THIS negotiation TRICK Can Make People Around You Happier | Chris Voss

happy holidays everybody what I want to talk to you about with this video well it's the opposite of never being mean to someone who could hurt you by doing nothing and I know we don't mean to be mean but here in the holiday season especially what I'm talking about here is how easy it is to come off as mean we know we're always frustrated especially the customer service people quick story my mom my mom she said visited me right after Thanksgiving she's here for the holidays she's taking the time to let her credit card companies know that she's going to be out of town and to accept charges from outside of her area and lo and behold her credit card starts getting rejected this is really frustrating for because she's gone through this before and they said well call and tell your credit card company in advance what she did so now she's worried about being here in Los Angeles visiting me not being able to buy me breakfast and I've been able to take care of a little boy and uh buy him food and what's going on here is she's really frustrated and I'm sitting next to her in a restaurant and she's kind of she's expressing her displeasure to a customer service person and and you know what and lo and behold in a few short minutes she hangs up and they've offered to send her a letter to her house authorizing the charges and they won't let her use her card until then now this is absurd a letter to her house she's not even there how's she going to handle this she's saying her credit card being shut down for the entire duration of the visit which again doesn't make her happy she makes a second call it doesn't go that well the second time what happens the second time well she expresses her frustration again to somebody who's like a battered child because they've been getting beaten all day by customers that are unhappy and lo and behold the second customer service rep says well I see our first person you talk to is going to send a letter to your house and I can't do anything else so this is a classic example of people who were already having a tough day through no fault of my moms and she calls them on the phone just expressing her displeasure and she's being completely misunderstood and they are not helping her I get her on the phone the next day we sit down I say Mom we're going to be nice we're out of our way to be nice and you know our nice is we go with the uh black swans accusation audit and I we call it customer service rep and I'm kind of wondering what is this going to sound like I mean it's definitely going to sound like this woman's been kidnapped because there's a guy sitting next to a coaching her through the phone call on the speaker but I suppose the customer service rep keeps hearing me say mom be nice be nice mom and she kind of gathers that this is a legitimate call but we start out and I just say hey look you know I know we're giving you a hard time we're crazy you know we're we're so demanding you know I do the accusations on it with this woman which to us seems one way but the other side loves it in short order this young lady with customer service on the other side is like yeah you know I see you're calling from a cell phone that you've got we've had it on record forever you know and I'll unblock these charges so in a holiday spirit and the holiday season especially think about being extra nice we feel like it's extra nice and the customer service reps everybody else you know they think we're just being civil but go a little extra this holiday season have an amazing time use negotiation techniques to make the people around you the people in your life happier happy holidays now we come to what we call our Jedi mind trick so an accusations audit is that thing that reaches in someone's brain and flips a switch so what you're doing with an audit is you are proactively addressing all the negative emotions because people come to every difficult conversation in every negotiation with emotions because we are inherently emotional that's what human beings are and you can say you're not feeling emotion about something but you do you can't stop that emotion from being involved so when you're using an accusation audit you are taking every negative thing that the other side can possibly be thinking about you and you are mitigating it you're putting it out there first the thing about it is it doesn't matter if it's true it doesn't matter if it's fair or unfair to you it's what they could possibly be thinking it's not your perception of the situation it's your basically hypothesis of what the other side is thinking so if you remember you know High School you did lab sciences and you were forced to come up with a hypothesis and then you had to prove it wrong or not so this is what we're doing with an accusations audit we're coming up with a hypothesis of this all the negative things they can be thinking on their side we're putting them in our accusation audit form you may you might you probably and we're putting them out there first so this also is going to address anything that you may want to deny so if someone was walking down the street and they were they were talking negative about you and expressing all their their negative feelings about you what would they be saying those are things that you probably want to deny those are things you need to address what an accusations audit does is it helps you point out the elephant in the room before it completely destroys your conversation because if you leave it there everybody knows it's there no one's pointing it out it's trampling all over everything because until you mitigate whatever that emotion is it's going to stay in that person's mind and if that emotion stays in their mind they can't have an open head to listen to what you have to say a lot of people are really uncomfortable with these things because it's like taking a big old spotlight and shining it right on yourself and putting all of your negative stuff out there airing your dirty laundry throwing yourself under the bus all those different things I've been used have been used to describe what an accusations audit does but seriously what you're doing is you're taking away permission from the other side to use things again against you so it's going to recognize the negatives the other side is thinking and it's going to prevent them from using it against you later it's going to clear the mind of the other side because you've now demonstrated that you understand all the negative things they're bringing to the table and they're going to be shocked because who comes to the table and starts talking negative things about themselves the thing is you're not going to introduce that negative thing if they don't already feel that way it's not like you're going to say um oh gosh I didn't thought about that but now you know what I feel negative about that that's not what's going to happen you cannot introduce a negative they either feel it or they don't and by pointing it out you're mitigating it okay it's going to build trust quickly because you're you're throwing yourself under the bus you're essentially telling them all the negative qualities here and you're being open and honest about it so it builds trust really really quickly it also helps set the expectations of the other side because when you use an accusation audit whatever you're saying if you're saying you may feel like we're too expensive when you say that their mind goes to worst case scenario if they were hoping to get a certain price and you say that they're going oh my gosh it's gonna be way too high for us so they're they were thinking okay well you know we want to stick around 100 150 000 and when they hear that they go oh my gosh they're going to be asking for a half a million dollars fear sets in because fear drives Behavior and drives emotions So when you say you're going to find this too expensive they go oh my God it's going to be a half a million dollars so you get through all your Audits and when it comes time to make your pitch or your ass because you don't explain these at the time that you say them when it comes time for you to make your pitch or your ass the dollar amount that comes out of your mouth is two hundred thousand dollars they feel relieved even though it's higher than what they wanted to pay you set their expectation for it to be so much higher that when you say a higher number than what they even want they say plus she's gonna go up to 500 000. well it's only 200 we can deal with that even though it's higher than we wanted to do it could have been so much higher so you're setting those expectations um one of the things I like to use to explain this I work sex crimes for the last 11 or 12 years of my career and we were having trouble getting prosecutions of cases because people didn't like our victims um quite frankly rape is a crime that people don't like to convict on because in a way it makes them admit that the boogeyman is out there and that this could happen to them it could happen to anybody so they don't like to convict they like to find a reason not to convict because then it makes them feel safer so when you're going into court and you have a victim that you know got drunk and then went home with a guy that she really didn't even know and then this awful thing happens to her the jury uses that as an excuse not to convict because it's her fault victim blaming is so alive and well in the United States I promise you but the one way we went forward and started winning some of these cases was in the opening arguments all the prosecuting attorney talked about was you are not going to like this victim you are going to believe that this assault was her fault you're gonna wonder why did she get drunk and go home with this guy all those negative things and the jury is sitting there going oh my gosh she's pointing out all these negative things and the defense attorney is over there going holy crap they're ruining our case because all of the negative things are being introduced by the prosecution meaning the defense can't come back later and use it against them because the wind has already been taken out of their sails 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 everything is already out there now so they can't use it against them later because the prosecution is not trying to hide it they're literally putting it right out there so if you're going into a difficult conversation or a negotiation you are attempting to hide things on your side that the other side is probably already going to think don't do it put it out there this is one of the hardest skills to use because it's really hard for people to to put all their negative junk out in front of people it doesn't feel right it feels counterproductive it feels awful it feels icky but once you learn how to do it and make it work for you you'll wonder how you lived without it because you're mitigating all the negative foreign so why these things because it demonstrates self-awareness on your part by the fact that you are aware of all these negative things the other side is feeling so it lets them know that that you are aware of yourself enough to know that these negative things are in their mind and a lot of people can't do that won't do that it also gives you freedom to say whatever you want without any kind of a fear of a negative reaction because if you say to someone when you're delivering bad news because that's one of the times when you use this you're gonna be really upset with me you're going to wonder how in the world you decided to do business with me in the first place and then you pause hang your head for dramatic effect and then you look up and you say we're not going to have those deliver there's a word I can't say we're not going to have those deliverables you need until a week past the deadline once again you've set expectations by telling them how awful they're going to feel and how mad they're going to be and so they're thinking what is going on and then one week deadline really seems less than what they were thinking in their head because you sent them to worst case scenario not to mention you threw yourself under the bus and said how mad they were going to be and how horrible you are and you shouldn't have done this this way and whatever else you need to say and then they feel sorry for you because you've just bashed yourself so they're not going to add to that this is also a great way to get rid of those things that people might have that are preconceived against you um if they think you may be too assertive if they think that you may be too emotional you can label this with an accusation order at the very beginning you may think that I'm going to come across very harsh you may feel like I'm being very emotional about this and you mitigate those things because when you say that it takes it out of their head if they were thinking it it gets rid of it because you've already acknowledged it okay so this is really important too because a lot of times depending on who you're dealing with if you've got a Cutthroat procurement person on the other side of the table from you and you know you're trying to deal with them they're automatically going to think they have this woman on the phone who they can walk all over who is going to be really really emotional and they really want to deal with this and so if you put that out there they're going to go okay and they're going to kind of Wonder okay well maybe I was wrong about this person so you can actually subvert all those negative things they may be thinking about you to start with this also softens the conversation so especially when you're delivering bad news um the example I use in all the basic classes is if someone from your house your spouse calls you and says hey you know I need to stop by and pick up the system that's on the way home again you know for dinner tonight and you forget it and you pull into the driveway and you go oh she's I forgot to go by the store and get this this and this so when you go in the house and you say you're gonna be so mad at me you're going to think I'm so irresponsible you're just going to think that I don't care what you're doing here at home and then you hang your head once again dramatic effect and you say I forgot to pick up the milk and then you have bashed yourself so hard that they're going to feel bad bashing you on top of that and they're going to say oh it's okay even though it's probably not okay you didn't come in and say I've brought the milk and basically I'm not going back out and getting it so that kind of attitude is going to cause a fight but if you come in and say I'm so horrible I'm so terrible I did this and then they're going to go oh it's okay I promise you try it it's amazing that it works and people all the time that I coach privately they will say I can't believe that worked you told me this was going to work I went and did it and oh my god it worked it does accusations audits are amazing okay baby Barbara anything you want to add to that um well she's right I I used it to ask if you want to go out to dinner and I know I can ask any time but I wanted to practice and when you when you start off with you're going to think I'm crazy you're going to think that I just don't even know what I'm talking about and by the time I got to the ask he's looking at me like what is wrong with you do you want to go to dinner sure let's go he's relieved because he thought I was going to say something or start an argument he's believed that it was only I want to go to dinner so if it helps to get those practice that what we call low stake practicing with your family so it really does help especially with the skill that's awkward to use in the first place yes this is awkward to use David did you want to add anything to that I think that's great awesome any chat things we need to deal with before we move on to Davey's favorite um no I'm just um in the chat uh okay actually the only thing that I will say to accusations audits um is it it really helps with that whole um kind of what we were or what got brought up earlier um just in the chat of okay how are we going to still be firm but tactful right essentially that it's like we're always walking this line as women of okay how can we make sure that people listen to us and um and that we're not getting walked all over but um that you know we're not going to get labeled is it okay then we're not going to get labeled a right um it's a fine line that we're walking um accusations on it is Magic for that absolute magic and this is coming from someone who I am scared of disappointing people deeply um and so you know I talk a big talk but then actually at the end of the day I don't ever want to upset people um and this has been just a game changer for me so instead of feeling scared of you know like I have to deliver bad news to someone someone's going to be mad that this is happening um the accusations on it just helps you with all of that because you're just able to express I understand what this what the impact is and what that's going to be for you you set them up for it um and then suddenly you're not having to walk the Fine Line anymore you're creating a lot more space for yourself um to be able to deliver the bad news that you have to deliver right it's not up to you um and so anyway I just think the accusations on it is magical it gives you so much more space as a woman than what you feel like you have a lot of times yeah it does it is one of those skills that makes you feel very very powerful because you are setting expectations on the other side and you are kind of disarming them by pointing out all the negative things that then they can't use against you later so it is one of the best skills actually for women I have a question okay go ahead Rocco uh my question is um can you just give some examples uh I work in in uh in the banking industry so can you use some examples of how these techniques would work in a situation where um you're trying to convince somebody to bring more money or invest more money or um or part with their resources part with their resources um an accusation audit is going to be amazing for you so think about all the negative reasons why they wouldn't want to invest more all the negative reasons why they might be afraid to invest more because fear of loss is something that has to be gotten over before they can see opportunity okay so what are people afraid to lose when they're bringing you money to invest the money right so you need to think about all the negative things um you may feel like this is high risk you may feel as if you won't get enough return on this and remember when you use an accusations audit you're not explaining it at the time that you're using it you're just putting it out there to mitigate it talk about the court example we didn't explain any of those things we just threw all that negative out there and then when it comes time to actually do the case and put on their side of the case that's when they're explaining things so when you're talking to someone start out at the very beginning with accusations audits letting them know you understand all the negative things they're thinking about when it comes to bringing you money okay okay and then don't explain why they don't have to worry about that just say that and then when you start talking with them about options and things that they can do that's when you're going to explain the audits away so that they feel more comfortable because you can't get there with them anything logical you're talking about until you mitigate that negative and by acknowledging it you're mitigating it does that make sense yeah thank you okay yeah and I'll um if I can just add something real quick to that is the um yeah parting with their resources that's um that's a tough thing to do right so um what you really want to build is Trust ultimately they're not going to do that if they don't trust you and um people say there's a lot of different theories out there of how you can build trust quickly and how you can build rapport just nothing is going to be as valuable as them feeling understood by you because I'm sure that I mean this is probably part of the accusations on it too right that um you know I'm I'm sure that I'm just one of the one of the hundreds of people out here asking for your money um and if we're going to get more personal like I'm sure that it feels really strange to be reached out to all the time before money in this way you know and that it can feel really impersonal and um even maybe jarring right like that you can use you can use things like that right of okay how do I actually think they're feeling and what they're experiencing and then once if you can get because I'm sure a lot of it is trying to get in front of them in the first place yeah but once you can get in front of them truly the labels mirror summary is just a magic combination because once they're speaking enough to you and if you're able to summarize I mean even something along those lines right then it's like you've worked so hard for your money um you don't want to just throw it away you want to put it somewhere valuable and that's a really difficult task to figure out who is going to take care of that for you right like being able to express something like that I mean would just build trust in a really magical way yeah wow you guys are amazing that was a great question can I ask you a question about that um on act this is D um on accusation audits when you say you probably think I don't know what I'm talking about and all I want to do is make a lot of money blah blah blah yeah so you do you throw your audits out there how do you transition to your point because you can't say you're not supposed to say I don't want you to think that I don't know what I'm doing we're supposed to say you probably think I don't know what I'm doing right correct you can't contradict it when you say you probably think I don't know what I'm doing but blah blah blah blah how do you transition from that all right so great question um let me talk about the butt first okay the butt erases everything that came before yeah yeah and so that is another way to deny the negative to your actual question how do you transition they're going to tell you how to transition okay when you are aggressive and go um go all in on your accusations audits one of two things is going to happen they're going to stop you and say hey we weren't thinking those things or B and let's move on we've got we've got other stuff to do we've got other things to talk about either way you're in a good spot because the conversation is now transitioning into where you want it to go anyway and it's not your idea okay it's their idea so as you're throwing out your accusations audits you're just waiting for them to stop you now having said that if they don't stop you there may be a problem if they if you've gotten to the end of your list of accusations Audits and they're still staring at you and they haven't responded there's something else you're missing something and so your your job then is just to label that Dynamic it seems like whatever you were thinking is a lot worse and I participated and that'll get them to flush out what else is it that they're they're still concerned about but the general sequencing is going to be accusations audit you're looking for feedback from them um but you you may not get it you they may just you may not get anything verbal from them but that's not the purpose of the accusations or the accusations are is just to um from the get-go show them that you're not thinking about yourself you're thinking about them what they're going through what they perceive their perspective and that there's no clearer way when you point a negative light back at yourself like that you know how much courage that takes and what is that what is that how does that translate or how does that trans how is that transmitted to the person with whom you're doing it they're looking at you like you're a unicorn like you are something out of the ordinary because who does that and you are proactively preemptively labeling things that they have not said and it makes you look like a mind reader how much more can you convince somebody that you are dialed into them to the nth degree than for you to start labeling things that they have not spoken yet and so that's why we are so aggressive with our execution of the accusations on it at the beginning of the conversation because it sets the tone it tells them right off the bat this is not about me this is about you and so to transition out of it you let them do it for you okay accusations audit this folks is a game changer this is this is the Jedi mind trick of the Black Swan group it is amazing okay so what you're doing when you're using accusations on it is you're proactively addressing those negative emotions so anything that the person on the other side of the table could think about you that is possibly negative you're going to put it out there first okay whether it's fair or unfair whether it's true or not it doesn't matter if they could possibly be thinking about thinking that about you then you are going to tell them up front you know they're thinking that because then what that does is it kind of takes the power away from them to use that against you later on in the conversation because you've already pointed it out they don't have to point it out or they're not going to use it against you in any way because you've already thrown it out there all right um it also addresses anything you might want to deny so instead of saying I don't want you to think I'm being mean but because when you hear that from somebody what's the first thing that comes to your mind they're about to be mean so you don't want to say that you're you're denying it right up front so this instead of saying that you're going to say you may think I'm being mean because then you're not saying I don't want you to think I'm being mean because that's basically screwing it up but if you say you're going to think I'm being mean you're basically telling them what they're going to think and they're going oh okay once again I said before it's a preemptive label okay but you're basically kind of labeling yourself because you're putting all of your own negatives out there um you may you might you probably is how it's set up and don't freak out because you're saying all these negative things about yourself it doesn't mean that if the negative is not already thought by then that you're going to introduce it that's not how it works okay if they're not already thinking it you're not going to plant the thought in their head that's not how it works this stuff is Magic all right say you you're supposed to pick up something on the way home and you forget to get it and so you get home and your spouse says hey did you get the milk and you're like oh and you're thinking in your head off but you're gonna say oh my gosh you're going to be so mad at me you're just gonna think I'm the most irresponsible person you're gonna say I forgot the milk well you already just told them what they were gonna think so you took the ammunition out of there your wind out of their sails they're not going to use that against you now because you already told them that they know and they're going to go ah and they might be disappointed but they're not going to be like what's wrong with you I can't believe you forgot the milk they're not going to be upset because you already pointed out the negative okay Dave anything you want to say about that before we I think you covered it awesome so what do accusations audits do they recognize those negatives up front they keep somebody from using that against you later in the conversation they also clear that person's mind because you're telling them all the negative things you already know that they think so they can actually let go of it at that point because you've already pointed it out so now they're not focused on that anymore because of that it builds trust very quickly because you are demonstrating to the other side how self-aware you are you know that there are negative things and you are being nice enough to point it out for the other side and mitigate it from their brain all right they think wow okay well she knows she knows that I'm thinking that or feeling that so they're not going to think of you as being sneaky or trying to hide something because you're literally pointing out all the negatives at the beginning of the conversation it also helps to regulate the the other side's expectations when you give someone an accusations audit whatever you're saying to them whatever you're getting ready to introduce to them they automatically think worst case scenario you're going to be so mad at me and they're going oh my God what did you do worst case scenarios coming to mind you know you wrecked the car or you know you did something horrible and I'm gonna have to be worried about this and then when you say I forgot the milk they're going to go oh shoot I thought you're gonna tell me you wrecked the car or something so it raises the expectation sends their mind to worst case scenario and then when you say what it really is and it's so much better than what they where their mind went it actually calms them down they're actually like relieved because then they don't have to worry about the fact that you wrecked the car because that's where their their thought pattern went is that oh my gosh thousands of dollars get the car fixed and you're like I forgot the milk and then they're like oh okay that's okay I can deal with that um why I kind of said some of this already it does demonstrate awareness to your awareness it also demonstrates awareness of the other side because you're aware that they have negative feelings and you're aware of their negative feelings so their their thought is well they understand me so well they knew I was going to think that bad thing about them gives you freedom to say anything without fear of a negative reaction folks this works and I don't know where Kayla is I don't see her face anymore but when you can use an accusations audit on Chris Voss and it works it can work on anyone the guy wrote the book for God's sake and he responds to accusations audits so when you can use an audit on the man and it works you know you can use it anytime whenever you have to deliver bad news whenever you're going to be able to ask something that you don't know you're going to be able to get from somebody you want to point out all the negatives first about why they might not want to give it to you and then you're going to ask for it in a very you know like can I have this you know and then they're going to be like oh okay you basically manipulate the other side I mean seriously this is probably my favorite skill because no matter what you've done you can audit it and then you're going to give the information they've already gone to worst case scenario and then boom when you put it out there like wow okay it wasn't as bad as I expected um you can subvert those preconceived notions if you're afraid someone is going to think you're too assertive put that out there you're going to think I'm the biggest and you know what the more colorful you are with the audits the higher you raise those expectations for that bad news and then the further they fall when they realize that's not what they're going to get is the bad news okay so you can label that away if you're somebody who you feel you may be too emotional at times over certain things you can put that out there too and you can say you know you may think that I'm just too sensitive about this it helps tame that label of them calling you too emotional I don't know how many of you at some point in your life have been referred to as emotional or it must be that time of the month and you just want to punch somebody right I use that as an audit you may think it's that time of the month for me in other words I'm about to come at you with some claws because it may be that time of the month for me and that's how you're going to feel so I use that as my audit and then they're like oh okay fear yikes what's gonna happen here they're bracing for it and then you're gonna say yeah I need 50 from you for whatever and they're like oh you know sure thank goodness you raise it up and then pull it right back down and they're like oh no no no no relief okay so use that audit it does help to tame those labels especially any label you're afraid you're gonna get you put it out there first in an audit and it's going to go away so if you're somebody who has been accused in the past of being or assertive you can come right out and say this may come across as extremely assertive you may think that I'm just the pushiest person you've ever met you put all that out there that way they can't use it against you you're going to mitigate that negative and it's going to get rid of those labels for you it also softens that um conversation there's this example um Aaron and Jessica just put forward an example of if you're with your boss can you say something like you may think I don't deserve this job or that I haven't worked hard enough to be in this role make it two separate audits you and and I would use feel for this because it's not going to be what they think or not it's going to be that they feel you may feel like I don't deserve this job and what was the next one and um that I haven't worked hard enough to be in this role okay so you're gonna make it two different audits you may also think you can just think here that I haven't worked hard enough to be in this role remember don't justify it don't explain it just let it sit there and sorry I said I said if you're in negotiating with your boss and they're saying that they are the boss talking to their to who's under them but I think oh um same idea no well I'm uh say to me again my brain rattle for a second so you're the boss and you say um you may think I don't deserve to be oh okay okay I see what you're saying um be a little more explicit with it you may feel like I don't you I don't deserve to be in the supervisory position I mean put just very bluntly put it out there and I don't remember the second one again I haven't worked hard enough to be in this role you may also feel like I didn't work hard enough or as hard as I needed to to be in this role so yeah anything you can say that people might be thinking it's negative and you put it out there first that it's going to mitigate it so whatever you think that they're thinking whatever meeting you're going into whoever you're dealing with whatever negative thoughts you you know they have before you walk in the room the first thing you say when you walk in the room is that accusations audit to just put all the negatives out of the way then it's it's much much easier for you to just get down to business at that point and you know that you've already mitigated those negatives so you can move on how do we come up with this list the first rock to look under is simply what might you want to deny and why is that important well I'll start like this it fascinates me how much about proper communication that most of us if not all of us already have built into US internally and specifically in regards to this skill all of us have even have either done or heard a conversation that started with something along the lines of I don't want you to think that I'm a jerk I don't want you to feel like I'm attacking you I don't want you to get upset I don't want you to think this is disrespectful we do that because we know there's a really good chance that's how they're going to feel as a result of what we have to lay out for them unfortunately when we say when we phrase it as I don't want you to think not only are we denying that we're connecting ourselves to that negative thought were also the intention the received intention behind that is you are not justified in feeling this way and again us telling them that they're unjustified to feel it infringes on their autonomy like I know you're probably gonna feel you but you know you shouldn't know because that's good reasons one really slight two millimeter tweak which is really what this skill is based off of is instead of the denial we have to accept and acknowledge that it exists and so a slide we're going to show shortly is how we phrase it instead of I don't want you to think that I'm a jerk it's you're probably going to think that I'm a jerk or simply go all the way in with you will think that I'm a jerk we got to acknowledge that the negative is there we got to acknowledge that they have they are in fact justified in thinking it when we deny it it gives people's guard up we've all felt the guard instantly go up when somebody says I don't want you to think I'm disrespectful right we instantly like all right here comes you're going to be disrespectful and I'm already mad before you've even said what you got to say and so this is why we phrase it like this one of the things that makes this hard in addition to the fact that it's very counterintuitive especially to our natural communication is your counterpart likely sees it as truth and we likely see it as nonsense and so it's much easier for us to start to articulate whatever negatives might exist if we accept the fact that we won't be able to rationalize it and so this whole idea right this you can't handle the truth right Jack Nicholson here from A Few Good Men this angry reaction of you can't handle the truth that's what our counterparts feel when we show our own fear in the face of these negatives what it shows is a communicator for us when we deny these things when we don't take time to acknowledge them when we tend to ignore them and hope that they go away is it actually shows that we're fearful of that and it's much harder to respect someone in the tough business world that we occupy now if the counterparts we're dealing with show fear of negative reaction and so that's part of the reason why this is such a great way to build rapport rather than using common ground is because you show fearlessness in the face of potential problems and a true willingness and intention to make them go away so that we can move forward as a team foreign by what are the things that we want to take away their permission and authority to use against us in addition the ripple effect of that is when we lay it out it shows a deep understanding on our side it's not common ground it does in fact lead to the trust-based influence how do we become a trusted advisor how do we become someone that when we say things they genuinely take them into account this is a great place for it to start and this is our structure there's several examples here you probably think you might think you may believe that's our basic structure another another thing that's not on this list it's a great usage in the accusations on it is I would imagine and so you're probably going to think that I'm a jerk I would imagine that what I have to say is going to seem exhausting you are going to feel like this is disrespectful and then if it's money related you can throw in and lastly I'd imagine you're going to think that this is a money grad that's a potential accusations are that you should use we want to prep these in advance because they're very hard to come up with in the moment we want to have them ready to go on the hip ready to be fired only walk into the room and it usually takes you know somewhere about between 10 and 15 minutes to come up with them an exhaustive list is always better and as far as the delivery method sequencing them out because you might come up with a list of 10 12 in some cases with people that we've coached we've gotten a list of 22 we got a list of 17 negatives that we want to address number one don't leave any out if you came up with a list of 17 the one that you leave off is going to be the one that comes back to bite you later on down the line and then secondly we want to rank them to a certain degree but really we want to rank them just what's the what's the worst or most important and then what's the second worst or second most important and the one that is second that's the opener for accusations audit the one that's most important most impactful the biggest negative of the list that we have that's the one we want to end with and as you all know the last impression is the lasting impression we want the last thought in their head to be wow they really see the main Crux of this issue they really get the main part of my motivation and what drives my morals and that's going to be their lasting thought on their head as a boss you are going to give direction that somebody on your team is going to have an issue with you should assume that if you're changing anything in the office schedule furniture you know client or patient rotation I don't know if you are going to change something you're putting work on somebody's plate that doesn't necessarily have it right now those are the moments if out of the 10 people you know that I don't know you know you know that Sarah is going to have an issue with what I'm about to say accusations all the time if you're talking with one of them in a performance review and you're going to you're going to rate them as below requirements in any category accusations all the time in your personal life family members um you gotta you got a sister or husband or a brother that's constantly asking you for money and you're at your your tolerance level has been reached accusations all the time the general rule of thumb at the beginning preceding bad news preceding your ask whatever the ask is it doesn't really matter if you think that the ask is a an easy lift it's it's it's it's it's something that um you know 90 of the people have signed off on if you're making any kind of ask of anybody by extension you were putting work on their plate that does not already exist and on some level there's going to be resentment yeah you're the boss you say it they're going to do it doesn't absolve your responsibility for softening the blow with an accusations audit Troy Sandy anything to add there you can use accusations audits after you've done something to make someone mad too so say you had to change the schedule up and you have to go tell them I just changed the schedule up you've already done it so it's not like you're doing it beforehand before you ask anything at that point you're doing it for forgiveness so you can say you you may have noticed I changed the schedule you probably are going to be inconvenienced by this so just start thinking about any time someone can think anything negative of you or a situation or something that you've done you can actually use an accusations audit to soften it when you're afraid to say the the accusations are then when you're afraid to do that you're putting yourself at a disadvantage when you least expect it they're going to throw that audit in your face especially the one that you didn't want to put in there you think oh they're not going to think this about me or that's too harsh I'm not going to put that one in there I'm not going to say it and as soon as you don't when the time comes they're going to use that one against you and you're going to wish you would have said it to help defuse it when you start to defuse these audits uh the things that you're saying before the person can do that themselves the counterpart just like Sandy said you're going to hear oh I wasn't thinking that or if they do say yeah that's that's been the problem like the question about if you know that you did somebody wrong or or you gave them a bad product and you're when you address it they're going to respect you more they're going to see the honesty in you they're going to say that person is is opening up to me they're willing to to share things that most people won't talk about when we came on today and we introduced ourselves did we talk about the negative things of and and about us or did we tell you all the positive things 23 years seven years as a negotiator spent most of my time in specialized units never talked about getting in trouble see people want to tell you they're good sides and people are going to think they they always think something bad about anybody anybody can think something bad about you it may not be true and most likely it's not but if you don't put it out there and address it what we call the elephant in the room beforehand it's going to come back to bite you and it's one of the hardest things that most of the people that we do trainings with that's one of the hardest things for them to get past they go oh I came back and I did the labeling and the motion I mean the labeling and the mirroring and I even did the dynamic silence and all it worked so well and we said okay but the training for this one was about uh accusations already oh no I could do why not why couldn't you do that one well because that's I'm putting myself down that's that's sending a bad message to send the wrong message to the counterpart to the client and they don't trust the system yeah you you have to make up your mind to use the skills that we're telling you to use without fear um you know which is like telling you if you're afraid of heights to go stand out on a balcony you know 40 stories up and you're like well okay that but that doesn't work for me trying it out is the only thing that's going to work low stakes practice try this stuff out in situations that um it won't be the end of the world if it doesn't work out for you okay cashier at the grocery store um you know your your family something like that practices and low stakes I'm telling you if you have a spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend um this is the best way to practice absolutely the best way to practice because you throw an accusation out on it out there and they're going to be like oh no I wasn't thinking that and you're like okay so I mean it I'm I'm telling you those of us that have spouses have tried this stuff my husband before he knew what I was doing he caught on eventually um he fell for it every time and then and then he started kind of looking at me funny and then he realized because we were both police officers didn't he realized it was a negotiation thing and he was like quit pulling that Voodoo crap on me um then he realized but then I had gotten better at it so I could use it without actually structuring it the way he was used to hearing it and so then I was still doing it anyway I didn't even catch it so once you get better at doing it the structures won't have to be so rigid you'll be able to do it a little bit differently it'll sound more conversational for you and it'll be much easier I don't want to pay twenty six thousand dollars so when I reached out to them they called me back and said hey Mr Smith what do you think can we get started and I threw out the accusations on it I said you're probably going to think I'm crazy you're probably not even going to want to do business with me you may even say I'm a jerk that I'm taking food out of your family's mouth you're probably going to say you know what I wish we never even went to his house and you're going to want to lose my phone number and they go Mr Smith no no no no no no no we want to work with you and they said how can we do that so they gave me permission to say what I needed to say and that's when I told him I said twenty six thousand dollars don't work for me said I've run the numbers I've punched them my wife and I have sat down and talked about it and the best we can do at this time would feel uncomfortable and not putting ourselves in the bind is nineteen thousand seven hundred and sixty two dollars and when I said that the guy was so relieved that he says we'll do it and he had to stop and think about he goes oh I mean I mean let me go talk to my manager but I'm sure we can do that Mr Smith thank you thank you and they were so excited about it not being more serious or Worse news than they anticipated that they will were willing to do it for nineteen thousand seven hundred and sixty two dollars and that's exactly what they did it for so if you let the accusation audits if you're afraid of doing accusation audits you're hurting yourselves and finally the r the r is remember we have to collaborate with each other that's the key you know the counterpart is not the problem the adversary they're not very the problem is the adversary so you have to work together with the counterpart to come up with the solution you want to be a teammate you want to have a help with the problem solving and the only way you're going to do that is by remembering that they're not against you you're not against them the problem is what you have to work through just regarding the accusation order just to confirm so it's basically statements that you'd have to make in a way that your the other side just thinks that you're gonna be you throw them off the ledge in a way that they're on the other side they're thinking that man he's going to speak something really bad it's really terrible news and then you give him your point of view and your the news that you want to actually throw to him and then he thinks okay fine it's it's not as bad as we imagined it to be so is is it something like that oh that's that's part of it that that's part of it when you when you're going to share bad news set the bad news up and it's never going to land as badly as they thought it was anytime you're going to ask them for something set it up with an accusations on it by the very by by the very nature of an ask you are putting work on someone's plate that is not already there which means you're inconvenient you're being inconvenient at that time and you're causing work for them that is something that most people don't want most people have enough work they don't need you putting extra work on their plate so regardless of how small or large the ask is set it up with the accusations on it and then use it at the beginning of your conversation to take authority and permission away from them from using the negatives against you as you move through the conversation if you fail to do that you allow a black hole type of Vortex to exist in their thinking process and while you're in a conversation with them they're not listening they're thinking about all those negative things that you didn't do anything with and that's what's going to keep their um attention the first thing that we're going to work on is starting the conversation with the accusations audit you start with your pleasantries Hi how are you blah blah blah and then you launch into it and I'm going to ask you to go all in I'm going to ask you to be very deliberate in your construction of your accusations audit list at bare minimum you should be able to come up with six bare minimum that's that's um that's a ground ball as they say in baseball coming up with six accusations on it me personally I want you to hit a home run with the accusations on it the Grand Slam home run that's what I want you to be aiming for and so I'm going to tell you go all in be robust be aggressive think of every negative opinion assumption impression that they could have about you and put it on that list prepare yourself mentally to get through that entire list at the beginning of the conversation if you come up with I don't know for example 17. your mindset should be I'm going to get through all 17 at the beginning okay that's your mindset the reality is you probably won't the reality is they're probably going to stop you for one of two reasons or stated reasons at least they're either going to say a you're being too hard on yourself I wasn't thinking those things for B uh listen I got other things to do today let's get down to Brass tax and let's talk about why we are in the room we're on the phone together either way you are in a good spot because the conversation now turns into the direction that you ultimately wanted to go anyway and it doesn't look like it's your idea it's it's their idea again that whole notion notion of protecting autonomy now having said that you come up with 17 they stop you at eight for one of those two reasons I just mentioned that does not absolve you of the responsibility of getting those other nine in throughout the course of the conversation you still have a responsibility to do that because they don't go away just because you haven't said them doesn't mean that they've gone away that they don't need to be addressed and if you don't address them throughout the course of the conversation it's going to come back to haunt you so the accusation thought it is amazing because it gives you the freedom to do whatever it is that you needed to do or to ask or address whatever it is that you came in needing to ask her address and so if you're concerned that that this person already thinks that you're too assertive right already kind of has that preconceived notion about you then you can just simply say you're going to think that what I'm about to ask you is is really assertive you might say um you're going to feel really overwhelmed by what I'm about to ask you um you might say if if you're concerned that they're being that you think that you're too emotional that they think that you're too emotional um you might say you're probably going to think that I'm bringing emotion into this um and so it helps if that person you can tell that person already thinks that About You by addressing that Dynamic you're able to diffuse it um there's a question in the chat that asked well what if you know what if this that person didn't already think that is this going to make it worse um Sandy yeah I I kind of want to give that to you because um you can't plant a negative okay if they don't feel that way they don't feel that way you're not going to suddenly put that thought in their head okay um and even if you do your mitigating at the same time so it's it's not going to make it happen if it's not already there so even if they're not thinking that whatever you're saying is going to be too expensive and you're saying well you're going to think this is so expensive and they're like well I mean they might be thinking money's No Object all they're going to do is just say well no not really and just go on with the next thing you're not going to plant that negative okay how you plant a negative is by saying I don't want you to think I'm being picky but I really don't like that shade of blue okay you just you you threw it out there and what's the first thing they're going to think when they hear I don't want you to think I'm being picky they're gonna think oh you're being picky you know I don't want you to be mad at me for doing this so they know that whatever you're saying right now is going to make them mad okay that's the wrong way to do it so you you don't want to do that's that's basically um that's the denial you want to avoid the denial you want to just point out the negative you don't want to try and justify it or explain it so just say you know you may think I'm being picky I don't like that shade of blue instead of saying I don't want you to think I'm being picky because that's telling them that they're going to be that way okay you know that's not mitigating anything that's actually raising it so you want to be very careful that you word this correctly but you cannot introduce the negative if it's not already there you're not going to make it be there because you're saying it so don't be afraid of that okay um absolutely do you have more to say about that preconceived notions um no just that um yeah that essentially a lot of times we come into these situations kind of fearing like well that person already thinks this about me how can I possibly talk to them about it or this person already believes that this isn't going to work there's no convincing them um it is shocking the power of what an accusations audit can do it demonstrates self-awareness it demonstrates um it demonstrates concern and care for the other side because essentially when you are giving the accusations audit properly the way Sandy was talking about um then what you're saying in essence is I understand your experience right now and I understand that I'm making this hard for you in some way um and so even if you know you're not really because you're probably not being too emotional or you're probably not being too assertive um that doesn't really matter because it's that person's experience and so then we're able to subvert those preconceived notions move on and continue to make a deal what if you have like had a service issue or there's a reason it's not that they're thinking these things and their perception that you've actually screwed up or you've made somebody look bad um so how would you I mean it's not like it seems like you're mad at me because we made you look bad it's like we really made you look bad so it has like that just like that because if if it's the elephant in the room is you know you screwed up so you're going to think you know you're going to say you know you feel like we screwed up you know it it happened you we made a mistake you apologize in there um but whatever you want to do is don't live in denial land because if you try to deny it and they know it's true you're done with them so um instead of trying to say it doesn't exist or put full up around it you want to go ahead and throw it out there you know even not even you feel but maybe you know I I know you realize we screwed up I know you realize that this should have happened and it didn't happen that way it happened this way I mean whatever negative thing you need to put out there because and we'll get to this a little bit more on the next slide but whatever negative thing is happening if the other side realize that you're aware of it that's going to get you brownie points because you're not trying to hide it you're not trying you're not trying to say you know well you know we may have messed up but we're not going to say that because maybe they won't realize it well don't be crazy they realize that they know it from the very beginning so if you try to hide it it's just going to make you look bad and you're never going to get tactical empathy that way and you're never going to get Beyond bargaining that way because they're going to fight you every step of the way for the price because you screwed up before so you want to put it out there okay make sense okay perfect when using the accusations on is there an optimal time in a conversation and then also is it okay to use it multiple times so quick answer to that uh is yes and yes for the accusations audit ideally that's how you want to start every conversation no matter who you're talking to that's generally how you want to start the conversation especially if it's a subordinate and the reality is if you have to go back to a subordinate to negotiate something you already thought was agreed upon trust me there's an accusations on it that needs to be done they are not executing what you thought they agreed to execute because there is something that is state that is stuck in this a thorn in their side that they feel like you as the boss as the manager has caused or ignored which has gotten in the way of their execution and so if that's the case if that's the circumstance you're dealing with you're gonna have to leave with an accusations on it and um also the additional to that point yes it can be used multiple times there's actually three places in the conversation where the accusations are that fits it's always going to be at the beginning before you make an ask or before you deliver bad news those are the three places the beginning before and ask before you deliver bad news if you're talking to subordinate chances are you're going to be delivering bad news or making an ass that they don't want almost every single time and so yeah the accusation sort of drops in and you can use it in multiple places um there's also kind of shortened like one-line versions of that that you can use before and ask this is going to sound harsh this is this is going to catch you off guard this is going to seem like I'm picking on you this is probably going to make you more upset at me than you already are right those quick one-liners at the very least need to go before ideally you got a more robust accusations are to like what would Derek was just speaking to and then the other question I wanted to get to in regards to addressing the elephant in the room yes thinking of the accusations on it is a way to address the elephant in the room is a great way to look at it um based on the comment we got here you know and say let's talk about this because it's best to address it now is a horrible thing to throw into your accusations audit if if you got in the habit of hey these are the issues let's talk about these issues now because it's best to get them out of the way that's a that's a much better approach to that number one saying these are the issues let's talk about them it's not you describing their world to them that's one of the real fine lines between the accusations audit and what can be agreed on as factual terms or problems There's A Real Fine Line we want you to negotiate in their world these are the things that you see as a problem you probably feel like I've let you down as a boss you probably feel like I haven't given you the support that you need you probably feel like I haven't given you the fair Shake those are the things that go into your accusations audit following that up with let's talk about this so that we can get them out of the way now is actually a command your intention is to be collaborative however what that is interpreted as is I am your boss and now I'm directing you to talk about these things you might want to talk about something else right now but as your boss I'm now directing you to talk about this specifically and so now you've started to take away their autonomy in the conversation you've now gone from being collaborative to combative you are in fact fighting with them over what is going to be discussed right now as opposed to opening a door and allowing them to walk through that speaks to the sequencing that I talked about earlier you want to Rush In and solve the problem that's that's that's what we rewarding in the corporate world you know that's why you got promoted because you were a problem solver it's all about sequencing tactical empathy first and then we discussed the the issues and how to fix them then we discussed the issues and what your expectations are then we discuss the issues and talk about future ramifications if x doesn't happen just don't be in a hurry to rush into that portion of the conversation to ask um so going back into the negotiation nine um how can real estate agents utilize accusation audits to get ahead of any negative sentiments their client might have I have a wonderful question so an accusations audit is a it's a preemptive label essentially um it's an uncomfortable thing to do we're gonna it's gonna sound crazy um it's gonna sound like I want you to shoot your clients and keep walking because that Deal's not gonna happen but an accusations audit is actually calling out the elephant in the room any thought that they may be having about you or the dynamic or the future write them down ahead of time practice it and say it we want to use accusations audits in the beginning so it seems like or I'm going to sound this is you're probably thinking and I I might ask Derek to come in because you do a great job with explaining accusations audit but in in real estate we come from we're in an industry where people know that we're driving for gas that a lot of agents are driving for yes and they're afraid of that they you know they know that there are agents out there that are going to give them bad advice to get the listing um the listing uh contract signed they know that they're working with agents that will um you know do things that don't necessarily protect their best interest and they're afraid of that and so you need to say that um I'm going to sound like I want you to put a ton of money into your house before you even sell it I'm going to seem like any agent out there that wants top dollar to do something that takes 30 days to do um address those negative emotions because if you don't they're going to come up later and in doing that you're actually if you if you throw out an accusations audit and listen you're going to get way more information about what they're really concerned about that even sometimes is outside of the scope of the accusations audit that you gave there's a wonderful agent out in California and Chris did an interview with her that you all should listen to it it's phenomenal Regina vanicola and she does a phenomenal accusations audit before even going into a listing agreement and it's changed the way that she does business she not sure listen to the interview she does a phenomenal job of explaining how it's done in real life uh Chris I don't know if you want to touch on that yeah sure thanks Marcella it's uh Regina vanicola and the title of the interview on the YouTube on our YouTube channel is are you the favorite of the fool um Steve Shelton and I interviewed her and and this you know this accusations all that is just so liberating for agents and even a phrase I've got bad news that in and of itself the agents that are using are are contending that is with a million dollars because it gives you the ability to deliver bad news to your clients and gives them the chance to brace for it and whatever they imagine in that three heartbeat weight between I've got bad news and you're delivering the news they're going to imagine something worse and what you have to share as an agent is going to be a relief it's crazy it works every time and that's you know that's just a tiny dose of the accusations are it's just it's it's a spell from Hogwarts that changes everything in a moment it's great it's so true and we can we go through these transactions over and over again we can think about these accusations audits ahead of time before even getting to know the client I mean how many of us are in a market where we have clients that are losing deals to people paying 75 000 over lists all cash we could do an accusations audit you know and and um so take the time to write down some audits ahead of time whether it be for a listing appointment dealing with a new a new client a buyer that's working in in a market that's stressful to get a home in or a seller that is afraid of making the wrong decision um just write down those Audits and remember to use your tone the tone is so important um in the delivery of any of these messages and what you're doing is it's important to remember that the purpose of the accusations audit is to get out in front of those negatives at the beginning of the conversation this is the first conversation that you're having with a client prospective client whatever however you want to phrase it you're getting out in front of the negatives that you know are associated with every almost every single transaction you guys have been doing this long enough you've heard the objections you've seen where deals have fallen apart and the reasons why that your your accusations audit list is going to be a living and breathing document it's going to constantly change because you're going to be constantly getting smarter the ability to come up with an accusations audit and that's just a list of the negative opinions assumptions or Impressions that the other side has about you who you represent and the circumstance you'll be able to figure it out generating your list is not going to be a problem for you where you're going to struggle is actually saying them you're going to be scared to death you're scared to death of running business off you're scared to death that if they're not thinking that I am going to plant that in their head and I'm going to lose the deal therefore I ain't saying it well I will tell you to reinforce what Marcella just said because you haven't said it doesn't mean it's gone anywhere doesn't mean it's not still there and so that's what clients in your industry are looking for how do I separate myself from the commonplace as Chris said best practices become common practices and now 50 000 new agents entered the business last year all 50 000 of them look exactly the same so as a client how do I differentiate between who I want to work with well for the client the easiest way to do that is cut your commission that'll help you decide when the reality is because of the negatives that are associated with this transaction they want somebody who's transparent they want somebody who was forthright they want somebody who is a straight shooter what better way to indicate to your prospective client that you're a straight shooter by telling them this is probably all this negative stuff that you're thinking about me and this transaction you're taking that negative light and pointing it back at yourself how courageous is that how selfless is that how far is that going to separate you from the rest of the pack because I guarantee you if you're working with a team of agents and you're the only one using accusations audits you look entirely different than the rest of the members on your team and people we talk about the fear associated with this type of transaction that fear is born out of uncertainty and the more certainty you can inject into your interactions with your clients and potential clients and other agents the less fearful they become and it's encouraging reciprocity and that reciprocity is you turning the tables on them and having tactical empathy forced back in your direction when you get to your objective when you get to your ask when you get to your case in Chief absolutely to add adult to do um I like to liken it applying these skills to difficult conversations to cleaning a wound right it's not pretty you're going to get sometimes a response that's uncomfortable for you but you're getting you're getting information you're allowing them to tell you their innermost thoughts and fears and so if you get through that you're going to it's like cleaning a wound it eventually it eventually clears out and you get to um form a relationship with them that's based and influence them through trust which is really the Baseline to um to where these skills come from I did I feel like this is um there's so much to talk about um all right and and other crazy questions and I'm gonna personally pay attention to the chat and I will direct questions your way so you don't have to feel overwhelmed or anything uh I'm Overjoyed right now so all right we are too this is cool super cool super cool we're live I think we're live everywhere perfect wow um all right so Chris Derek Brent if you don't mind I'm just gonna kick it off and uh let's have some fun all right yeah yay so hi everyone this is Fable from face world I am seriously Overjoyed right now I'm still happy a little bit nervous uh this is the first webinar I'm doing not only with Chris but the a team Brendan Voss I had a pleasure to interview once before and Derek gond whose book I'm listening right now on Audible I've been doing that for a week and Chris I've met several times in person in my documentary my favorite master class on masterclass highly recommend you check it out um in fact I know somebody among the audience member participants right now watch your master class twice already so yeah and everybody you know and speaking of Derek's book I heard that the guy that read it has a lisp is that true I I was I was telling Derek he has such an incredible voice I thought you know are you like an you know like a opera singer or something with such a like such a voice I love listening to it's so easy not the case with every author it's one of many things that I hate about him how good all right guys so in case you're not familiar with their work I you know I know everybody was attending this webinar is pretty much but um if you're watching this on social media on my YouTube channel Facebook uh I don't know Twitter well they you know Chris founded the Black Swan group uh this company I've been following for a long time I love love the blog section they have a wonderful Services section as well a lot of my colleagues people I'm connected with on LinkedIn everywhere have attended their live workshops and they're absolutely in love with this and I'm such a this is such a privilege to have the entire team here and um so we're gonna kind of freestyle there are a lot of questions thank you guys for submitting them we'll go through them for the first 40 minutes and if you guys have more questions we'll leave you know 15 20 minutes in the end and um and just so you guys can drop more questions in the chat so welcome everybody thank you so much for coming yeah thank you for having us I appreciate the uh the invite yeah it's just so wonderful I'm gonna throw the first question now there everybody's desperate in uh just asking this question because I notice you have uh this audience is a lot of discipline everybody is trying to practice negotiation on a regular basis and the first challenge since the pandemic earlier this year is that people sort of lost touch with that daily practice they really want to know like how I I saw examples how to negotiate at Starbucks how to negotiate with a travel vendor or agency but what's your advice right now in the pandemic that people can continue to hone in on their skills and practice their negotiation skills at home well you know we'll use it with everybody we communicate with we use it with each other I mean one of the questions that we all get a lot is you know what if you're up against a Black Swan train negotiator you know and that's fine I mean you know Brandon asked me all the time is is it a ridiculous idea uh you know are you against um Derek asked me all the time I can't believe how stupid you are stuff like that I mean sorry it's going to be one of those days but yeah I mean what do you guys think am I crazy no and I I think you're you're right on the money I mean we every opportunity to communicate is an opportunity to practice and you know as of late one of the ways we've been directing people is if you're still paying utilities right you got utility bills those are great people to call up and and use your skills on and and get your bills down right that's one perfect way to practice and the other thing is the foundation where this stuff came from the world of Hostage and crisis negotiation 95 of the jobs that we did were on the phone we weren't having we didn't have contact physical contact with the people that we were dealing with so the fact that people are out of their normal environments and they don't have that regular human human contact should not diminish the opportunities that they have to practice the skills via Zoom calls or via regular phone calls the environment has just changed slightly but this is all of our stuff is predicated on hostage negotiation and we were rarely ever face to face yeah my I love that thank you for clarifying so everybody who's watching you know start negotiating start practicing right away and you know there's one question I love which came from uh Adam which is which are the skills that you teach uh do people generally find most difficult to learn and why uh you know I'm I'm actually kind of curious to hear what Derek has to say on this because I got a couple of ideas that was you know what what's what's your perspective I I think you know where I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with the accusations on it yeah hands down the most effective skill that we have the most potent the most powerful hands down the most difficult to absorb and execute simply because when you talk about the Black Swan skills being counterintuitive and being awkward um the accusations audit is awkwardness on steroids and because you're pointing a negative light back at yourself and when you point the negative light at yourself you're making yourself uncomfortable and when you're uncomfortable what you want more than anything else is to be comfortable again so that's where we find a significant amount of the pushback is with the accusations on us because it's hard to take that negative light and point it at yourself and saying this is what you're probably thinking about me and it's all negative stuff and so getting people to overcome that discomfort and execute anyway is probably the biggest challenge yeah yeah there's nothing Derek said that I would disagree with however I'm going to give you the classic negotiators answer as far as what's hardest to learn it depends and a lot of it just depends on the individual and so if you're part of the group that has read the book and have started trying to execute on your own the thing that really is like the sticking point is probably the accusations audit but if you're a novice and you're just getting into it and you're just starting to learn people really struggle with labels and and really on the side of executing them at their highest degree you know like surface labels are pretty easy for people to wrap their mind around seems like price is important to you right but being able to construct the label that actually identifies the motivation behind how they got to this price point that's a little bit more difficult labeling things that aren't actually said in the negotiation you know is is is is tough it's it's it's a hard thing and again just takes practice but yeah you know it depends it depends on what who they are or how much knowledge they have and what they deal with yeah Chris do you want do you want to add anything else yeah you know I mean uh so much on it depends you know situation Drive strategy like Brandon likes to say where are you in your journey um labels uh one of the first things to get over the hump with you get the labels and depend upon how comfortable you are with calling out negatives and then being proactive and that that leads right into the accusations on it you know the fear of that I mean probably the fear there is the biggest that that's the single biggest fear-based obstacle there and simultaneously if you're getting good at labels making a jump from labels into summaries hard because you know we're and we teach people really hard you know to go silence go dead silent we used to call it effective pauses and never split the difference book we got coming out collaboratively Brandon and I and a couple of other people are working on um in in the spring it'll be at late spring early early summer um we're changing effective pauses to Dynamic silence so you know getting people to go dead silent like some people feel like they're going to burst into flames before they could go dead silent well then if we get you there then we want to teach a summary and summary is firing everything summary is just letting go with everything and that's no dead silence at all so it's kind of where are you in your journey and each each step of the way is going to take you to a new level of the game you know it's a it's like a game and uh and it's all fun as soon as you Embrace how much fun it could be it's really cool hmm funny my friend uh Mike O'Brien is a part of my Mastermind group really likes Brendan's jacket first of all I think he looks exceptionally handsome today um um and I agree silence is the toughest thing for me to practice as well as for for Michael there um I remember going through an exercise as part of alt MBA by Seth Godin and I remember that before we respond to anything we have to count to five seconds or three seconds they felt like hours um how it was very awkward a lot of resistance so how do you practice like how do you give yourself that patience oh that's your brain well you know as a similar philosophy you know we we talk about people counting mississippis or counting 1000s but exactly to your point I mean it's creating an intentional void in the conversation is difficult to sit in and that's really what it's designed to do if you set up your Dynamic silence properly ideally it recently reveals a Black Swan at the same time but that's that's exactly that is very hard and Counting is is one of the great mechanisms to kind of keep yourself in your chair yeah it's very hard I mean I remember since the pandemic like washing your even wash your hands I'll sing Happy Birthday those 15 20 seconds just feel so long when you actually measure it so what do you do when you wash your hands what do you think are you suppose are we supposed to all sing Happy Birthday like two times to make sure that it's 20 seconds um yeah I am so proud I have such a huge smile on my face because my next door neighbor Eric and Laura also watching this and uh Laura submitted a ton of questions one of which I was thinking wow it's it's true I mean I can unfold that question into many parts especially as as a woman as women sometimes when you negotiate for yourself is particularly difficult whether it's negotiating time to be doing your own working on your own projects so that your kids need to kind of hang out on their own especially during the pandemic or negotiating for your own for a promotion for a raise a lot of women left comments to say that is particularly challenging do you have any tactics to kind of go about that and the mindset of negotiation yeah I'm thinking this this one's Dax I mean he's he's doing a lot more of the individual coaching than anybody else is right now so um Derek what do you think problematic is many women get in their own way their their their mindset is such that they create obstacles that aren't really there some of the best negotiators on my previous team back in my law enforcement days I don't know if you can see this so I got some of their pictures up on the wall the the top three negotiators on my team were all women and once you get over the fear of failure the sky's the limit and that's what made these three because let's let's face the facts there are terrible negotiators on both sides of the gender coin um but these these three women were not afraid to fail they took what was taught to them and they went out and they executed and let the consequences be whatever they are and those are going to be the most successful negotiators regardless of what side of the gender coin they're on are you Fearless if you're Fearless you'll go out and apply you stumble you Chuck it up to experience and you move on and and once you once you get that mindset the game changes for you once you stay in a position where you are genuinely curious about what's going on with the other side and that's another skill trait characteristic that they all had they they were genuinely curious they wanted to know more they went into the conversation assuming they had something to learn and so that is how I would encourage you to look at every difficult conversation every negotiation and that goes across the board it doesn't matter if you're a man or woman stay genuinely curious if you stay genuinely curious your Fear Factor will diminish rapidly and you will be able you'll have your mind will be more open to seeing the entire landscape from the other person's perspective I feel very excited but also very comfortable at the same time that you know when when people are asking me that you're going to be on the call with three you know professional negotiators and interviewing them there is part of me to be honest Derek I'm thinking I really try not to sound like a complete idiot like during this am I even qualified to be talking to you I read Chris's book two years ago should I go back and study some of those elements there are definitely a lot of self-doubts that comes with that but like you said if I just relax and knowing I'm here to learn I'm not here to be an expert um that definitely feels a lot better um there's there's an added question actually two questions coming in already um so a lot of us a lot of people working in corporate right now and by the way you're just joining the this webinar I want to say that this conversation will help you on a personal professional and organizational level so we're going to answer questions uh really on on this whole Spectrum this scope um so another question is that we find ourselves on the phone all the time and that's why I name this virtual leadership it's very different kind of leadership and engagement with your audience or with your colleagues so um you know for example it's uh Laura found herself to have to slow down when he speaks to someone whether it's a customer or maybe her colleagues whose first language is in English there's a time difference um you know she has to pays down among the team she finds it that it can be hard when a one-on-one conversations where you feel like there's a lot of silence and you have to fill in the blank what would you recommend for that I see a smile bran what is this company I got a lot of things coming to mind and and you know I just I want to jump back into the mindset thing just real quick take a couple steps back I think where people in general tend to kind of lose themselves is when you go into a negotiation hoping things go well and the mindset needs to be expecting problems

Channel: NegotiationMastery

Views: 24,212

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Id: vfsr7uGY2RI

Length: 94min 26sec (5666 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 22 2022