Everything You [PROBABLY] Don't Know About Negotiation | Chris Voss

hi I'm Chris Voss and I'm the author of never split the difference negotiating as if your life depended on it and you're about to go behind the brand with Brian Elliott everyone welcome to another episode of the show Chris welcome back I should say it's been a little while it's been a minute life goes by quickly doesn't it it does I hear good things that are happening um bring us up to speed I mean it's been it's been about 18 months I think since we last talked um I heard rumors of little documentary film Chris

Vos documentary film uh bring us up to speed what's happening with Black Swan yeah well we got a a documentary film uh Nick neton DNA films did a documentary basically the story of you know what I used to do as an FBI hostage negotiator kidnapping negotiator and how I took those skills and were put them in regular life business and everyday life wrote Never split wrote Never split the difference based on those ideas it's a best selling business negotiation book and what we're doing in the Black Swan world and the documentary also what we're going

to touch on a little bit is uh how to take the skills that I learned in law enforcement we're actually working on taking them back into law enforcement to help settle things out a little bit between the police and the minority communities like getting better at talking to each other empathy is a sneak attack on racism empathy is better decision making tactical EMP empathy so I was going to ask is it tactical empathy that you're employing or is it just because there's a difference right well uh depends upon your point of view I mean I

just tried we put the word tactical in front of empathy to get people to think about it differently because unfortunately empathy today has become synonymous with sympathy or compassion and it's not now you got to have empathy to get the compassion uh friend of mine Steve Cotler who wrote the book um the rise of Superman among others says empathy is about the transmission of information compassion is reaction to that transmission but unfortunately that's not the way it it's looked on uh in today's modern vernacular so put tactical in front of it just to look at

it as a skill um like a cell phone or a scalpel either one of those instruments can either do good or evil depending upon whose hands they're in right a cell phone is not evil by definition somebody orders murder of another person via a cell phone that doesn't make the cell phone evil it's whose hands the tool is inh so empathy I've even seen articles that said the Dark Side of empathy because of how much influence you can gather with somebody if you really understand how empathy works so tactical empathy is to understand it principally

with what we've learned from Neuroscience guys like Andrew huberman who we were just talking about how does Neuroscience tell us brain probably works more accurately than psychology did because Neuroscience can you can put a person in an fmri and watch their brain react yeah we know where it's happening in the in the brain yeah much more and then also you can you know one of the experiments it backs up tactical empathy on a regular basis because if you're in a bad mood or if you're not going to like what I have to say the wrong

way to say it would be you're not going to like what I have to say I don't want you to react negatively that would be the wrong way to say it now the 2 mm shift would be for me to say you're going to react negatively to this you're not going to like it this is going to sound harsh now that keeps those circuits from lighting up in your brain it's like being worn before the doctor uh gives you a shot if the doctor says it's going to hurt and he hits you with the needle

you appreciate that you were warned and you were braced and prepared for the pain if the doctor all of a sudden just stabbed you you'd be mad also if the doctor said I don't want you to think this is going to hurt and then he stabbed you you'd be like look dude you were lying to me that hurt like how yeah trust is gone the trust is gone so the warning it's it's how you give the warning yeah now they did this this experiment's been duplicated a number of different times the first time I read

about it was in a book called The upward spiral I can't remember the author's name but they put people in fmri uh to watch the electricity in her brain and then they show him a photo that causes them to have some sort of negative emotional reaction I don't know what the pictures were could have been puppies in the rain you know could have been little old ladies could have been homeless children I don't know they show the people the picture and they watch the circuits that are associated with negative emotions light up and then they

simply say to the people what are you feeling identify self label you know we would call this a label you sound angry you seem upset I feel angry I feel upset whatever it is every single time the person simply called out the emotion the negative emotion the electrical activity diminished every time now the only change in calling out the negatives is how much does it diminish so tactically if I know that if I call out a negative versus denying it as a means of my empathy it'll accelerate the effects right and hence the term tactical

gotcha I appreciate that distinction can you just Define then sympathy for us just so we have a count you know a counterpart as a Layman I would Define sympathy as me feeling what you feel you feel sad I feel sad yeah uh on the hotline that I crisis hotline I volunteered on a long time ago they drew a real distinction because sympathy is when someone's an emot quick sand and you try to get in the quicksand with them now you're both in quicksand nobody gets out MH empathy on the other hand is identifying that they're

in Quicks sand and then helping them figure a way out yeah the image that came right to my and this is probably just uh a little clue into how my brain works I I thought of you know myself eating an ice cream cone and then that scoop just Falls right on the ground yeah and you're watching that from distance and you go a that's the sympathy part right well that you know uh that could be either one you know that's really close you know if I watch your ice cream scoop dying you're like oh I

feel so bad yeah your actual reaction is going to be like I don't care how you feel you know that doesn't help me in any way shape or form I appreciate maybe that you want to be there with me but that doesn't get my ice cream back up it doesn't change my sense you sharing the loss with me does not diminish my loss at all right right right yeah and you know and unfortunately that's so many people learn it the wrong way CU what are our examples the examples that we see are movies and television

and it's always wrong you know somebody says yeah you know I lost somebody once to like I don't care who you lost right he just made it about you yeah it's it's completely about you but in the movies or in the TV when somebody says that the person goes oh thank God or when a person says you know we've all felt that way one one time or another right like you really don't care it just invalidates the other person's feelings right away right unfortunately it has a tendency to do that but we see these bad

models and movies in TV and then people say oh well it worked on MacGyver or it worked in the Avengers or it worked in Justice League yeah I'll try that in real life yeah and you try it in real life and the other person if they if they don't get angry maybe they're in emotional Place enough to at least appreciate that you tried yeah and that that's the best you can well you know you screwed this up but I'm thanks for trying right my favorite pseudo uh attempt at feelings is the I'm sorry you feel

that way right as if that's an apology yeah oh sorry you feel that way I have no responsibility in this but you're like dodging right I'm sorry you think I lied right no you are you lied you definitely and you're sorry that I caught you that's what you're really sorry about right right right or you lost a deal so in the context of uh this discussion this time you know my audience they're made up of Founders entrepreneurs uh you know people at different stages of the startup mode maybe they're more in the the middle of

the game and small business owners and to you know today we're here at we worked here in this little Studio to I'm sure there's a makeup of of that audience in variety of misant over there yeah all the Misfits like me like us uh trying to build a business build a brand yeah um so one of the first things I I've heard you talk about a little bit I wanted to maybe unpack further is this idea of the result like so if you're in charge if you're the boss cuz I you know I'm I'm My

Own Boss and uh uh one of the things me you work for a jerk that's right it's one of the things Seth Goen told me he says if if you are Your Own Boss chances are you know uh you you have it worse than you've ever had it and he's totally right I'm very self-critical anyway so I'm always wrestling with this idea of you know I have people now working with me or working for me or Partnerships collaborations right how do I get things out do I need to be the jerk to get things done

what's what's the advantage or disadvantage in your in your worldview of negotiation let's say because you go into a negotiation you think I'm not I'm not that guy like I I don't come in guns of Blazing or like I I don't have a voice that carries back to the back of this room let alone you know I can't really talk with authority I get made fun of all the time when I get mad it's like my voice goes up just a maybe a deciel or two anyway I'm just not that guy I'm more calm and

relaxed um but I feel like sometimes I can be like perceived as a pushover or perceived as weak if I'm coming into a negotiation without you know huffing and puffing my chest out or whatever it takes you know that I see other people do who I see are more extroverted than me I tend to be more introverted so can you talk about that give us some advice in in terms of negotiating you know coming in as the jerk or coming in as the nice guy or nice gal uh talk about that a little bit well

a couple different parts there that that are that are really interesting and the first one is is you know I feel like and I don't want to look like I'm a pushover or you know I got to come in and I got to demonstrate Authority and all that so that problem there is your amydala I feel like I'm afraid if I don't do this and and the real challenge for all people which actually we just started talking about a lot more lately is separating your amydala from your intuition like are you listening to your gut

or you listening to the voice in your head if you say I'm worried about I'm I'm I'm worried about this that that's your migdala that's a voice in your head that's the negativity that we're born with we're born with basically pessimistic negative wiring was required to Keep Us Alive right which may or may not be true right which which which part the the thought or the you know the whether it's rational or irrational we don't know well so it's it's fear driven is what it is it's you know predicting 13 out of the actual three

problems that are going to occur now when you're fighting for survival and with with saber two tigers you need to pick you need to anticipate more problems than occur because if it's the other way around you're going to die right that's why we are inherited basically negative wiring and we play it safe because of that yeah I got you so but that's that's the amigdala the voice in your head I'm worried that I'm I'm going to be perceived as being weak or I'm going to be perceived as a pushover that's not your gut instinct that

that your gut instinct is a is what Aristotle talked about what what he really meant by Common Sense which is your intuition that's fed by all sorts of great data points and your intuition is actually great it's a super computer process if you can listen to your gut and understand the difference and your gut gets better all the time each and every time out because it's a great processing supercomputer now in terms of negotiation what's your definition of negotiation is it win lose well that's that's that's immed mediocre that's a recipe for mediocre outcomes my

definition of negotiation are is great collaboration with long-term prosperity for both sides trusted collaboration the adversary is a situation not the person you're talking to yeah the adversary is not your employees the adversary is the problem that you're trying to solve with your employees can I just underscore that you did not say win win yeah I'm avoiding that for sure yeah for a whole variety of reasons let's put a and that we'll come back to that okay okay yeah so um if you riew negotiation is collaboration where both sides improve Prosper at least emotionally which

is in many cases all people really need then yeah you negotiate with your subordinates your colleagues your superiors negotiation is 36 you negotiate with your spouse long-term collaboration with your spouse yeah if that's how you view negotiation that we win together versus when I win you lose right right I think Mark Cuban wrote that book you know business is sport or whatever it was it seems like it's a very suzero game based philosophy it can be and and I don't I don't think Cuban is a you know I've had I've had a conversation with him

about negotiation and I and I think he's a collaborative oriented guy very collaborative oriented as a matter of fact I know he is but he also knows that business world is a tough environment and if you're going to be his business part you got to have an aame right and the way he's going to find out if you got an aame is he's going to test you right throw you a curveball or or he's going to throw a fast ball right at your head you know no curveballs he's coming at you hard because he knows

if you represent him somebody's going to come at you hard out there yeah I got you and you know like and and and I've heard him do it on Shark Tank also and one of the great responses was I'm going to make you an offer and you can't you can't listen to any other offers from anybody else you give me yes or no to my offer right now yeah and and entrepreneur said would you want me to get pushed around like that if I was out there representing you and he was like oh no flip

the script I like it yeah and then but Cuban was testing him yeah earned his respect I like it yeah yeah okay so let's go back to this idea of um collaboration I still I I want a definitive or more of a definitive answer on should I be should I like come in you know with with Force should I come in with ease is it more of like a case by case am I reading the room um you know I'm naturally introverted right so I feel like I'm sometimes at a disadvantage to someone who's more

extroverted right it's got in your head only yeah okay fair so what I'm hearing you saying is just be myself at all times Well you start with being yourself you start with understanding what are your natural attributes that make you great great negotiator and then you don't get rid of those you add complimentary skills so understand human nature then understanding human in front of you okay human nature is driven by a uh not a whole lot of rules Danny Conan won the Nobel Prize for Behavioral economics in 2002 for prospect theory and to paraphrase that

a loss things twice as much is an equivalent gain people react twice as negatively to losses as they do to gains right so what does that mean what that means is somebody's perception of loss is the single biggest decision-making factor in their head not the only Factor just the biggest Factor so people make decisions based on what they perceive the laws to be how it affects their identity what their vision of the future is MHM vision drives decision mhm somebody who wants to sell his business at a 10x multiple because his buddy got a 9x

multiple yeah not because the business Demands a 10x multiple yeah got an investor wants to come in and buy it for a 6X multiple leave the guy intact so he can cash out in 10 years for $200 million MH now the the today is more worried about the 100,000 or the million dollars that he's worried about losing now in comparison to his buddy versus the $200 million he's going to make down the line if he sells for Less now but his focuses on today's law I see so that's going to make up that guy's mind

and then then he's got a vision of loss now so you get you use empathy use tactical empathy to gently get in somebody's head knowing what you're looking for what's the vision of the future how does it affect their identity what kind of losses are they looking at I'm going to tease that out of you to find out what your vision is now since I didn't force my way in then I'm in your head as a guest an invited guest you're going to allow me to drop ideas to see if I can get you to

see a different vision of the future right because maybe and you don't know what you're walking into I would guess maybe that person uh has got to make a mortgage payment in two weeks you the the hidden information that you need to get to find out what's driving behavior yeah so let's talk about how to how to draw that out because to me that's that's everything it's like you know you're walking in you're meeting someone maybe for the first time or you're used to working with them but you don't know the context of what's happening

in their life H how do you then draw what are some of the tools you can use to get that out of them well the short answer is um two of our negotiation skills mirrors and labels yeah mirrors are just repeating the last couple of words of what somebody just said or in specific phrases if you say something I don't completely understand or I saw your voice change when you say it I'm going to repeat those exact words that'll take your thoughts back to that moment and if I repeat those exact words you'll go back

to that point and you'll expand on it with different words and that's mirroring that's mirroring yeah yeah that's just it's just it's a ridiculously simple skill that's remarkably effective it's like restating to make sure you got the story straight which would be paraphrasing which is a similar but but a different approach miring is just I'm I'm surgically I'm I'm nudging you in different directions where I need more information so you're surgically nudging the person to get more information is that right yeah and also making AO person that was close also get the make the person

feel heard yeah like if you said something I didn't understand I could say what do you mean by that right and you're going to go you're going to say it exactly the same way only louder Just Like An American asking directions in Paris where is the iel tower that's exactly what people do yeah but if I mirror you if I just repeat the words I don't know why the brain takes flips a switch and you say to yourself oh well I need to expand with different words cuz since he said the words he heard them

and for whatever reason it's inadequate so I got to change words yeah it's like your little inter internal thesaurus starts taking over yeah yeah for whatever reason I don't know why I just know it does yeah now everybody likes to be married because everybody likes to expand expound they like to feel listen to yeah I'll cosign that nobody has a problem talking if they're being listened to introverts will talk and not shut up if they're being listened to yeah the introvert shuts up when the other person wants to talk instead introverts shut up around extroverts

because introverts extroverts won't shut up that's right I feel steamrolled sometimes like yeah yeah introvert is like what do I need to open my mouth for I just I can look at my watch while you talk we'll be here for an hour right so so introverts they're they're they tend to be more introspective we think probably if I had a choice to recruit somebody to the team I'm going to be very leery of an extrovert and I'm going to lean in the direction of an introvert because we got to we got to analyze what's going

on introverts by definition are up in their head a little bit more so they're probably going to lean more towards analysis unpacking diagnosing what's going on yeah much more than an extrovert will which one are you uh I'm probably I don't know you know you know uh I'm probably an introvert okay probably yeah so I had Susan Kane on the show Susan Kane wrote that book about introverts uh where she did a lot of taxonomy or labeling and there's a category I didn't know about called ambt yeah which is you know a little bit about

the hybrid right and I I don't know I I probably toggle between that because when I'm on stage or I'm in front of people maybe just because I'm used to it I don't get nervous anymore I don't mind speaking right you probably relate with this yeah um becomes like a callus but anyway yeah I I don't I don't know that there are that many actual extroverts like the only for me the test was my former boss Gary nestar the guy ran the negotiation unit when I recruited me into it um like we teach all day

long which would be exhausting for me me and everybody else on the team we get done at the end of the day like I want to go back to the hotel I want to sit down I want to be left alone yeah you're recharging Gary would want to go out let's go out let's talk to people let's let's meet more people I mean he would gain energy the more people we interacted with that's an extrovert like he never ran out of gas around people people energized him yeah he fed off of them yeah I you

know none of the rest of us did yeah okay let's go back to win-win um why is winwin not a win-win why is it bad so it in terms of the vernacular of the terminology what I found to be true what I found to be true is if somebody uses the term win-win in the first five minutes of our conversation they're trying to get me to do something for nothing that great win-win deal for you you know what the deal is win for you and zero for me right but people when that terminology first came

out the Sharks the cutthroat people learned that that phrase is a great way to get you to drop your guard okay right because it sounds good yeah sounds win-win yeah okay I can trust you right you know the the the really vicious negotiators are like if I say this they'll do this for free yeah in in the in the Harvard early days they did a um the guys at the business school sort of did an analysis they called them claim value negotiators and create value negotiators the claim value were the win-lose guys to create value

with quote win-win guys and then put them up against each other to see what would happen so if a claim value and claim value two Cutthroats go head-to-head it's pretty much a draw okay cancel each other out I got it cancel and you know nobody wins nobody really loses it it's a tie right they're both playing offense to create value guys create value and create value go together and they do fairly well but it's not a home run if you were to grade it on a typical grading scale maybe they get a B+ the claim

value go against the create value the claim value destroys the create value guy the claim value hits a grand slam home want run to create value gag gets slaughtered how does that translate a business terms yeah until you understand how to navigate both the claim value hits home runs or ties MH the create value gets B pluses or gets fired I'm going to guess that's because the first sort of knows exactly what she wants the C the claim value guy yeah and and it's like you know there's the goal and she goes after it and

then she either gets it or she doesn't so it's a it's a win or it's a tie yeah I would guess the other guy doesn't know it's undefined is that the reason why is it why does that happen they probably leave themselves open to it being undefined yeah yeah you know let's let's talk and let's see what we can create together yeah and so then then the then the real evolution is being able to navigate with either one hostage negotiation skills like I come off as very understanding and you are not going to push me

off my position that's right back to the Tactical empathy then that's what you're talking about like I'm I'm I'm not I'm not giving in you're you're not you're not going to exploit me I'm not I'm not going to strike back what I'm going to you know what I in hostage negotiation what I learned was just to wear you out okay and you know uh one of one of my one of my heroes and a mentor was a un hostage negotiator and he said you know the secret to negotiation is learning to exhaust the other side

so if you're a claim value guy you know I'll just if you're that guy I'm going to wear you down I'm going use passive aggressive aggression on you you know I'm I'm going to PE compliant I'm going to say what do you want me to do right what you know what's you know you could tell me what you want me to do and I'll say how am I supposed to do that right and but I know that asking you those questions is going to Tire your up right and they are going to even even in

great negotiation collaboration those questions will Tire you out yeah if you're results driven you become impatient you're just like I need to make a deal this guy's either going to do it or not and usually it seems like those types of people who maybe they're in that kind of Sal cycle that they just know it's a it's law of attrition right it's like I got to get through so many NOS to get to the yeses and they're going to wear you down or you're either going to wear him down or he's going to walk away

right is that what you're talking about to some degree and then that gets into the definition of what's a legitimate yes and what's a false yes and what's a legitimate no and what's a false no and the people that say I got to get through this many NOS to get to these yeses you're losing track of the number of times you're being played okay because I'm if if if you love yes which those people tend to then I'm going to say yes and what I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm going to use

you for free Consulting okay so that maybe is a good transition into my next question which is talk about the illusion of control right so how you know I think before we talked about um the fool right favorite in the fool if you don't know who the fool is it's you it's probably me yeah but talk about the illusion of control how how do we know you know I'm I'm actually asking you very selfishly because I I'm in negotiations well I mean we're probably all in negotiations every single day with you know our romantic partner

or our you know where we're having lunch or you know uh doing deals but like help me understand the illusion of control well secret to gaining the upper hand and negotiation has given the other side the illusion of control now that starts with asking what and how questions what do you want me to do how do you want to proceed if I say to you how do you want to proceed you know what have you got in mind you're going to start laying stuff out for me you're going to feel in control when you say

something that I really like I'm going to go brilliant secret to negotiation is letting the other side have your way I get you talking and I gently just either say h how's it going to work if I don't like it and you think of something else and you I get you to throw ideas out until you land on my answers and then I go like holy cow you are so smart that was brilliant great idea why didn't I think of that right which you're going to feel great about it plus you're going to implement okay

so let's back into that then sort of the pre-prep to do that if if if that's me and that's what I want to do um do I come to the negotiation already prepped and ready with what I what I want to do my non-negotiables my break evens like do I have all that planned out set in stone well a lot of people doing this really bad prep okay because think of a negotiation time when you entered into a negotiation when you wouldn't weren't holding anything back they knew your budget and if they didn't know your

budget you told them your budget right they knew your deadlines and if they didn't know your deadlines you told them your deadlines right you told them your mortgage payments yeah you told them them all the pressures you were under when did that happen never right those are all the things you're holding back right what are your deadlines what are your pressures what are your mortgage payments what's your desire for it yeah what's your appetite what's driving you is anything driving you to the table are you on a fishing Expedition right lots of fishing Expeditions that's

called trying to get free Consulting in point the fact you're holding all of that back now that's a massive amount of important information that I as your counterpart do not have I can't be sure of what I want because I know you're holding back important information cuz I am too yeah I mean you say it out loud and it makes sense and I'm nodding like yeah of course you're holding back but I um I don't know how everyone else feels in here but like maybe I'm just too trusting sometimes or T I come into a

negotiation most of the time thinking that um man I assume people are like me like they're just going to be honest and forthright and say I either can do that or I can't do that you know even even at that point there's stuff going on with you that matter to me but you don't know what matters for example there's innocuous information um uh young lady that was learning the Black Swan method several years ago here in La she learned mirroring yeah she's doing an independent film she's talking to this woman about funding her film here

in Los Angeles and just through the course of the conversation and her just letting it go where it goes out of the blue she finds out this woman owns a castle in France okay that changes everything serendipitous there there's there's there's another movie deal here this is this is not for this movie but this is a setting for another movie I've been thinking about about if you own a castle in France we don't need dollars from you all you got to do is give us access to the castle Yeah now she's got no way of

of knowing that going into the conversation right how often uh are you in a conversation with somebody in La where we say oh by the way do you own a castle in France what what are the chances you got a castle in France no that's that's innocuous you know the woman she said well I'm being approached for money she must want funding there's no way that uh this Castle in France going to make any difference to her yes this is innocuous information also besides what you're holding back there's also stuff that we just don't know

matter and that's why detecting deception is like one of the biggest roses in in the business world because like if I was teaching body language you know detecting deception everybody in the business World wants to get training on reading body language so I know when somebody's lying right right right but to lie you have to know it's important then you hide it and then you have a tell you look down your eyes get big your breathing changes whatever your tell is but you have to know it's important again the castle in France there's no tell

there right because she doesn't know what's important right she doesn't have context yeah so understanding detecting deception is a Fool's errand yeah in you spend a lot of time and if you're the best at detecting deception in the world you're still going to miss all of the stuff the other side just didn't know was important okay uh so let's say a little bit more about then drawing out some of those innocuous facts which could turn out to be GameChanger you just didn't know it um is it back to what and why questions is well um

all right so let's deal with the the the why questions to start with okay because everybody in business just Tau to find out the other side's why very common you know why do you want that why what your why is your motivation yeah and motivation is very important I ask that all the time I I I say what's important to you no is that a good question you just said I ask that all the time which is why is that important to you there's a difference between what and why which is what I'm driving at

okay good now what's important to you if you're going to ask it in a question form is the way you should always ask why is that important to you should never ask anybody why okay cuz when you were an infant and you were just becoming able to toddle and you pulled yourself up onto some Table and there was a glass statue on it and you knocked it down and broke it m what are the nearest adult say to you yeah why did you do that yeah and it's like I didn't even know that was bad

or know was bad everybody everywhere if you're human that happened to you okay whether regardless of your religion your ethnicity the conent that you grew up on yeah you busted something when you were little and a nearest adult said why did you do that okay so I'm doing it right then I'm I'm asking what's important to you exactly okay if you're going to ask now so first first switch change all your wise to what's okay if you're going to ask the question now the next problem cuz I talked to you before I mentioned the questions

that wear you out no matter what if I say what's important to you you're going to do what Danny Conan described as slow thinking which is in-depth thinking you stop and you reflect and you do some in-depth thinking now you got to have enough mental gas in a tank to do that now we've all in in the morning we've all got enough mental gas in a tank to answer a what or how question two maybe three times then we're out okay that's in the morning you don't have the gas in the tank in the afternoon

so timing is important okay make a mental note now you can get the information but you can't ask a what question okay I'm I'm on a phone with my girlfriend the other day we're talking in the morning we're having a good call in the morning and she asked me what question like you know what do you got going on today what are your plans and so I lay it all out without really realizing it she's kind of using up all the gas in my tank okay and then later on she goes so so what what

what do you want do this weekend what what do you want us to do I'm like you know I don't know leave me alone cuz I already answer that I I I was out of gas yeah okay that's in the morning now in the afternoon you're going to be out of gas okay so you can't even ask a water how question because the other side is going to be I you know I don't know leave me alone right what do you do instead a label and this again I know this works I can't explain the

neural mechanism I'm coming back uh from uh from uh the Middle East six seven months ago jet lagged I'm on a plane in in Seattle it's nighttime I text a colleague a question now great response to the question never answer a question till you know what's behind it is what makes you ask great what question but I don't have the gas in the tank to answer that I sent him a text question and he text back seems like you have a reason for asking and in an exhausted State I laid out all my reasoning fast

text went out bang bang bang bang bang and I was like wow if he'd ask me what makes me ask I'd have texted back angrily just answer the question yeah or never mind yeah never mind you know I'll tell you tomorrow I I wouldn't have texted back at all yeah with friends like you who needs yeah yeah yeah it wasn't bad but you know he put it in in a label and that's really the one thing the biggest difference um in the Black Swan method today versus when the book came out six years ago we

have a much greater appreciation that labels are the information gathering skill and questions are not questions are mediocre at best what you want what you want to do when you ask a question is actually to shape someone's thinking not get an answer now nobody in the business world knows knows at that like that say well look you need information you got to ask good questions well a good question is only good if the other person has a capability to answer right when what you really want is what's in their head and we've seen the difference

in the mechanism I don't know why I just know if you use a label with me I'm going to start gushing information if you ask me a question when I stop and think I might not say anything yeah what's what's the downside because if you guess wrong they're going to correct you but like if you're in the Heat of the Moment too like seems like you really hate me right now or you're pissed off yes I am they're gonna they're going to well um then it depends upon like empathy is about what the other person's

perspective is okay and so and that that that's actually a really good point because the answer is going to be yes I am you should have seen that yeah depending upon our relationship right like if you if you threw back a label of a dynamic that to me is blatantly obvious right then it's going to annoy me right if I'm sitting here and I falling asleep in my chair and you say seems like you're really sleepy it's like no [ __ ] right well it depends like did I keep you out last night H okay

did I have you out drinking all night last night and now we walk in and sit down I go seems like you're sleepy and you're like well listen your reaction is look Bozo you kept me up all night yeah this is you made me sleepy you caused this yeah however if you just sat down I saw you nodding off and I and I go like it seems like you're really tired you be like oh yeah man you wouldn't believe this friend of mine K me out all night last night it's because your perspective on my

knowledge mhm did you cause it or or you have legitimate reason to not know yeah and you're just being an observant but it's actually a really good point because a as you are labeling right you you throw that down it gives the other person a chance to explain what's really happening or really how they're feeling to either you know agree with you or not agree with you it could also reveal other things like actually I was out all night listening to the competitor's pitch I'm like if you're pitching me today oh you know and then

it gives you a chance to then find out more it's exactly I got you yeah yeah is is my am I we call it labeling on the surface yeah or you know what the drivers are what are the underlying Dynamics yeah I mean what what you just said right there is actually so valuable to me personally because sometimes again uh falling back to this sort of more passive uh stance that I usually take if I'm observing something that's obvious like someone's tired or maybe I I mislabel them and they're not bored they're just exhausted because

they're out last night drinking whatever tend to not say anything I'll just kind of Let It Go and then I maybe lose that opportunity to really find out more or get more facts or find out that they have a castle in France people love to be seen yeah that's super good talk about going first versus going second uh this is not a new negotiation concept or tactic but what do you do when both parties are just sitting there silent both know it's not good to go first and you're sort of at this like you're playing

chicken sort of emotional chicken like well all right so you and I sit down and you're trying to get me to go first and I'm trying to get you to go first let me give you a scenario so in my case you know if I'm doing uh video production or commercial projects with someone they'll say you know how much is this going to cost right and they want me to to say my budget first let's take it in that that sense right yeah and I never want to volunteer the budget I I learned that the

hard way he is she who names price first loses and I've done that before right so I can I can attest to that and so what I usually do is I say what's your budget MH right and and then there's usually this dance which is well I don't know how much it's going to cost and we do this whole you know this this uh um it's a dance right so what do we do if I don't want to go first but the other one sort of are forcing me to go first well um everybody's got

stuff they Dy to sayh you know price doesn't make deals price breaks deals price is a term and everything around it is either going to make it a good price or a bad price so if you're really price Focus let's just talk about the stuff around it mhm like what what I give I I get paid a lot of money for my keynote speeches would I give one for free if Warren Buffett's looking for my services he's going to sit in the audience who's going to be in the audience have they ever bought negotiation training

before are they really interested in negotiation training everything around a price begins to either make it a good deal or a bad deal how long is the delivery how deep detailed oriented how complicated is it how many people do I got to bring how long's it going to take what's a turnaround time where is it going to be shown um so if if you're really focused on price there's a reason for your focus on price I'm going to say sounds like sounds like price is really important to you right and then it gives the person

chance to say now I want to Pivot away to the non-price stuff to find out you you know how you know maybe what you want that's nonprice makes the deal much more profitable for me so it's easier for me to be a little bit more flexible on a price because it's going to be a great deal for me so I want to know what everything around the price people get so price focused and in point of fact price doesn't make deals it breaks them your salary doesn't make your career your salary gives you the ability

to pay your bills while you try to make your career they pay you more money they could fire you in a year salaries don't build careers prices don't make Deals they break deals you get you get underpaid you can't pay your mortgage you're not going to do a good job working the price is really much more of a sweet spot for both sides so that then we can Implement a great deal together so Black Swan group we we don't you know we don't negotiate price we just don't um you do you line list you like

here it is it's you can read it in black and white like a sticker price if we got a give a price we put a sticker price I you know I I had a very very high profile very well-known uh company that we were talking to the other day that I would love to have for a client and you know the the the hundreds of millions of dollars that they have at stake and so we outlined what we wanted to do because I don't just want to give you negotiation training I want it to actually

make a difference in your bottom line sure which means it's just not a day of training there's a lot of stuff there's a perishability of knowledge there's periodic followup there's changes in your culture yeah we got to make it sure it sticks it's a whole package yeah so so the guy said okay so this is a package with all the bells and whistles I gave us a price without the bells and whistles just stripped down for the for the basic two-day training yeah I said we're not doing that oh you said you're not doing it

yeah I said no there there no this is the price oh did he asked for two prices he asked for three prices okay he wants to see I want to see three different versions silver gold that kind of thing and I said we're only doing one okay period this is the price this is what I need to do in order to get it to stick on your end it does me no good for you to take negotiation training no matter how much money I make and have it not work for you because either you're not

going to repeat or you're going to tell people yeah we took the Black Swan training it didn't really make any difference right I'm not doing that yeah you set yourself up for failure here's here's here's what we're going to do for you and this is what the best effort that we can give you I'm not giving you a mediocre effort I don't care how much you pay me for it you can pay me the same amount of money for a mediocre effort I still wouldn't do it yeah yeah so you know our ours is on

delivery and our our price is going to be a bargain if we deliver there there's you know there's some Integrity issues here too right I'm not selling snake oil right if you learn how to negotiate like a Black Swan 10% difference is you did a horrible job you know and they told me we got to cut you know we need a 10% return on our investment this is what those dollars would look like and I thought to myself if you do what we tell you to do you're get a 30% return on your investment yeah

so we're a bargain so I'm not cutting my price we don't and and then if you give me a price I'm going to pay your price but I want to know what comes with it right what what's the return on it what what do I get for that right yeah you're you're gonna I'm GNA I'm gonna I will pay a premium price for a premium product because a premium product is going to be worth far more than a price yeah and it goes back to knowing that you're the favorite then in that case if if

price is not an issue you're the favorite you've been sought out right more likely if price is not an issue they still might be after the how and looking for free Consulting on the how how how do you guys what H how do you guys Implement your secret sauce they may be looking for that because they want to duplicate the process themselves internally okay so you kind of gave us a short answer of how to say no but can you say more about saying no and how to how important it is to end on a

positive note than a negative note well uh yeah let's let's start with how do you say no you got to let out no a little at a time and you got to be prepared to say no clearly hard and draw it in the sand but it's really the fourth way you say no okay the first way you say no is how am I supposed to do that you put up some sort of barrier like well it's no it's it's not necessarily a barrier that's really an implementation question I'm trying to get you to see that

that implementation is impossible for me and I'm trying to do it in a differential manner okay okay and so I'm forcing you to take a look I'm forcing you engage in some problem solving how is generally a question that's designed around uncovering imp implementation if you're asking me to do something that's impossible my first answer to test you is how am I supposed to do that now you might fire right back at me about one time in 10 you're going to fire that's your problem or i' definitely thought that before here's how you're going to

do this okay you're either going to put the problem back on me or you're going to explain it to me well I love that uh I love that answer because what you didn't say is that's impossible or that's ridiculous right or you're an idiot for even suggesting that right right these are things you might be thinking but you you rewarded it in a very diplomatic way right right now now and then you we're stepping all the way back roughly towards no but I never want you to get blindsided by no okay when if you ever

hear no from me you're going to see it coming right and you're going to appreciate that you weren't caught off guard we say no all the time I'm I'm involved in uh another negotiation right now that I'm po politely clearly gently saying no and because I'm saying it politely clearly and gently they're working on solving the problems okay because they want you so bad and also because I'm not being a jerk about it okay I'm like look and I'll say really look I understand why you're asking for what you're asking for I can't do that

here's why right you know that here's why that doesn't work for me yeah it could be Logistics it could be timing it could be budget could be a lot of reasons yeah now if I lay that out to you then you get to make a decision on your own you you preserve your autonomy you either walk it away no hard feelings or you see if you can solve it right I haven't demanded that you solve it I said here's the problem and under this set of circumstances I'm sorry I'm afraid the answer for me is

no so circumstances change I'm always open to conversation I'm curious do you ever play hard to get um on purpose no okay so you're always just a that would be disingenuous yeah and integrity's got to be your currency I feel like that happens to me a lot people are either sandbagging yes or they're fronting yes and it's hard for me to sometimes cut through what's true right I got to get to the bottom of it yeah yep yeah unfortunately that's very common depending upon the industry it es and flows in different places but when people

are successful doing it they crow about it and then it gives a skewed perception of how often it works it tends to be very successful short-term very self-destructive long-term yeah self-destructive longterm because once you get burned you're not going to do business with that person again I can't trust you right yeah yeah yeah and that makes no sense if you plan to be in business for you know more than a couple of years you got to think long term yeah and then you do one thing you do something right three people know about it you

do something wrong 12 people know about it right it gets around really fast yeah and get back to Cuban you know a conversation I had with him about negotiation he likes to spend a lot of time up front getting to know the other person their core values get building trust because then it accelerates every subsequent negotiation if I can trust you if the first business deal we did together it took us two weeks to get to know each other the second business deal maybe we only got to talk for three days and the third or

the fourth deal you call me up let me know what you want I agree or disagree and we move forward there's a there's a trust is an accelerator it increases your velocity of the number of deals that you can make yeah so you got to be trustworthy and you got to deal with people and you get burned occasionally that just made you smarter let me dig a Little Deeper on that question which is how long do I give the other person until I if I want to do the deal with that person I let's assume

I trust that person the deal seems reasonable it's collaborative but for whatever reason that person's dragging their feet or hasn't made a decision or and I've got other options you know how do I know when to cut bait or when that other person's just trying to wear me down like is there a no really early on I mean either you're making progress or you're not if you're if you're not making progress it's for a good reason okay uh the other side's disorganized it's not important to them they're playing you if you're not making progress you

need to get out or they're not the decision maker that's happened to me too well you know there's the decision makers there's this great mythology about the decision maker the deal killer is every bit as important as the decision maker probably more important than a decision maker a long time ago we were competing for um we were in you know a bidding process for negotiation training for Verizon and we didn't get it and another company was leading for a broader uh group of training and wanted to make us part of it and so we're like

all right if you can get us into Verizon uh and and they buy the negotiation training we'll happily do it so we didn't get the contract but in the process the company that was leading the uh the proposal said fully 50% of the deals that Verizon signs are never implemented wow half and then you start looking around and you start seeing that's really common wow so okay so they say yes and you're like we won and then it doesn't happen and you're like they got a signed deal except for and everybody knows the TNC phase

the terms and conditions pH right right right the attorneys get a hold of it the attorneys and there there's always outs okay yeah so and the attorneys may decide to tank the deal because they're annoyed at the person has signed it yeah yeah or they know that they weren't consulted before it signed an attorney who's not consulted before a deal is signed signed in order to show that they're earning their living right right has to do everything they can to tear the deal apart yeah good point so they're the deal Killers that's how they put

points on the board yeah that's how they put but what would happen if you found a way to involve the attorneys and even thinking about the deal before it gets signed how do you do that you say what what do your attorneys how do your attorneys feel about this the other deals your attorneys in the past have had problems with how's it broken down for you how does your attorney how does your how does your internal counsel feel about this deal now I'm going to ask you that three or four times again a how question

is not designed to get an answer how questions get you to think now the first time I asked you you know how does your internal legal counsel feel about this they're going to say ah they're fine you know don't worry about this you know they're they're good about it but it's GNA it's going to bother you that I asked and you're going to wonder and you're going to start thinking about H you know the last deal I signed before checking with them they they killed it right and you're probably going to write it off but

if I ask you that the second time or the third time you're going to think you know I really hate it when they kill my deals yeah and that's embarrassing yeah so I'm going to go check with the internal counsel to see what they think of this deal yeah I'll send them a draft ahead of time instead of w this what I'm thinking about yeah yeah yeah you know and here's what I'm dealing with and here the pressures I'm under I'm trying to get you to engage in a negotiation with a team behind you that

are not coming to the table and the minute you start to coordinate with them then I start to diminish the deal Killers mhm I love that that's like uh preventive maintenance in a way right like you're very much so right you don't put preventive maintenance in your car engine what happens yeah yeah yeah you're you're dead you're done I mean I think he hit it on the head yeah yeah that is excellent advice can we talk about criticism how we should interpret criticism should ignore it all the time okay how how have you mastered that

because I am not good at that sometimes well let me just say I'm My Own Worst critic I'm very self-critical all the time that's your amydala again yes I know I have listen to your gut not your amydala the first first step in solving the problem is to admit you have a problem have a problem I've met the enemy and it is me yes yes uh okay so ignore all criticism okay say more about that never take advice from somebody you wouldn't trade places with okay don't take directions from somebody who hasn't been where you're

going you'll never be criticized by somebody doing better than you okay I've heard all those before I think those so if they're not doing better than you they haven't been where you're going now they might be right but the percentage of times that a Critic might be right are so low that it's a bad gamble we live we don't live in an ivory Tower world where everything is black and white white everything's nothing's 100% we live in a Las Vegas world where you're playing the odds mhm the chances that a Critic is wrong is 99

times out of a 100 good odds that they're wrong right I'll take those out so you you're going to bet the on the critic's advice when they're wrong now they're one they're they're right one time in a 100 yeah sometimes it does in in and stick that's a low state takes percentage you need somebody who's right more than they're wrong mhm now the person you would trade places with the person who's been where you're going are they infallible no they just write more than a Critic is so you seek at the people who've been that

you would trade places with have you ever been in a negotiation with someone who you know starts to to criticize your either approach or your like my counterpart is criticizing me yeah it's something out there called the Cartman the drama triangle or aka the Cartman triangle I learned about it on the suicide hotline back in the 1990s it's relevant then it's relevant today somebody's criticizing you in their negotiators and they're playing a role of persecutor they're trying to knock you off balance and trying to get you defensive yeah it's not it's it's um it's not

an really an ethical thing to do right it's to exploit you to take advantage of you well this is this goes back to my original question which is sometimes I feel like I get bullied or critics are bullies are persecutors yeah they're not on your side it's not always so overt like you know right it's it's sometimes subtle or passive aggressive but it's it's here's one of the most subtle ones out there that people are repeating all the time look I'm really disappointed in you yeah I expected more from a varsity Letterman right it's like

that type of approach yeah yeah I mean and like that's very manipulative right right you know you've been in business for this long you know anybody that uses that phrase you got to take a close look at him right cuz the very manipulative type learns it learn learn learn it yeah like and and and if you when you're looking for it it's hysterical uh there was a I think a republican Congressman somewhere in the South uh not not US House of Representatives but I think a local Congressman had been involved in Affair for a really

long time but it deny it deny it deny it the finally reporter basically gave him the the text messages that he' been back and forth with the woman right he's caught red-handed sure so immediately goes I'm very disappointed in myself I'm like oh this guy this guy knows how to weasel out almost anything because if he's disappointed in himself then now he's the adult again you don't got to punish him because he's P punishing himself right so yeah I'm so disappointed I let down my family this a guy's work you know he's ducking dodging responsibility

when you're the victim and the persecutor at the same time then who's going to punish you yes Chris okay this I mean it's almost like a trauma response like I have experienced this a lot I think uh it's just been uh Insidious like I haven't been aware of it it's been like under the radar uh probably as I'm thinking back these are kind of classic narcissists who have been negotiating with um someone who who thinks that they're negotiating from a point of power or you know like they're up here perception I'm not here right right

right you know maybe who knows but like that sound that sounds really familiar so what do I do I just throw up the red flag and go I'm out well first of all uh you become aware of who you're dealing with right okay you know um I used to say when I was when an FBI agent you know all informants were manipulative you got a tiger by the tail don't kid yourself that you're holding on to a tiger's tail don't just because it's not growling at the moment doesn't make it a pussycat right so when

you're dealing with a Cutthroat counterpart don't kid yourself about whether or not it's a Cutthroat right be do not project your sincerity into someone who has none right don't pretend like it's going to work out somehow they're going to see it your way yeah they're not going to be reasonable now knowing that this person is this type of person do I want to proceed in the deal now this relationship is going to come to an end okay it's going to right do I want to proceed knowing that this relationship is coming to an end one

of the two of us is going to walk yeah there is no long-term relationship here right now maybe the value the short-term value is worth it for you yeah there's a risk reward calculation it was in early early in a Black Swan group's history before the book sold as well as it's selling now we were doing business with a company and the president was not trustworthy and we knew it but the experience that we were gaining at the time and the development of my Personnel for being involved in implementing the deal was worth it right

and I but I had no Illusions about the fact that I was dealing with a liar and the relationship came to an end no matter how hard we delivered phenomenal value how hard we tried we always over delivered we were always we were always a great return on investment for the other side yeah they never stopped lying and eventually I just I couldn't take the line anymore the manipulation and the liar doesn't like to be called a liar they hate it and I got really angry once and I let them know that I thought they

were a liar and they didn't want to deal with this anymore and we were like cuz it's been painful dealing with you right right that is a good feeling when you can I mean if if they're your client to fire your client that's that's perfectly acceptable to do it's one of the hardest decisions for any business person to make and when they get to that point it always accelerates everybody's success I have never seen any business that didn't really begin to really become successful as soon as I started firing clients are firing customers or firing

counterparts this as soon as they start shedding baggage everybody thinks that it's a scare the world is scarce in point the fact it accelerates everybody's business I love that answer um let's let's wrap things up maybe is there a couple questions from the audience to do a quick we've got maybe time for one or two if we have a question for Chris before we go anything you want to ask about there's a hand there yes I could ask a question I I'll repeat the question so you can hear on camera go ahead like human nature

Basics are Universal period every everybody's born when we come out of the womb we're pretty much exactly the same we get a basic wiring it's a lot like your respiratory system everybody has the same respiratory system our emotional wiring is is referred to as the lyic system and there's a lot of great analogies to the respiratory system for example if I were to ask you to control your emotions you can control them for about as long as you can hold your breath eventually it's going to go back on autopilot just like your breathing will so

culture is on top of how you're wired as a human being so if you focus on what resonates with people as human beings then you can begin if there's any cultural adaptation that's necessary you can make that easily plus if I'm really intently trying to understand you it doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Buddhist or Christian or Jewish or even vegan you're going to appreciate being understood and so that's what makes the skills work in every country [Music] so you're use an an email is to land one point now what do I got to do

to the email in order to get the point to land if I got bad news my email is going to start out by saying you're not going to like this then I'm going to say what the bad news is and then I'm going to follow up with either a how question question or a no oriented question is it a ridiculous idea for us to talk about this is it a ridiculous idea for me to give you some options but I'm not going to give you the options and the problem in the same email because I'm

you got to get the Cadence of the email the same way as you would like to have the conversation a good conversation you speak and you shut up and you let the other side respond whereas emails we want to give our whole speech in one email and then the other side reacts negatively to the one thing we didn't want them to react negatively to so you can do it in writing you just got to you got to chunk it down can I ask what's the followup question what's the psychological benefit of asking what sounds like

a negative is this ridiculous that we're doing so so and so or is this a terrible idea why not why not go in with positive people feel safe and protected when they say no when people say yes most of the time they're concerned yes is commitment what am I let myself in for what's the what what's the catch what what did I miss if I say yes what kind of problems is that going to trigger you never think that when you say no you feel safe and protected when you say no does that have a

caveat at all like even if it's something simple or and obvious like if I say um do you want to have a follow-up meeting that's a yes or know or should I say would you be against or is it a ridiculous idea to to have a follow-up meeting about this very much like the problem with why is a problem with yes you know I may be asking you why and I may not be accusing you of doing something wrong but if you did do something wrong I'm always going to ask you why so you've been

conditioned I think in Africa they have saying once you've been bitten by a snake you're afraid of ropes you've been getting conditioned on why now what's the problem with yes the Hustler the con artist got you with yes would you like to would you like to sleep better right would you like to make more money would you like to live longer because you slept better right now you know I'm going someplace with that yeah and the minute you say yes you're going to be worried that you've just committed to buying a $35,000 mattress right right

and so everybody that hustles other people the flim those flim flame that Bamboozled you yeah they Bamboozled you with yes now you've been yes battered so once bitten by a snake you're scared of ropes even though you in a completely different circumstances you're a genuine guy you're not trying to flimflam me you're not trying to bamboozle me right but the problem is you engage in a behavior that the con artist engaged in and so there's an Institutional in instinct intive reaction it's already been built into me that I can't help but get worried on any

yes it creates some anxiety no matter what okay so we just get out of it entirely you you call out the elephant in the room right away you call the elephant in the room out or even if I call you on the phone is now a bad time yeah I now I do that a lot because I guess I want people to do that to me sometimes it's well most of the time it's a bad time if someone just calls me these days and and if they say that what's your answer yeah it is a

bad time yeah and now you're both on the same sheet of music okay I won't waste your time are you is it are you again suggesting a time but in point of fact if if I say it's now a bad time and you say it is a bad time almost every single time you're going to tell me when a good time is right I can't talk to you now I can talk to you in an hour right right right I got an hour tomorrow my my Wednesday afternoon is completely open now I got your undivided

attention at a scheduled point in time mhm I love it we might have time for one more uh let's go in the back so somebody that keep track of somebody that is only focused on price how often you close that deal you're going to find that close rate is probably really low now what's that behavior begin to look like the First Response if somebody just wants a price my reaction to that is a label sounds like price is really important to you their answer is going to give me more of a clue as to whether

or not I'm being played whether I'm the fool in the game am I the rabbit am I there to drive the price down on a favorite also in the com do we have a previous relationship have I dealt with them before they're most likely going to price shop somebody they've never dealt with so if you've never dealt with them that continues to gather evidence that they're only looking to you to drive down a price on a favorite so start to look for the behaviors that you're concerned about let your gut instinct start to begin to

accumulate the data and you're going to get a much better feel much more quickly as to whether or not you're being played if you can't get them off price at all then the chances that you're just there as a competing bid are very high that's also quite likely that whoever you're working for doesn't see it that way that's why you need to start to collect your own data on a profile of a real buyer or the profile of somebody who's just Price shopping or feature shopping or looking for free Consulting if you can then show

the percentage of people that you close Who start out with that phrase is very low and if you can't get them out of that phrase then your boss is going to forgive you for moving on to the deals that you will close because in point of fact you're going to increase your deal velocity Challenger the Challenger say is a good book philosophically speaking it's not great at teaching you how to be a challenger they lay out to you why you should be a challenger and if those of you that are familiar with it if you're

in sales they basically lay out the Prototype that the Challenger mentality is a sales mentality that tends to thrive in all environments recessions economic booms Challengers do well all the time they're not real clear on how to be a challenger you you take that idea take the tools from never split the difference teach yourself how to be a challenger is they're great supplements to one another Challenger sale is also where we got the statistic that 20% of the time you're being played now since we've taught people how to how to sort of tease that out

very quickly we think the numbers are closer to 80% and if you wanted to be in played they basically ask business Executives how often do you lie to the other side you never have any intention whatsoever of ever buying from them but you engage in a negotiation because you're looking for your price shopping you're looking for free Consulting what any of the reasons are the thousand plus Executives that they uh surveyed said yeah probably about 20% of the time now I ask yourself did they exaggerate how because they said how often do you lie to

your counterparts are they going to underestimate that number or overestimate it they're going to lie about how often they lie yeah so if they admitted to LY in 20% of the time that number's got to be north of that yeah and the people that we teach you know how to how to we call it Proof of Life Proof of Life of the deal is there a deal and is a deal with you people people that adopt and really understand proof of life we're seeing numbers up as high as 80% yeah in my world it would

call be called it in RFP like they wanted a request for proposal we stopped doing rfps 10 years ago because we felt like that statistic 80 90% we just getting played or they're just doing due diligence like yep they already have a friend who they want to give the deal to but like they got to you know put it out there for fairness or whatever right we're just we're just one of those yep yep if you didn't help write the description for the if RFP if they didn't consult you on how to describe it you're

not getting it right right then you give them all your great ideas anyway and it's like and they Implement them this happened to me actually with a with a show concept uh with a major publisher in this neighborhood I give away uh and it ended up being one of their best performing series of all time right it's one of those like H I won't that's painful I won't mention that it could have been someone like because they they have ethics I think there you go it couldn't have been them right couldn't have been could could

no no they would never do that well this has been terrific uh we'll put another uh pin and all some of the other things that we've been talking one thing I wanted to touch on real quick it's really important that you did it last impression is a lasting impression yes everybody focuses on a first impression you get away with a mediocre first impression you just don't want to make a bad first impression right did I wear the right thing today the shoes made a great impression on me okay wonderful but the last impression is a

lasting impression you can't get away with the mediocre last impression how do you fix that for example in emails you getting ready to write an email first of all let the email flow out naturally you're probably going to put wonderful F lovely flowery regard regarding statements at the beginning of the email hey how are you want you know we you know we care about you we'd love to make a deal with you you know we believe in your product copy and paste that delete it from the front of the email put it at the back

you're going to write exactly how the email should end naturally at the beginning I do that all the time but I realize that the last impression is a lasting impression so I sit down I bang out that email hey how are you you know I'm looking forward to being in Los Angeles I want to be on your show you know hopefully the episode is the best ever and I'm sharp the whole time because I love your Concepts I I love what you're doing in the world I will copy and paste that and put it at

the end now maybe I write it twice maybe I it's so brilliant I can't bear to not have it at the beginning but it's best at the end because the last impression is a lasting impression long time ago Gallup organization I'm sitting in a lecture that uh at a seminar they gave they said people don't remember things how they happened they remember the most intense moment and how it ended you remember how things end on Broadway they say give him a big finish they'll forgive you for anything I'm listening to Aaron sorin's master class and

he says your movie could be uh an hour and 30 minutes of phenomenal entertainment if the last 15 minutes stink the critics are going to kill you cuz the last impression is a lasting impression your first impression just can't be bad it could be mediocre but your last impression can't be mediocre it's got to be great so the brilliant stuff you put at the beginning of your email put it at the end I love it let's give Chris a round of applause talk about the newsletter please we got a free negotiation newsletter if it's free

I'll take three famous FBI saying government saying but that's not what makes it valuable with it's actionable and it's concise that's what makes it valueable something that's free doesn't matter if that if the advice is useless or if it takes a long time to get through simplest way to get the uh newsletter is a text to sign up function the number you text to is 337 3377 7 the message you send to that number is Black Swan method B A C K space S W an space method me t h o d not cap sensitive

that's the best way to sign up the newsletter is a gateway to everything training announcements when are we going to be in La when are we going to be in New York you get a concise actionable email on Tuesday Mornings any announcements on special stuff we're putting out and you're rocking and rolling I love it and then for um Enterprise level Consulting you know people can go to Black Swan group where where do they find you yeah the the website is Black Swan ltd.com b s SW nltd like love and tell daylight. um the info

Black Swan td.com it's going to get rooted to the right person whatever you're looking for the right person will get back to you awesome Chris always a pleasure thanks man can't wait to see the doc film can't wait to see all the things that you're doing uh appreciate you yeah thanks man thanks for having me great let's cut I mean we were just sitting back you know chopping it up reminiscing about the good old days and all that you know tracking my roots where I came from and where I'm [Music] going but like I say

man always said it it's not about the destination it's all about the Journey about Journey baby ain't nothing changed but the weather the dangling Carro at hang from the rear view your dreams in the past ain't nowhere near you backseat driver got nothing but two cents shotgun R is too biased they all liars I should get a a forever and I'm too TI but I'm never giving up that's I'm kind Ro model like it or not I got to play it