now here's a chance to get some more coaching from Sandy this slide isn't is is a more extensive list of classic yes questions that everybody asks I'm guilty of asking them in the past people on our team were even guilty of asking these things in the past and so pick one or two of the questions off this list and please translate it to a no oriented question in the chat and the other thing about this this is actually a fairly decent prep model any yes question can easily be translated to a no question a good way to do it 10 15 minutes before you walk into a negotiation you want to work on your knowing to questions take a piece of paper draw a line down the center on the left I put the questions that you would normally want to say have them say yes to don't you agree that this is going to help your company don't you want to sign this contract don't you want to move forward so we don't waste any more time whatever draw that line and on the right just simply put the no oriented translation of what that is and that's a really good way to start getting yourself acclimated starting to develop your go-to list as it were and so last thing I want to mention about this something we highlight in the book but it's not laid out here in the slides is simply The Knowing to question that's phrased are you against and this if you're in any sort of sales role maybe sales isn't necessarily attached to your title but there is a sales element to what you do and for all intense purposes we're always selling ourselves right I mean we all know that inherently and so this are you a guest has actually shown to be a tremendous closer in the sales world or the closing world right however you like to look at it and simply are you against moving forward you've gotten all the way through the conversation the value has been established the Rapport has been established and you still seem to be an impasse that's a great question for that moment and it's yielded tremendous results and so we want to offer that to you and allow you to start using it too so please feel free get your list started get your go-to's going and you're going to find yourself in a much better place Jack Welch author of Jack and winning alongside us with his wife Susie they're coming through Los Angeles a couple of years ago they're they're hustling their book the real life MBA I go to the book saying Jack Waltz is that I want to come speak the negotiation course I'm teaching at the time at USC how many people try to get Jack Welch to say yes to something at that book signing pretty much every one of them right they're going to come up there Jack how are you yeah my kid makes my wife makes a great meatloaf you want to come to the house tonight God knows what they're going to ask you Jack I got this invention would you pose with it how many people are going to ask him to try to say yes try to get Jack Welch to say yes or something you're me you come up to Jack Welch what do you say and how much time do you have you maybe got seven seconds and even if you get to the second response after him there's 300 people standing behind you in line they walk you up there before you get to them they say what's your name Chris right on a piece of paper so Jack doesn't get it wrong really that's so you don't so you don't talk to him and then you keep moving on top of that have they patted me down do they know whether or not I've got a gun if I've been through a metal detector as a matter of fact I do have a gun but he's not in trouble for me they don't have my identification they don't know I'm not going to hurt them I'm going to get within arm's length of Jack Welch action is quicker than reaction they can't stop me from doing anything I want to do this is this is the Dilemma of bodyguards you get within arm's length as a Target you can only stop them after they've done you can grab them after they've killed your target but you can't stop them I'm going to get within arm's length of Jack Welch I could do whatever I want I could walk up to him I kiss him right on the lips if I want to right he was falling asleep I want to make sure he's wake up he's gonna wake up screaming in the middle of night time I woke up to Jack Welch and this is what I say to him is it a ridiculous idea for you to come and speak the negotiation course that I teach at USC he looks up until the left he says really intense Scholars and he just freezes and I think to myself I just killed Jack watch he had a stroke he's so Furious and he's gonna die and the security is going to tackle me I'm gonna drag me on cuffs I'm gonna say but I'm an FBI agent we don't care he killed Jack Welch so initially when he doesn't die I'm relieved but he still doesn't move it finally unfreezes he looks at me and he says this is my personal assistant's name this is a special Twitter account we have set up to communicate with her I will call her and tell her who you are and what you want I think we're going to be in Los Angeles in the fall if we are we'll come in and speak at your class celebrated no is worth at least five yeses so essentially what you're going to do when you're doing no oriented questions is you're going to make no work for you okay you're going to get them to give you a yes but they're actually going to be able to say no yes when you're when you're going for a yes from somebody and you're constantly trying to get them to say yes you're taking away their autonomy and when someone says yes sometimes it seems like a trap to them it also seems like no matter what the question is if they say yes it's some kind of a commitment that they might not be ready to get into so instead ask them a question that they can answer no to but it actually means yes to you because saying no makes people feel protected makes them feel safe makes them feel like they still have all their cards hidden and they just feel better about it so if you put that question um in a way that allows them to be negative it works out better for you also when you're constantly asking questions that you want to yes answer to you look like that demanding mother who says did you clean your room did you do the dishes did you do this did you did you make your bed because you know everyone heard that from Mom growing up right yeah and you're like yes yes yes yes and it's just like so annoying so no one wants to be equated to the demanding mom so instead you can say would it be impossible for you to make a copy of this for me and they're going to want to say no because maybe they don't want to make a copy I don't know but they're going to say no but it's going to be no it's going no it's going to mean yes to you because the way you phrase the question so it's really kind of magical how this works um essentially you are demonstrating concern for what this ask what the impact that ask is going to have on that person because you know when you're asking someone to go run an errand for you oh would it be impossible for you to run to the store and get this for me okay you're you're saying Yeah by my tone of voice I'm letting you know that I know this might be inconvenient for you but would it be impossible for you to just do this for me proper tone is important um Davey take the next one sets of the powerful feeling of graciousness you're better at this one than I am yeah so um because you can use the I mean there are a few phrases that are really go-to for an oriented questions so would it be impossible to would it be ridiculous would it be out of the question like those are three really good go-to's um if you want to make it a little bit more specific so for example like um say that you have to move a meeting like this happens to me a lot right um then you say would it throw off your whole like I know you're already busy would it throw off your whole schedule if we move this meeting so it's it's almost this opportunity again to express understanding to express like hey I know you're busy this might throw everything off so you can even phrase the question in that way right or something I really like to do is would it be really difficult to or would it be bothersome too so like you can use whatever you think like well they might feel like this is annoying or they might feel like this is going to be really problematic for them and so then you say that in the in that knowing question it's almost like a way that you can kind of address whatever it is that they're going to feel within the Oriental question essentially so it makes it feel kind of gracious because you've thought about this you've thought about how is this going to impact you instead of just making an ask and making sure they do it you're thinking about okay this is going to impact this person in in this way and you express that and then they're even more likely to want to do what you're asking essentially it also depending on the kind of question that you're asking and some of the things that Davey was just saying kind of fall under this makes the other side feel like the decision to do the action was theirs so if you and you can double whammy him with an accusations audit um yeah you may think I'm I'm being so irresponsible with my time and my schedule would be impossible or would it put you in a bad position if we could move the meeting to three o'clock and then they're going to say oh no no it's okay we can move me it's going to feel like the decision was theirs because you you basically asked that question in a way that feels like they can decide whether or not they can make the movement but because it was kind of geared at a nowhere in a question it makes them feel like they were nice enough to take that action for you and it was their decision exactly and that is huge when you're talking about um where you stand psychologically with somebody because the more you make somebody feel like they are in control the better they feel even when they're not in control because you know you're asking the questions in such a way that you are literally in control but you're letting them feel like they have the control um so that that does do something for people in their brains so it's just something to really keep you know in the Forefront of your mind when you're about to ask someone a yes question that you want a yes to take two seconds to frame it so that they can say no but still mean yes to you yeah exactly then they feel like they're the ones that are that they're maintaining power essentially yes because no is a powerful thing to be able to say to someone phases of no or what we like to refer to as you see down there in the bottom right letting no out slowly we've all seen how am I supposed to do that in the book we do not explicitly lay out what the phases of no are in the book partially because this wasn't a fully explored skill from all angles when the book was written right we had all this great content we wanted to get it out to the world and that's what we had we continued to develop and grow just like everybody should and so one of the biggest things we've found from people that have read the book is there are varying degrees of outcomes to the response how am I supposed to do that for some of you maybe you're still batting a thousand every time you say how am I supposed to do that you get exactly what you want they uh they fix it and you move forward I'm sure in some cases on the Other Extreme you've maybe never had the success you thought you'd have with how am I supposed to do that and you've had varying responses including they tell you how to do it how am I suppose that well this is how you do it you get these people together and you and you line them up in this way and you do these things and it should take you about a week to accomplish right they actually give you an answer on how you're supposed to do that and now you feel stuck and so or you're somewhere in the middle right you're either on the ends or you're somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you've already figured this out as we've worked the way through today why is that because in the book it doesn't talk about using an accusations audit to deliver your ask how am I supposed to do that is not only an ask it's an assertive ask and so it's even more Paramount that an accusations audit come before it in the book accusations of audits were used by Chris before he dropped this line in at the car dealership with the dealer we just didn't call out the skills specifically but if you remember the story he would constantly say things like you've been so generous I can't believe how much work you've put into this you spent a bunch of time with me today I really appreciate all the effort and and time you've given me I can't believe you know in the car the car is worth more than what I'm asking for it's probably it's probably worth more than what you guys listed it at how am I supposed to do that that was the accusations on it generosity and time don't seem like negative why does that apply in this case because it's based on their perspective and the negative that we are attacking is if we don't recognize how generous they've been they're immediately going to start to remove themselves because you have the audacity not to even see how much time I put into this and that's when it becomes a negative their perspective how can you not see how hard I'm working to get this done I would consider myself generous to even still be entertaining this interaction with you and so she's calling them generous in the accusations on it is actually directly resulting in what the negative that exists is causing what friction is there and so another part of this that she should be well aware of and another reason we've had varying degrees of success across the board this is not a sequential move game how am I supposed to do that should be delivered at least twice if not three times before you move forward in the conversation why is that well first of all since it's a question it's also a thought pattern interrupt and if they got momentum going angry or not doesn't matter but if they got mental momentum mental momentum right uh moving forward chances are the first time you throw a thought pattern interrupt at them they're not going to be able to process it like it literally just won't penetrate the cranium because the wheels are spinning and so part of the reason to go back to it again is because they're going to hear it differently the second time after the wheels have started to slow down and then you may need to go three because when they finally do hear it and they give you an answer it might be well because you got to do this because I said so and you throw it at them a third time to really and emphatically put your foot down on the implication of that is not going to work with work for me you got to come up with a different better solution if we're going to continue forward and that's the intention behind everything that comes on the third delivery without having to actually verbalize it and then you move through the list after you've done it three times then your fourth move is I'm sorry I just don't know how I can do that fifth is that's not going to work for me and finally your sixth is the flat out no I will tell you up to this point we don't actually know anyone that got all the way to know doesn't mean it can't happen over the past 12 years it hasn't yet but you know it's obviously a possibility and so that's how you sequence it out again tone is going to be important every time you deliver emphasis on the eye and how am I supposed to do that is one way to deliver it late night FM DJ using accusations on it before every single delivery if you put any one of these skills out there completely naked the chances that it's going to backfire on you in the moment is that much higher we get so hung up because at the end of the day what was Chris telling you each of the role players what was he telling you no right he was telling you no it was in a different form a car in 60 seconds or she dies but he was telling you no anytime somebody tells you no they're telling you what what's behind the no when somebody gives you pushback when not somebody says do this or else cut your price from going to a competitor take this Clause out of the contract and we're not going to sign change your delivery date give me a raise or I'm going to another company what are they really telling you now we got a hand back here yes but they're pushing back why are they pushing back what are they telling you with the push back they don't trust you or they're afraid of something we get so wrapped around the axle on the demand I want a car in 60 Seconds what's behind that what is he telling you which tells you what tells you what he wants to get out he's afraid go deeper as they say as Brandon says go deeper Isaac's the one who gives you crap over that not me I'm hearing a lot of things say it again back here that's it that's exactly it there's a motivation behind every pushback every no and it usually has to do with trust usually have to has to do with fear there's another motive when when the when Chechen terrorist marched into that school in 2004 in bezel in Russia one of the first two demands on their list was we want Putin to resign and we want Russian boots off of Chechen soil show of hands how many think that would ever happen and so the powers that be said it's never going to happen this is non-negotiable we can't negotiate this what are they saying behind that Russian boots off of Chechen soil and Putin has to resign what are they saying behind it what uh to die willing to die I'm sorry yes he said they're willing to die for it if you carry to its logical extension based on their history probably but what is the message behind yeah their sovereignty and freedom has been encroached upon that's what we're going to talk about the fact that they said take it out of the contractor we're not going to sign who care about that I want to know what makes them say that why are they afraid to sign what does their environment looks like that's clouding their vision and so don't get hung up on the fact that they've issued a threat where they issued a demand you take it you process it and then you start to attack what's propping that up what's supporting it and at the Primal level it's fear or it's mistrust do you want to add [Music] granny uh very good and yeah just to kind of add to more of that how do you get to the Why without asking the why short answer is labels and then to go even further than that labeling the underlying Dynamic I need a car in 60 seconds or she dies sounds like you want to live Circumstance the situation the circumstance and the situation drive your strategy when people are barricaded suspects are they always looking to make it out alive no so the fact that they're asking for a car and a way of Escape at the beginning is a really good sign part of the why that that tells you right away is they want to live then how do we get to more of the why sounds like you got a reason for doing this sounds like you got a good reason a good Justified reason for why you got up this morning decided to take all these people hostage what what he said was and this should be on your go-to labels list especially as a last-ditch effort it sounds like there's nothing I can say to change your mind and again masteries in tonality but also to his point as business people part of our job is qualifying our clients and so if you know that you're with somebody that has taken that line with you the other question you should be asking yourself is do I want to do business with this schmuck for the next five years or is it actually easier for me to cut my losses and focus my time on something else it's one of the great things that's one of the great things about having autonomy as a business person you get to make that decision and so if you know you're dealing with someone who is stuck on that one track mind you can take the route of all right we'll come to an agreement I don't mind playing the game as long as I know what the rules are or you can say hey this is a [ __ ] waste of my time I've been working with this guy he's he clearly seems to recognize some sort of loss but he's stuck his pride and ego is too stuck to this number and he just doesn't have the ability to think this through right now which happens because that sounds like you're dealing with an assertive and it serves a one-track mind people sometimes they get tunnel vision because they're so focused on a goal and there ain't nothing that's going to penetrate that thought process until they got a couple of nights to sleep on it and so how are you men again emotional moments right how are you manage it and then do you want to do business with that person I have three three ways to make no work for you right that's that's where we're at here today on our blog Post article uh if you want to read the article it's um it is communication skills three ways to make no work for you I'm gonna skip past the first two to one of my favorites last question would it be horrible if we sat in this section now one of the things that I love about this particular story uh uh is I was at a conference and Walter O'Brien was speaking Walter O'Brien is a scorpion uh Walter's claim and I had no contradictory evidence to counter that claim that he's got the highest IQ ever recorded it was a television show called I think it was called the Scorpion a long time ago uh supposed to be inspired by Walter O'Brien's real life where he and his team of super smart people saw the world's problems would come to your rescue and so we're at this conference and Walter's there and Walter is a ridiculously smart dude I've you know I've run across him a couple times we're in his restaurant and they got this there's nowhere to sit and they got this section blocked off and so somebody got to talk to them and get the waitress to let us sit in a blocked off section now fortunately for me I watched Walter walk over there and talk to the waitress and she's like now you can't sit here you can't sit here and you know he tries to use IQ on her because he's got a super high IQ and and and the answer is no so I walk up to her and I said would it be horrible if we sat in this section she looks around she was like no you just got to be out here by six o'clock that's about four o'clock in the afternoon we just want to sit down and have a drink you know we don't want to be there for hours and hours I cut the deal and we go right in and we sit down so to my particular Delight the hostage negotiator succeeded with the world's smartest guy failed so Walter if you're listening to this I probably owe you a drink or a steak or something for telling that story on you but it's a great example of why in all of all ways to make no work for you that people accountable saying no people get into this no mode one of the biggest surprises that I took really to heart in the book was getting to know yeah well we're so wired I mean we're completely wired for the opposite for example on a recruiting call if I call a typical agent you know who doesn't know who I am I may say Hey you know Chris this is Alex Vidal with related blah blah blah how you doing today by the way I see you're a great agent I was calling to see if you would be interested in learning more about my company and the typical answer is no I'm happy where I'm at it's a 30 second call right I read your book I sit down with my leadership team and I say guys I want to try something different just hey just hang out I'm going to put it on speaker so I call Chris and now Chris answers the phone and I said hey Chris this is Alex with related as your International royalty how you doing today I'm doing great how are you I'm like oh man I'm doing great I already know you're a great agent just the fact that you even picked up your phone to begin with they start laughing you know because in realtors in South Florida never answer their phone so then I follow it I'll go let me ask you a question do you want to make less money this year than you did last year and they say no I'm like no no of course not of course I want to make more money this year than I did last year oh it sounds like you want to make this your best year ever I do well that's why I was calling I want to show you how my brokerage can help make that happen for you and I got to know right away and then you got to know out of the way that I followed it up with you know the mirroring and the labeling and all that and it was very interesting my average recruiting call went from 30 seconds to 10 minutes wow and just using that opening line I don't care I'll share it with my competitors I really it doesn't really bother me they're just spewing out information literally using the mirroring and the labeling what is it about people's need to want to say no and what are the benefits of getting that no out of the way first yeah you know um we're conditioned there's some conditioning out there that we got to recognize it's just true so we've gotten conditioned that every time we say yes somebody's trying to lead us into a trap somebody's trying to get us to say yes you know the momentum selling says EGS is a tie down a tie down takes away our autonomy a basic human driver of what we are as human beings not what we are as males or females not what we are as westerners as human beings and this is about human wiring you can't point to a civilization in the history of mankind it was content as slaves it's driven us since we crawled out of the swamps so these tie downs take away our autonomy and immediately begin to diminish Rapport as we take away somebody's autonomy and so we've been conditioned that if somebody's trying to get a say yes Wonder attack we've also conditioned ourselves as when we say no we've just protected ourselves we've just done something to preserve our autonomy we're safer every time we say no which is why so many people's default answer is no not because they thought it through but they've conditioned themselves which mean they feel safe when they say no there is a neurochemical response it's the chemicals that you feel when you say no make you feel safe and secure consequently you're more willing to listen your guard's not up you've protected yourself so you start out with that question right away where somebody says no then they just gotten ahead of all the chemicals that make them feel safe and now they're willing to talk to you and then you've got it you've got a your uh your follow-on moves are all designed to make them feel heard like you're interacting with them instead of against them I mean it sounds like you like to make more money that was based on their response you instantly prepare yourself to go into a collaborative conversation again they're not threatened they're not being attacked they're not under siege and now it's it's I'm not the least bit surprised you're going from 30 second calls to 10 minute calls because soon as you preserve the other side's autonomy now they can talk to you candidly plus you're different than all the other bozos out there that are trying to get them to say yes that's it and you have the typical answer is well I'm happy where I'm at oh it sounds like they take really good care of you yeah they do awesome what is it that they they take you know maybe I can learn something about I can do in my company what is it that they do to take care of you and then you start finding all these holes and then the wall just keeps coming down we had a conversion rate of 75 from calls to appointments it was it was unbelievable and that's why I believe so much in the book I I read a lot of books but very few make a direct immediate impact the way the way yours did just curious all right so you got to a conversion rate of 75 what what roughly were you doing before that now probably we would get maybe one out of maybe every six seven eight calls maybe we'd get an appointment wow and then those opportunities had to show up the the fact was not only were we at a 75 conversion rate but the the bond that we had created with those people during that phone call was so good that they actually showed up for the appointment versus and I don't even have questions about the yeses but we you know you talk about in your book the three types of yeses that we get that you would typically get um and so by spending 10 minutes on the phone with them we actually get the approval action based yes that moves the ball forward not just something to get us off the phone interesting I guarantee you there are very few people who are using Proof of Life questions there are very few people who are using no oriented questions and there are tons of people who are enamored with yes and we'll talk about why that's problematic um I often get asked how did you get hostage takers to say yes to you and the answer was we never did yes is a useless word it does you no good it's one of the it's one of the hurdles that you're going to have to navigate in order for you to improve the way you communicate between people there's this nonsense out there called yes momentum in Academia they call it mere agreement which suggests that you're likely to get an agreement to a big ask if there have been micro agreements previous to the ask example do you like clean water do you think people who abuse animals should be held to higher account do you think the Women's National Team should get paid as much as the Men's National Team buy my product the yeses that precede the big ask they say doesn't even have to be related to the ask itself some people refer to it as the yesable proposition or my favorite the yes tie down think about that for a second someone is trying to use yes to tie you down and you like that or or the other side of the coin you're using yes to tie someone else down and you like that yes is commitment yes encroaches this encroaches on autonomy yes makes people defensive their anxiety goes up um people will cite studies where yesable propositions mere agreement yes momentum work and I'm not here to say that it doesn't work I'm just here to say if you're using it your batting average is not as high as it should be yes is a lure it's a hack it's seductive we know how good it sounds and in that moment we fail to recognize that we have put the other side on the defensive so we got to get out of the Habit think about it like this how do you feel when the phone rings and the person on the other side I don't care if they're close to you or not they ask you do you have a few minutes to talk most of you don't think to yourselves oh my God yes I do have a few minutes I'm glad you called four things usually right run through your brain almost simultaneously first how long is a few minutes second if I have a few minutes to talk do I want to talk to you third if I want to talk to you do I want to talk about what you want to talk about and fourth how can I get off the phone we have been hammered with yes yes we know we feel it instinctively when people are trying to drive us somewhere when people are trying to commit us to something and we resent it we don't like committing to something that we haven't volunteered for and so instead of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow it's usually set up for a trap we love to hear it so much but in that instance we should know that we're putting the other side on the defensive

Channel: NegotiationMastery

Views: 17,541

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Id: ryniNKUtLsg

Length: 76min 34sec (4594 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2022