Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: Chris Voss on Negotiating Like a Boss

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

Brushing up on your negotiation skills never gets old! Enjoy this #YAPClassic featuring Christopher Voss, a former leading FBI international hostage and kidnapping negotiator. Now Chris spends his time as an author, professor and coach---teaching others how to apply his learnings from international crisis and high-stakes negotiations to the business world. Chris is regarded as one of the most influential negotiators of our time. He wrote the massive best-selling hit, “Never Split the Difference,” which lays out actionable negotiation strategies which we'll uncover in this episode. Tune in to hear Chris' negotiation secrets and tactics like labeling, mirroring, unlocking that's right breakthroughs, diffusing negativity with empathy and more! If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm your host, Hallitaha, and today we're talking to Christopher Voss. Christopher formerly the FBI's leading international hostage and kidnapping negotiator. Now he spends his time as an author, professor, and CEO of the Black Swan Group, teaching others how to apply his learnings from international crisis and high stakes negotiations

to the business world. Christmas regarded as one of the most influential negotiators of our time. He wrote the best-selling book, Never Split the Difference, which lays out actionable negotiation strategies and is known as the Bible of negotiation. Chris joins us on YAP today to teach us how to negotiate as if our lives depended on it

and how to become more persuasive in both our professional and personal lives. Hey, Chris, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcasts. We're delighted to have you on today. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you very much. So you've had an illustrious career. You've crossed in and out of police forces, academia. You're the CEO of Black Swan Group,

and you are even an international hostage negotiator for the FBI among other prestigious titles. Can you just spend a few minutes giving us highlights of your career journey so far and how you came to become a leading authority in negotiation? It sounds like it can't hold the job, huh? No. It's a long journey.

I mean, I wanted to be in law enforcement. So the police department went to the FBI. I grew up in a small town in Iowa. I know I don't have the Iowa accent anymore, but when I found out in federal law enforcement, they'd pay you to go to other countries and hang out. I thought, wow, how cool is that? I'd never been anywhere.

So I get interested in negotiation because I was actually originally on a SWAT team and decided to make the transition from SWAT to negotiations because I had a bad knee and then negotiations was cool since I was a swatter before I wasn't qualified to be a talker. You know, swatters don't say a lot. They say put the gun down. That's about what SWATers say. So they told me volunteer on a suicide hotline. I found that experience so extraordinary that it was just fascinated by it.

So suicide hotline FBI studying at universities, you start throwing the stuff together, it's consuming. I've always loved it. So is this something that you knew you wanted to do when you grow up? Because not many people think like, oh, I wanna be a negotiator when I grow up. So how did you know that was your true calling?

I had no idea. None whatsoever. At about age 16, I decided I want to be in law enforcement. What really attracted me to law enforcement was the idea to be creative and innovative and do some good at the same time. I saw a movie about a couple of cops in New York City called the Supercops and these guys were just creative guys. They thought up all these creative ways to catch the bad guys

and then the community loved them because they got rid of bad guys and no community, no matter how tough it is in any neighborhood, there are still more good people than bad people. I don't care what neighborhood you're talking about. And the good people appreciate the cops. And I was just fascinated by that. So I knew I wanted to be in law enforcement, but negotiation I had no idea that was going to be it. I thought SWAT was cool. I wanted to do SWAT. I actually studied martial arts for a short period of time in college. That's where originally I hurt my name.

But I like crisis response. And we had negoti negotiators and I decided I could still be a negotiator and still be in crisis response. And that's when I found out to my great delight how cool it was to talk people out. Very cool. And so I think when people think of negotiation, they tend to view it in formal terms. So a salary negotiation, a hostage negotiation, or negotiating business deal, or so on. But I really want my listeners to realize that it's a skill you can use beyond a formal, traditional sense. So what is your definition of negotiation

and how do we negotiate in everyday life? Yeah, well, in a most dangerous negotiation is the one. You don't know your end. And you're negotiating all the time. And the good thing about that is, you practice in a small stake stuff, every day conversation so you can do well in a formal conversations. And I give you a great example I came across recently, which we love to ask people when they say, I don't have a chance to practice negotiations. I say, well, are you in a negotiation when you're

at Starbucks? Well, there's a guy that wrote a starter website called Post Secrets, and he said, send me your secrets anonymously. Send them to me on a postcard or something like a postcard, but send them to me anonymously. So he gets an anonymous brand new still in a wrapper, Starbucks coffee cup, as proof that it was from somebody at Starbucks. And the note said, I give D-Cath to people who are mean to me. So you're in a negotiation when you're at Starbucks. They might not be carrying you what you ordered. If you're a grumpy person and you think you're developing a tolerance for caffeine, maybe you're not developing a tolerance for caffeine, they're giving you decat to get back at you. So practice your everyday interactions. Tied into that is the saying, never be mean to somebody who could hurt you by doing nothing.

Well, if you practice being nice on a regular basis, you find that you get a lot more stuff. The hotel I'm in right now, I was just really nice when I checked in. When my assistant was calling for my reservation, she couldn't get a late checkout. When I checked in, I was just super nice and they were happy to get me a late checkout. You know, those are the practice negotiations.

You get a lot more by being nice. Everybody likes to be table pounding and name calling and demanding and it's really satisfying to quote, win a negotiation and make the other side lose. But actually long term, that's bad. That's not good. You don't do great long term. So if you practice being nice, you're gonna go share it all the time,

get a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, that's so true. And I can't wait to dive into all of that. So as usual, we studied a lot for this interview, especially because my listeners love topics that touch on psychology and influence. My top episode is hacking human behavior to gain influence. It was actually another FBI agent who I interviewed.

And I'm sure this episode's gonna become an instant classic as well. In relation to classics, you have a classic of your own and it's called Never Sput the Difference. Now, I think all my listeners will recognize this book. It's a huge mega hit. I think you put it out in 2016 and I highly recommended to anybody who's interested in negotiation.

It was one of the best reads that I've came across so far. Thank you very much. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I checked the charts today and we are number six in the world on Amazon's most sold list. So we're doing all right. It's crazy. And it's crazy how much of a longevity this book has. And it's still the leading authority I think on negotiation out right now. So definitely want to spend a majority of the time covering

some of your key principles from that book. So let's start with human nature and how negotiation plays into that. No matter how we dress up negotiation in mathematical theories, we still act like animals. We're driven by our fears, our needs, our perceptions, our desires. Can you talk about these animalistic urges and why it is our emotions that guide our decisions and not rational thought or logic? Yeah, that's a great point. We're driven by our fears at three times the rate that we're driven by the stuff that we like, which means our concerns over loss distorts our thinking by three times, then our desire for game.

There's an old saying like, you watch somebody lose a game and they say, lose in a big game hurts twice as much as winning the big game does. And most people accept that, but how do you factor that into your thinking? Well, hostage negotiators, skills are specifically designed to diffuse feelings of loss. So you come to agreements faster by understanding how to diffuse people's fears because they distort our thinking by so much than you do by trying to pitch game. For example, we got an exercise we do in our training session and I asked for volunteers Now at that point of time that's a negotiation people don't realize it is But if I'm asking for your time you're in a negotiation the commodity is time and time is always a commodity in every negotiation

Trying to get somebody to do something but they don't see it as a negotiation. They just think they're gonna volunteer So I will always say to them right up front look I can tell you if you're worried about volunteering, it's going to be horrible. Now another instructor might say, look I don't want you to worry about volunteering, I don't want you to think it's going to be bad, it's all denials, I don't want you to think, I don't want you to worry, I don't want you to feel this. That actually makes fears worse. But the crazy shift is, and this was backed by a neuroscience experiment by just saying like, it's gonna seem like X versus the denial. It's gonna be horrible. That actually diffuses the fears. And when I do that with volunteers,

I always get more hands than I need. If I'd had taken a different approach, a traditional deal-making approach, if you volunteer, this is what you will get. I could say, if you volunteer, you're going to get better training than anybody else in a room does. Most people will be reluctant to volunteer because they're still concerned about their fears. So it's just changing up the order of things and then understanding how to get rid of fears and that's the magic said negotiations, how to diffuse fears. Yeah, and I think you call that labeling in your book, correct? And there you have done your homework.

That is exactly what we call it. I have. We're going to get into all of that. In your book, you also talk about something called cognitive bias and how it distorts the way that we see the world. Can you give us some examples of cognitive bias and how we can avoid this framing effect when we're in a negotiation? Well, a couple of ones. First of all, this is what we refer to as emotional anchoring and our first biases are how we're driven by our fears. And one of the second ones then, too, is that we refer to as emotional anchoring and our first biases are how we're driven by our fears. And one of the second ones then too is that we have to get people out of early on is that

everybody makes a following assumption. I am normal. And what that means when you think to yourself, I'm normal. And when somebody else is act in the way that you think is right that makes them by definition abnormal. Humanity kind of splits up in a three conflict types. The caveman that survived the Sabreto Tiger and we still get caveman wiring in our head. We haven't evolved out of it. Our response to this threat is fight, flight or make friends. If something threatens us, we want to fight it, or we want to run from it, or we want to make friends with it. You know, the caveman responses. And the world's births pretty much evenly into thirds. What does that have to do with what I'm talking about? Whatever conflict type you are,

two thirds of the time your counterparts going to be one of those other two types, you're gonna be in the minority. So normal is a relative term, it normal kind of breaks up in the thirds. Classic example of how this really breaks down is silence. Like I'm a natural born assertive, I'm the fight type. If there's silence in a conversation, if you go silent, I'm going to think that means you want to hear me talk some more.

That's why you're quiet. You're quiet, so I can talk. Now if you're the flight type or the very analytical type, you love silence because you want to think. So you go silent because you want to think and I'm on the other side of the table and you can't get me to shut up. Or if you're the make friends type and you go silent, since having a great relationship is the number one thing for you, going silent is the way you signal anger. So you're trying to show me that you're angry in a really quiet way, but you're probably furious and I won't shut up.

in a really quiet way, but you're probably furious, and I won't shut up. So I've made the wrong assumption on silence just based on my type, and that's where our cognitive biases get in our way because we figure the way we think is way other people think. So then how do we avoid that? How do we avoid assuming that everybody else is like us?

We get nine negotiation skills, and the labels that we were just talking about a minute ago, we've sort of surveyed all three types across the world. And all three types like labels. And so you start with, hey, look, it seems like you might be angry. That's just a label of the dynamic that's going on in the moment. Now all three types of like to respond to that because it's kind of an observation. It's not really a question. It's just kind of laid out there, which gives you the option to respond. Now

all I have to do to avoid the assumptions is to say something soft and gentle like that that you're likely to respond to, and then just pay attention to what you say. If you're mad, if I say, hey, it seems like something's bothering you, you're gonna say, yeah, you know, as a matter of fact, here's what I'm gonna have you by. And then you'll tell me, if you go on silent

because you wanna think and I say, it seems like something's bothering you, you're gonna say, no, no, no, nothing's bothering me. I just need a few moments to think and I say it seems like something to bother you. You're going to say no, no, no, nothing's bothering me. I just need a few moments to think. Now, you're starting to get me feedback right away. I got to actually pay attention to the feedback. And if I do, we're going to end up having a great conversation. Okay, so let's talk about the tone of voice to use in negotiation.

In your book, you mentioned three different voices that you can use. Are there really just only three and can you break down the main ones and describe them? Perhaps while using the tone of voice that you're suggesting so we can really understand the difference. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Each one of the caveman types that I talked about before, the five flight make friends, they get a natural tone. Now, I've kind of learned the tone I'm using now, which is a little bit of the analyst's voice, which is a little bit of the late-night FNDJ voice. And it's a calming and soothing voice. It actually reaches in and hits your mirror neurons.

I said before, a lot of this is based on neuroscience, not psychology, but neuroscience. And so, the neuroscience says, if I hit your mirror neurons with a soothing voice, it actually triggers a chemical change in your brain and it's soos you, it calms you down. It's a natural voice of the hostage negotiator. And that's why one of the crazy difference between business negotiations and hostage negotiations, or that hostage negotiations tend to be calmer. How is that possible that a terrorist is criminal or kidnappers calmer than a businessman? Well, the hostage negotiator used a late night FM DJ voice on him from the start calmed him down. It was an involuntary response.

And if I can calm a terrorist down with that voice, I'm probably calm pretty much anybody down. That's the first voice. Now this is a voice which is my natural tone that I had to learn to practice and you can learn your way out of anything. You know, it's a direct and honest voice. I'm just telling you what I need. I'm just being honest. I'm just being direct and honest with you. Well, when I fall into that direct and honest voice and if you're a human being the things of yourself is simply as direct and honest, you know, I once had a colleague tell me that

they said, Chris dealing with you is like getting hit in the face with a brick. That's probably not going to help me. You don't get what you want on a long term basis by hitting people in a face with a brick. And the assertive voice is the only voice that is really counterproductive all the time. I reach in, I hit your mirror neurons with assertion, you feel attacked,

you react angrily, it triggers the negative emotion of anger, and it's not emotions that are bad, it's negative emotions that are bad. So I trigger your anger emotion, and there's an old saying Give the speech when you're angry and it'll be the best speech you ever regret You're gonna say things that in the moment you feel very self-righteous about and when you look back on them They are just not gonna help So these sort of is a type that you really got to be careful on how you come off the people now last type

Which everybody likes Is the combinators voice and you just feel the warmth in their voice. And when someone smiles, you can feel it. They don't even have to be on a phone with you. You can feel the smile in their tone of voice. That's what I'm doing now. And that hits the mirror in their eyes. And you feel good because chemicals are actually being released in your system. They're making you feel good. They dopamine, they're serotonin. The stuff that gives you mental

endurance. The stuff that makes you smarter. You're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind. If I contribute you into a positive frame of mind We're both smarter. We're probably gonna make a better deal So that positive voice you know the charming person the likable person You make more deals with people that you like. It's a powerful mercenaries tool if you just want to get your way you want to do it if you love people You want to do it because it's really good for relationships simultaneously.

So smiling at people is a powerful way to go and share. It seems like negotiation is really all about getting the other person to just like you. Likeability is a powerful skill. Now, I was on the phone with some people there the day we were doing a training session and the fine line is If you need to be liked then suddenly you are taken hostage by it and you don't want the need to be like to take your hostage But you do want to be likable. So my mindset is like I will think to myself. I like you Not do you like me? But if mine or voice is saying over and over again, I like you. Now do you like me, but if my inner voice is saying over and over again, I like you,

I like you. I mean, that's going to come through. I'm not going to take myself hostage by needing to be liked, but have a great negotiation or to get what you want, but not at the other person's expense. You got to let them know what you want. And some people, if they're taking hostage by the need to be like, they're afraid to let people know what they want. And you can't make a good deal if you don't let people know what you want. You want them to read your mind? That's just not fair. Aside from voice, what are some other qualities or characteristics that you can tell us that can give us an edge as a negotiator? Take the phrase, negotiation is the art of letting the other side have your way.

That sounds cool. How do you do that? You gotta let them talk. Most people, they're scared to let the other side talk or they wanna talk first. Either being afraid to let the other side talk, that's a bad practice. Wanting to talk first is actually a bad practice. The only way that you're gonna talk yourself

into my deal is if I get you talking, if I shut up, if I go silent, if I encourage you to go on, I get you talking and pretty soon I gently try to steer you, guide you. Sometimes we call this guided discovery. You know, I encourage you to think about different things, but I don't interrupt you, I encourage you. You're gonna talk long enough that you're gonna throw some stuff out that we both can use. And you're gonna do it because since you threw it out, you thought it was your idea and you're gonna love it.

That's the secret to letting the other side have your way. So let the other side talk. They may just delight you with what they have to say and let them feel like they want. That's how you get a great deal. Awesome. Well, that was great advice. Thank you. I also read that mirroring is super important when it comes to negotiation. Mirroring for my listeners who aren't familiar is an unconscious behavior in which we copy

each other to comfort each other. It helps to build rapport and leads to trust. We've talked about mirroring on the show before, but really that was focused on body language. Chris, you talk about mirroring in a verbal context. So can you explain what that is, how and when to use it, and why it works? Yeah, the hostage negotiator takes your attention off of body language and onto the actual words themselves. And it's ridiculously simple, and it's astonishingly effective. I mean, all you got to do is repeat the last three words,

or what someone has just said. You can repeat the last three words with upward inflection, which might be the last three words, or you could repeat it with downward inflection, or which would be the last three words. People find that enormously encouraging and a great thing about it, like I don't ask somebody what they mean as a question anymore. Like it's something I want to know about it. I don't say what do you mean by that? Because

at least half the time when you ask somebody what they meant by that, they were repeated with the exact same words only louder, kind of like an American overseas trying to be understood. They just say it louder but they don't change the words. And when you mirror someone, actually they're going to change the words and they're going to go on. Are they going to blurt stuff out that they shouldn't blurt out. I just put a video up on our YouTube channel where I mirrored a bank robber. Now the bank robber ended up making a admission that led to one of his colleagues, the Getaway driver, being arrested and convicted. We didn't know there was a Getaway driver at all because he got away before we got there. But their vehicle was left behind. We thought the

vehicle was left behind because all the bad guys were inside. And the bank robber was really controlling guy. He was a classic CEO. He was hiding his influence. He was manipulating everybody in all the conversations. He just kept saying, I don't have any power. I don't have any authority. I'm worried about these guys. I don't know what they're going to do. Intentionally diminishing his role. That is the mark of a powerful negotiator. It didn't know it at the time But anyway about five hours in I finally I asked him about the van outside to get away vehicle that we figure and I said hey, there's a van out here. We identified all the drivers except this one and he says well

You chase my driver away because I caught him off guard and you want to catch people off guard in a non-threatening way. So I mirrored, we chased you driver away because I was shocked. I didn't know what Kelly was talking about. And Mir is a great skill. Like when you really startled by what somebody just said. So I said, we chased you driver away. He said, yeah, when he saw the police, he cut and run. Not one witness linked this guy to the bank robbery. That was the only evidence we had, and it was an admission from the ringleader of the group that they had to get away, driver that got away.

We got ready to go to trial, and our investigators didn't know we had this on tape, and they said, we gotta let this guy go. We got no evidence. And I said, no, we got great evidence. We got an admission by one of the other bank robbers. They went and got the transcript and they showed it to the attorney, his defense attorney played guilty on the spot.

Mirrors cause people to say things they probably would not otherwise say. And it's the Jedi mind trick. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a four year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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I've never used that before. I can't wait to try it out. I just married you. Oh I remember in your book you also mentioned saying that I'm sorry before a mirror can be really impactful Especially when dealing with strong a type personalities like yourself. Can you explain that hack to our listeners too? A lot of people say it's a bad thing to say those aren't bad words. It's where you drop them. That's really important Again, I talked about catching people of God in ways that triggers them, that makes them more curious. You could do something wrong or do something potentially offensive and say, I'm sorry, that's the bad sequence. But if you say, I'm sorry before you do something,

they might respond to negatively or I'm sorry just before your assertion Which a mayors a little bit of assertion. It's a prompt. It's provoking them to go on in a good way If you say I'm sorry out of the blue Next to get people's attention right away because they're like what are you sorry about? Which means in that moment they're really glued into what you have to say in a guard is down Because to say I'm sorry before hand makes people feel powerful. They're like, oh, I got a lot of power here. You know, this person is all worried about me.

It's an emotional intelligence application of deference. And deference is very powerful because it helps you catch people off guard. So to say I'm sorry upfront is to warn people a little bit, to intrigue them a little bit, to get their attention to make them curious. And then when you drop something on them, like a mirror or an assertion or a label, it's going to have a much deeper emotional impact exactly the way that you want. So I'm sorry, it's a great phrase if you just put it in the right place. Awesome.

Okay, so let's go back to emotions, empathy, and labeling. So traditional negotiating advice says to separate people from the problem, but that's extremely hard when emotions are actually the problem. It's scientifically proven that we make our decisions based on emotions and not logic. And you say that good negotiators precisely label emotions belonging to others and themselves and then talk about them without getting wound up. So I know you mentioned labeling at a high level but can you give the exact steps that we should take to label and use that tactic in real life? So you start out you probably just label kind of what you feel kind of what you're hearing right

off the top of a conversation. You get real good at that would just practice. You get into a lift driver, and a lift driver says, how are you today? And you can say, ah, it sounds like you've been a tough day. Or you pick up on your affect, and they seem happy. And you go, ah, you seem happy. You get your practice in by just labeling what's on the surface. That's how you get started.

Now, motions are kind of crazy in that, if we label a positive, you sound happy, that increases a positive. If they're frustrated and you say it sounds frustrated, the interesting thing is the labeling of a negative decreases it, it has the opposite effect. So you get some practice in and you get used to hitting those emotions, which now you're clearing the way, they feel understood, they want to cooperate with you. They're more collaborative because they instantly feel more understood. So it's a little bit of the karate kid wax on wax off thing. You just start labeling people and just label whatever you hear after a while your ability to distinguish and understand what you're doing is really going to catch up to you fast.

And that's how you get into people very, very quickly. Awesome. If I remember correctly, you also have to shut up and listen after you able. Is that correct? Yeah, because a good label, you got to let that baby sink in. You got to let it hit all the different parts of the amygdala. And a lot of people have real trouble with this because before you know, I talked about the accommodate type,

you know, the make friends type, their good instinct for being silent is, I'm signaling to you that I'm upset with you. And after a label, they're horrified that that's the signal they're sending off. And they have a heck of a hard time shutting up. But this is a critical time to really go silent and let your label sink in really well. My son is my chief operations.

He likes to say when you go silent, start counting thousands to yourself, you never get to three. And why is not saying the word I and being indirect by using phrasing like it seems like or it sounds like important to remember when using labeling. Yeah, a lot of people learn labeling by saying like, well what I'm hearing is and a problem with the word I is it's a self-sentering word and particularly when you're observing the other person's reactions

and you're trying to make them feel attended to you, trying to make them feel heard. When you use a word, you don't make them feel heard. You make them feel like you're interested in your own reaction more than your observation of them. And so I interrupts in the pattern there that works against you. That's why you got to be really careful with the word. Cool. One of your chapters in your book is called Beware of Yes and Master Now. And you say that going right after negativity brings a conversation to a safe zone of empathy, and that hearing no is really the start of a negotiation and not the end of it. So explain to us why no is so powerful and why we should give permission to our counterparts to say no, and why

pushing for yes is actually not a good strategy and not a good thing. Yeah, people try to take us hostage with yes all the time. I mean, it's this nonsensical approach out there called the yes momentum or momentum selling, and it says every time you get a yes out of somebody it's a micro agreement or a tie down. And with every micro agreement or every tie down you get, then when you get to the big yes, they have to say yes because you got them, you got them cornered. I mean, that's really bad. That's taking away somebody's autonomy.

And they know it. That has been done so much that that's why we say there's three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation and counterfeit. And most people are used to given a counterfeit yes, because they know you're trying to tie them down and you're trying to get micro agreements, you're trying to trap them. And that's why there's so many false yeses out there. And the problem with yeses, we love hearing it so much. Simultaneously, we'll do this, but we will hate it when somebody tries to do it to us. Like I don't know anybody that when they pick up the phone and the voice on the other

and the phone says have you got a few minutes to talk. I don't know anybody that says yes I love to say yes thank you for letting me say yes. You know everybody gets a bad feeling in the pit of the stomach when a voice says have you got a few minutes to talk because you're thinking like one of I let myself in for how long is this gonna last? What if I don't want to talk about this? How you know they're gonna try to trap me all this yes nonsense. It's really bad. Now the stupid thing is You get the complete opposite experience when you get people to say no Like I don't say do you agree? I say do you disagree? I

Had an email conversation not that long go with Robert Hershivick from Shark Tank By the way, Robert Hershivick is a great guy. I mean generous decent dude good business man But a really good guy and so we're talking with him about his company by and tickets to one of our trainings. And now enthusiastic, but they're not giving us a number. And I got to get a number out of them. I got to get an agreement for a number and agreement for payment now. I know when I need it now, I go for no. So I sent him an email that said, are you against committing to three tickets now? Are you against paying for them before the

business day starts tomorrow? Because I'm sending this email five o'clock in L.A. Not only is it the end of the day but with three hours behind the rest of the world. And the tickets are going to be gone by the time the business day starts tomorrow. He got to buy now. But notice I went for no bold times. And when you go for no, if there are more problems, they'll say, no, but here's what I need. Or no, and here's the rest of it. And then they'll tell you how to make the deal. Or they'll just say no period, and they'll say it instantly. I get an email back from him less than 15 minutes later that says no We're happy to commit to three tickets now

No, we're happy to pay for them immediately my assistant will send you an email send her the link we will pay now instantaneous commitment also the subtle part of that that's important is people are decision- decision fatigue that the end of the day. And they can't say yes to stuff, but when shockingly enough, when your decision fatigued, you get a burst of clarity and you can say no, no matter how tired you are. And if there's more guidance that's necessary, you can give it. That's awesome.

So you guys heard it. No is actually your way forward in a negotiation. So don't be scared of people saying no. Yeah, don't be scared of no, it's not the boogeyman. Okay, so let's talk about another phrase. That's right. You say that the phrase that's right is magical. So how do you get people to say those magic words?

Yeah, and it is. And there's a really important distinction between that's right and you're right. Now, you're right is what people say. When you're pitching your argument, when you're pitching your deal, when you're making your case, and you're right is what we say to people to get them to shut up.

I mean, if I want someone to just lay off, and I want to make them happy at the same time, it's the polite way to say, please shut up. And you tell somebody, you're right, they shut up, and they're really happy, they're not mad at you, they shut up, they think they made their point, and they go away. And we do this to people simultaneously,

having it done to us all the time. We don't see it. So what's the shift? The shift is instead of making my case, I'm just trying to summarize your perspective. And I'm really focusing on the parts that I don't like. And I'm not denying it. I'm saying, like, look, you feel that this is an unfair deal because we're a big company and we got the dominating market share and we got a reputation of just pushing people around. That diffuses the negatives, what I talked about before.

You're laying out that you're not planting negatives, you're diffusing them. Nobody ever made the elephant in the room go away by ignoring the elephant or trying to keep them out by denying them. They just recognize them and the people go, yeah, well, you know, I guess that elephant isn't that bad. And so a great summary is to summarize their perspective. And when somebody says that's right, that means they are all in. It's an epiphany moment. It's a moment. It's when people feel completely understood, like no matter what side of politics you are in the last US presidential election As deeply different candidates as you could possibly have

Whichever candidate you supported in their last debate when they said something that you love that you were all in on You didn't point at the TV and go you're right you point at the TV and you said that's right if you're Donald Trump supporter and Trump said something that you believe in you go that's right if you're a Hillary Clinton supporter and Hillary said something that you believed in you said that's right that's what people say when they're all in and that's how you as a negotiator, you get a vatch right out of somebody. They are now all in. They are, they are working with you. And it's another important time to shut up because there's a really good chance.

The art of letting the other side have your way. That's when they're going to give you their way and they're going to lay it out in their words, which is exactly what you want. Awesome. And speaking of what you want, you titled your book Never Split the Different. Never split the difference. Yeah. So you obviously advise to never compromise. This really goes against common convention because it goes against fairness, it goes against meeting down the middle, which is what everybody teaches you since you're little. So can you talk about why compromise is failure in negotiation?

First thing on split and a difference, there's an old saying in negotiation, a person that offers to meet you in the middle is often a poor judge at distance. I'm at a conference and I'm talking last night and it's a two-gain, he says, I split the difference all the time, which is great for me. I just asked for more than what I really want. Well, you split

the difference to that guy, you're not split in a difference. They're putting you where they want it all along. They lied to you about what they want just to get you to move and to get you feel like it was fair. So you were hoodwinked, you were flimplamed, you were bamboozled. That's what happens. Most of the time the split, the difference move is a con job from the other side. That's problem one. The sharks are just gonna ask for three times for what they want so they get what they wanted all along.

And you feel like you were treated fairly, but unfortunately you were treated anything but fairly because you were kind. First prop, second prop was splitting the difference. you would treat it anything but fairly because you were conned. First prop, second prop was splitting a difference. If you genuinely split the difference, if you genuinely compromise, then both of you are unhappy. Do you compromise your core values?

Do you compromise your principles? In a marriage, if you compromise, is then, okay, so this was a great marriage, we're both unhappy. Well, a business deal is kind of like a marriage for a short period of time. You need a collaborative relationship where you trust each other, you can count on each other. Is the prescription for a marriage? We'll have a great marriage because we're both unhappy. I mean, you start putting it in those times like, no, compromise a bad idea. Now the spirit of compromise, we should have

the spirit of being open to new ideas. That's what the spirit of compromise really needs to be about. And the crazy thing about never split the differences, I got to be willing to accept your answer completely if you got a better idea. Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. If I'm completely wrong and you're completely right and I'm determined that we gotta compromise, I have just cheated myself. I need the best deal possible for me and I got to leave the possibility that you are completely right open. So I can hear you out and I can take something better than what I originally had in my.

Very cool. So would you say that it's better to have no deal than a deal that's settled with a compromise? Absolutely. One of the rules we live by in my company is that no deal is better than a deal that's settled with a compromise? Absolutely. One of the rules that we live by in my company is that no deal is better than a bad deal. A bad deal is unhappiness. A bad deal is anxiety. A bad deal is ongoing disappointment.

A bad deal is ugly implementation. I mean, yes, there's nothing without how. And if your how is ugly and bad, then it's one to three years of blood money and five to ten years of resentment. I mean, we came to that from early on in my company, we signed a deal that ended up being a bad deal. And it was for a lot of money.

That's how you get into bad deals in the first place. People are going to lure you in with a lot of money. A lot of really vicious investors will pay you a lot because they're going to kill you with the terms and they know that most people are suckered by big dollar signs. And that's exactly what happened to us and the terms got ugly. Now we ended up getting a lot of money and we got all of it and it took us three years to get paid for one year of work and I remember after the fact when we discussed it because my son was in business with me then he is in business with me now And he said man that aged you now. I can't get that back

I Can take the lessons learned from it and be absolutely determined that we'll never sign a bad deal again And we won't that's what we live by we don't sign a bad deal Yeah, so I know that you're a professor and in your negotiation class You have a game that really gives color to the concept that there's no such thing as a fair deal It's called the ultimate game. Would you be able to explain this to our listeners? This has application in real life all the time because about bringing other people up a ton of it So the ultimate game is just a splitting of $10 and I say look we get $10 and we found it. We fell out of the sky

I Don't point it out the time, but And we found it. We fell out of the sky. I don't point it out at the time, but that's like any opportunity that falls out of the sky. So one of you stumbled across this first. So you get a proposal split. The other person came on it right afterwards. So they got to accept what you proposed.

Now, how do we split this $10? You could propose whatever you want. But you got to write down what you'd propose, and the other person's got to write down what they would accept. Now what I love about this game is because game theorists globally hate this game, and that's why we play it, because the game theorists hate it. So the only rational response, because then if you propose and accept you put your numbers down that has to match or the proposal has to exceed with the person on the other side would

accept. So if you say that you're happy with five and I offer you six, we got a deal. But if you say we're happy with five and I offer you four, then there's no deal and nobody gets any money. The only rational answer is for either side to say, if I'm a composer, I'll give nine, I'll take one, if I'm an acceptor, I'll take one, I'll give nine. Because that's the only guaranteed split. Any other split is rolling the dice and it's a reaction but the math is the one is always better than zero and we're talking about guaranteed money with no effort by the way. It's not like you sat here and worked for two years on this. I mean you walked over it, split the money and move on, probably less than a minute of interaction. But people began to react

emotionally that, well look, I got to have half for it. Ain't fair. Or, you know, I might take four, but I would never take three. That makes me feel dirty. That's disgusting. That deviues me. None of those answers are rational. There's only one rational answer. Because there's only one guaranteed split. And everything that you think about after that point is Driven by your emotions your sense of what's fair your sense of what your value is Your sense relatively speaking look if I got three and you got seven that's not fair

That's more than double what I got what's actually happens to be kind of the dividing line We'll do a deal But as soon as the other side gets more than double what we got, we're not disgusted by it. I could offer you a job to work really hard for a year, and I could offer you a salary of a half a million dollars. And just based on that offer, you might go like, cool. You know, I made $60,000 last year

I'll take a half a million dollars all day long But if you find out that in me offering you that job That you worked for a year for a half a million dollars and I actually worked for a week and I got eight million dollars Now you be mad You think you got cheated. Do you have a different amount of money in your bank account? You still get the exact same amount of money in your bank account, but your perception of what I got took you from being delineated with your salary to discuss them by. And that's how people react. Now, you got the same amount of money in your bank account. And it was the best year of your life that you ever had money wise.

In an instant, you can go to a feeling like this is the best year I ever had to. Oh my God, I just got cheated out of your mind life and I'll never get over it. That's so interesting. Let's move on to deadlines. After I study this topic, I've come to realize that deadlines are really complicated. Some people say you should keep them a secret while others say that you should be upfront. So what's your take on how we should treat deadlines? Well deadlines are this artificial prompt for action. Like nobody drops a deadline in to a negotiation if you're making progress. If you've got a deadline for getting stuff done, I mean really understanding progress. Like I might I might say look my TEDx talk came out

About three four weeks ago a dead of TEDx of Reno and I was trying to get a collaboration going with a company And I said look I want to have this done by the time my TEDx talks comes out now the reality is we got to get started on it now Because we got to make progress You know my deadline was a TEDx talk, but in fact, we have to get to work now. Now, most people are like, all right, so when's your TEDx talk? Oh, we got to the end of February. We'll get plenty of time. I'm telling you a deadline now, but I'm trying to prompt action now

instead of the end of February. So deadline psychologically, you really got to kind of understand them and they're an attempt to make progress. People drop a deadline because they're unhappy with what the other sides don't because the other side's probably not doing anything now. Anyway, and you're just trying to get people going. So we shared deadlines on a regular basis because I don't want us getting to the end of February and you then find it out that I'm trying to call inside this project with my TED Talk. You're like, well, why don't you tell me before?

I mean, it's not fair of me not to let you know what the deadline is, but I also got to let you know, like, look, we got to get to work now. We got to line up the following people. You know, we got to get distribution. We have to get started now. So the deadline, you really got to be careful, the politicians deadline, that's why, you

know, they're deadlocking on the budget all the time. They go like, oh, we got to elect over first. Okay, well, let's start talking about it on September 29th. That's what most people do, but then that's why most people miss many deadlines. And how about numbers? So the next question is submitted by a member on YAP Society on Slack. It's our fan group on Slack. Tim asks, when is the right time to name your rate? Don't drop your numbers naked. He who names price first loses, especially if you name price quickly and easily.

The other side is always going to be, oh my God, that's too much. So first of all, before I give you a price, oh my God, that's too much. So first of all, before I give you a price, I want to know that you actually want to make a deal or maybe you're just shopping for prices. Maybe I'm the competing bid and you got somebody you want to buy from. You just want to know how expensive I am so I can compare. Well, I'm not going to give you that price for that. I'm nobody's fool and that's being the fool in the game. So I need to start to diagnose right up front real early, whether or not I'm the favorite or whether or not I'm the fool.

Now if I'm the favorite, I'm probably going to get the business. I still got to be careful about my price because you're going to overreact to it. You're going to assume that there's leeway in my price. You're going to assume that there's softness. You're going to assume that I'm like most negotiators are asked for more than what they actually want so they can end up with what they actually want

But my company gives a price we're not coming off our price Don't bother trying to get our price down Because we don't get the price down now we will make high value trades if you want my price to come down by a dollar And you give me something with $10 I'll listen to that because I know what their value is for me Will make high-value tricks When I finally get ready to drop my price. I'm gonna look at you whether I'm on a phone. I'm gonna say look. It's high I'm gonna shut up and you'll say yeah, okay fine. It but it says the sign be like no, no, I'm not kid This price is high. It's more than you can afford.

It's more than you want to pay. It's probably more than what you have in your budget. And then I'm going to shut up again. I'm going to let this sink in. Now, I can do this because we over deliver. This is predicated on the idea that whatever they pay, you're going to over deliver. And we over deliver like crazy. So you can't do this with a cheap product because that makes you a liar. But if you're gonna over deliver and we do, then when I give my price, your first reaction was like,

well, I imagined the worst. So that isn't actually that bad. So that's reasonable. And let's talk about how you're gonna deliver. And now instead of you arguing with me about price, you're focused on the more important aspects, which is the how, that price is gonna be made valuable. And now that's how we over deliver.

Because if you agree to my how, we're gonna hit it out of the park for you. And you're gonna think that the price that we cost while relatively speaking in the market place is expensive, but the value you got when it was over was cheap money. Got it. That plays into the whole concept of being direct about negativity as well. You totally direct about the fact that your price is high. Yeah, and I got to tell you every now and then somebody tell me up front they'll say, you know, I don't care how expensive you are, you know, we need you willing to pay it. And I'll be stupid enough to give him a price. And each and every time I'm stupid enough to believe him, they always react like, oh my God, that's too high. And I think, you know

what, I deserve that. I know better, you know, ignore human that's too high. And I think, you know what, I deserve that. I know better. You know, ignore human nature at your peril, and that's the way human beings are going to react. Yep. All right, so last question before we ask everyone where they can find out more about you. So speaking of numbers, you mentioned that whenever you give a number,

you shouldn't end in zero, and that you should offer a range. Can you just talk a little bit about that and why we should take that approach? First of all, the combination of two ideas there. I mean, offering a range is really smart thing to do. You know, I might say, look, I'm selling a car and if I really want $500 for the car,

I might say, look, I'll take anywhere from $500, $750 to this car. Now, you're gonna leap on that $500. You're gonna leap on the end that is advantageous to you and disadvantageous to me. And you're gonna to leap on the end that is an advantageous to you and disadvantageous to me and you're going to feel like you want. So that's a smart move on my part to throw out a range. Just make sure that you're happy with the short end of the stick if you will because if you throw that range out and you don't accept the number then that made you a liar. That people will

not drop the middle of that range. You're hoping they will, but they won't. And I had a student of mine at USC. He put out a range for an internship. He wanted $21 an hour and he knew the range was from $18 to $25 an hour. And so they said, well, what are you looking for on an hourly basis? And he said, well, my research indicates

that the price is between 18 and 25 dollars an hour. He's hoping that they meet him in the middle and throw it 21. But they say, cool, we'll give you 18 right away. So he's like, ah, damn it. And I got to go with 18 because I threw that number up. So if you throw a range, just a smart move, understand they're going to take the end that is their advantage.

And against that to it, they're going to dig. Now when you start talking specific numbers, hey look, odd numbers feel real. They feel real to the other side. I got another student in Georgetown, he's in a rent negotiation and he's got the other side in a counteroffer using our techniques when it was a hot market

and then he's getting ready to counter off for the person on the other side He asked for a piece of paper in a pencil and he started writing numbers Now I don't know what numbers he wrote down because he already knew the number he was gonna throw out He'd calculated it in advance. He may have written down his birthday He may have done a little math problem which is where we were pie But he made like he was writing all these numbers down. They looked at the other guy and he said, you know, 1823 a month. And the broker looked at him and said, wow, you must be an accountant. And he wasn't, but he goes, yeah, yeah.

And they made the deal at 1823. That's the way. Because it was odd and he wrote it down. So this stuff works at human nature stuff. Awesome, Chris. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. It was such an honor to have you on the show. Where can our listeners go to find more about you and everything that you do? The best thing to do is to subscribe to our newsletter, it's short and sweet. It's free. It's a good price. It comes out every Tuesday morning, short, sweet, concise article, and it's the gateway to everything that we do.

It's a gateway to the website, the training, it is the gateway. The way you subscribe is you send the message, FBI, empathy, all one word, don't let your spell check make it two words. FBI, empathy, one word, text that message to the number 22828. And it's 22828. If you put the message in properly, you send it to that number, you get a immediate response back, asking for your email, sign it up and get the gateway.

Awesome, cool. And I'll share that out on Yop Society on Slack. Thank you so much, Chris. It was so nice to have you. Thank you. This is a delightful conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to write us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show. Follow YAP on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at Young and Profiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on YAHP's side on Slack. Check out our show notes or Young & Profiting.com for the registration link. You can find me on Instagram at YAHP with Hala or LinkedIn, just search for my name, Hala Taha.

Big thanks to the YAHP team for another successful episode. This week on YAHP, I'd like to give a special shout out to Prince for supporting the creation of new videos for the relaunch of our YouTube channel. And to his sham for securing exciting guests for later this spring, including Gretchen Rubin, William Mcascale, Jay Samet, and more. This is Hala, until next time. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions

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