242: Negotiations and Tactical Empathy with Chris Voss (Replay)

All right, we're finishing up on the top five most downloaded episodes of Make It Happen Mondays that got us to the million download mark. And this one is number one, and there is no question why it is number one. It is with Chris Voss. And for those of you who don't know, Chris Voss is the number one FBI negotiator for hostages, and he wrote a book called Never Split the Difference. And it's the best negotiation book I've ever read in my life. And in this episode, we talk about a lot of different things related to negotiations. And that, for instance, like the difference between hostage negotiations and business negotiations, how to truly listen to people so they feel heard, what values you need to bring to the table and how your company's values reflect what you negotiate with.

Also, not being held hostage yourself in negotiations. And last but not least, how to create urgency when it's seemingly not there. So, I mean, we got cerebral, we got tactical. I promise you, if you have not heard this episode, you're going to get a ton of value out of it. But if you have heard of it, heard this episode, hearing it again, you're going to pull something new, I guarantee it. So listen to this episode, take your pen out, write some notes down. And really, if you haven't checked out Never Split the Difference or his masterclass, go check it out. And finally, I just wanted to say thank you again. The fact that we're at a million downloads here is extremely humbling, and we couldn't have done it without you.

So I want to say thank you for all your support. Thank you for all your feedback and everybody who's been listening along the way. It means the world to us that we've gotten to this mark, and hopefully we're just going to get better from here. So thank you very much, as always, and let's make it happen. What's popping, y'all? It's your man, James. Say What Sales Buckley, and this is your weekly Make It Happen Monday's episode with your host, John Barrows. Huge shout out to our partners, Sales Loft, Proposify, Gong, Zoom Info, Vidyard, Chili Piper, Intro Hive, and our newest partner in sales, Prelay. These companies are great people to work with that truly care about elevating the sales profession.

So be sure you check them out when you're building your sales stack. Let's give it to John to intro someone I just know you guys are going to love. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows with Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully y'all had a fantastic weekend. I did because I was preparing for this podcast, and I am very honored to introduce our guest today, who shouldn't really need an introduction to my audience because I talk about him a lot. But I'd like to introduce everybody to Chris Voss, the founder of the Black Swan Group and author of one of the best negotiation books on the planet, Never Split the Difference. Chris, how's it going today? Thanks, John. It's going really well. Thanks for having me on.

I really appreciate you taking the time here. And one of the things I want to kind of start with was Black Swan, the whole concept itself. Could you, and how it relates to negotiation, could you educate the audience here on the concept of Black Swan and kind of White Swans versus nobody ever thought there was, and how it relates to negotiations? Yeah, well, you know, the idea on two levels, little things that make a big difference, the impact of the highly improbable, stuff that would change things in ways that no one ever expected you to change them. So the negotiation techniques are counterintuitive, really, such as, you know, not even bothering with the word yes. I mean, how do you do that and have a massive impact on how effective you are as a negotiator?

And then also the idea that the tiny little pieces of information that'll make all the difference in the world that the other side is holding on to, if you could just get it out of them. Gotcha. You know, that's, so it's on two levels, a dual metaphor, if you will. I like it. And so the idea is like, you know, and I think the original thing of Black Swan was nobody ever, everybody always assumed swans were White. Right. And so there was that perception. And then all of a sudden somebody saw a Black Swan and was like, holy shit, like, what's that all about? And it came out of nowhere and it reshaped people's mindsets. So is it our goal to try to uncover those Black Swans throughout the negotiations?

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and then just accept that they're there. I mean, when we're, when we're training people in negotiation, if you don't, if you can't write down something new that you learned in the interaction that surprised you, you didn't do a good job. All right, cool. So, so with that, what's, what's the, what, what do you see as the major differences between hostage negotiations that you've obviously been a part of and business negotiations? What are the, I mean, outside the, the potential of death, but what are, what do you see as the big differences between hostage and, and, and business negotiations? Hostage negotiations are generally calmer. No shit, really? Yeah, I got to tell you something, you know, um, in hostage negotiation, uh, you know, since we learned, uh, we didn't know it was emotional intelligence, but we learned how to dial into people faster with some neuroscience tools, emotional intelligence tools.

They really tend to be, they tend to be calmer. I mean, business people have far more stories of people screaming at him, yelling at him, storming out of the room, trying to destroy negotiations than any of the hostage negotiators I ever worked with did. And that's just, just crazy if you think about it. But if, if the idea is to, to use really tactical, emotional intelligence from the beginning, then it makes sense that it, that ours are calmer and, and probably more effective overall. And is it, cause I, my, my assumption here on, on Haases is that they might start really emotional, but then, I mean, they might start really aggressive, but then through some tactical stuff, you can kind of calm down and come to a, an agreement.

Whereas business, do they, do they keep the emotions throughout or do they keep the hostility throughout? Well, um, people get mad when they don't, when they're not heard. I mean, it, it seems like ridiculously obvious, but very few business people go into a negotiation to hear the other side out. Cause they're so determined to be heard. I got a case I got to make. I got a value proposition. I got to give, I got an argument I have to make. I have to explain to them what my position is. And, you know, the, the Stephen Covey advice from, from way back, seek first to understand and be understood. This is a tactical application of that, you know, seek first to demonstrate understanding in order to be understood.

I get my point across much quicker. I can get it into your brain. If I know that the biggest obstacle to you here in my case is you have to be heard out first. I mean, it's just, it's, it's so stupid that it's so true, but you know, we'll progress faster by applying these ideas in business negotiations. You know, we tell people we accelerate their deal-making ability. We save them massive amounts of time and that's, that's how, I mean, it's a counterintuitive approach. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we've been wired in business to, to be so, I guess, opinionated or, or forceful with our mentality of why we are so valuable and why you should do business with us? Is there something that is, that we've done as, as organizations from a training standpoint or an onboarding standpoint that has wired us to be that way?

I think there's a couple of things out there that have contributed to the problem. You know, this whole nonsense about the yes momentum or momentum selling. Where, you know, yeses are micro agreements and, and you get a bunch of micro agreements on the other side and they actually call them tie downs and they, and they can't get away. So it's this idea that you got to tie the other side down with a series of yes oriented questions, which is basically you trying to make your case in some fashion as if the other side doesn't know what you're doing. Right. I mean, that, that's so stupid and it's so commonplace. That's part of it. And then for whatever reason, you know, I'm talking to an executive probably about two or three years ago and he said, yeah, I went to this negotiation training and they said, make sure the underside, other side understands your position.

That's your, you know, make sure they understand your position. I thought, think about in practicality, if that's your goal, then it's two sides talking at each other, trying to make sure the other side gets their position. And which then means nobody's going to get the other side's position because you're so determined to be understood first instead of understanding. And I think that's, that's probably the other contributor to it. And so does that, because, because I've always been taught that win-win, right? The, that you want that win-win. So I know the bunch of yeses, I want to come back to that, but then the mentality of going in win-win, um, you talked about how we, we need to understand.

And to me in business negotiations, the goal is win-win, but you're saying the mentality of that is bad. Could you walk me through why the mentality of walking into a negotiations with a win-win mentality is a bad thing? Yeah. Well, first of all, if you got a win-win mentality, probably you're vulnerable to being taken advantage of. Yep. And so, and since, and since you are vulnerable, there are enough negotiators out there that they're going to drop those words win-win on you real early on to see if you bite. And, and they're, they're the deal. They're the throat cutters. I mean, consistently when we come into companies, we'll be doing a training session and some exec that's not in the training session with the company will stop me in a lunchroom.

And he'll say, I hear you guys are bad-mouthing win-win. And I got to tell you something, I make deals like that all the time. And I say, well, you know, the reality is, you know, the person that offers to meet you in the middle is often a poor judge of distance. And, and they kind of smile and they go, yeah, you know, I say win-win, but I always anchor really high so I can end up where I want. Yeah. And so these guys are out there. I mean, these guys know that they're getting you. And, and, and anytime that somebody approaches us, if the words win-win come out of their mouth in the first three minutes, I know they're trying to cut my throat. I know they want me to do it for nothing. They'll say, oh, you know, you're going to get so much exposure.

There's so much opportunity. If you, if you come into business with, I mean, that's a con job that's trying to take me hostage to the future is what that is. Yeah. I have the same thing. I, I, you don't, I mean, you speak at a lot more stuff than I do, but a lot of these conferences will ask me to come and speak for free at this point. Oh no, we're going to get you in front of a thousand people and they're all going to do business with you and all that other stuff. And I'm just like, yep, I know I've heard it. And they're trying to get something for free at the end of the day, but isn't it a good mentality to have? I mean, I understand the actuality of, if I were to say to you, there's some red flags.

Absolutely. Just like the word fair, you talk about a lot, right? Right. There's, there's the, there's the tactical when somebody says it, but isn't it the right mentality to have to try to walk away because if somebody wins and somebody loses, and this is where I kind of get to the difference between a hostage negotiations and business negotiations, hostage negotiations, they're really, I mean, you, again, you know, more than me, there's, it doesn't seem like there's a win-win. And it's like, oh, you don't go to jail and I get my people back like, yay. Right. So you need to make sure that those people don't die. But in business, when we, when we sign up, especially in the industry that I mostly sell into, which is SAS.

Right. And we're looking for long-term contracts with clients, whereas customer success and all that other stuff. So if we, if we don't get ultimately somewhat of a win-win, those renewals don't happen. There's animosity in the implementation and all that other stuff. So, so how do you rectify that? Yeah. Well, so it's a difference between the outcome and how the process felt. Okay. First of all, it's got to be collaborative. And secondly, for you to be able to continue to do business with me at all, you have to be better off as a result of the deal. Because even if you felt good about it, which you should, you know, I don't want you to feel like you lost. Right. So I don't want you to feel like you lost.

I want you to feel like you won. And I need you to be better off simultaneously. So, but most people like, I run into so many people that tell me about deals and they go, you know, I, you know, I, let me tell you about this negotiation. I had the other side over a barrel. Well, if you're describing a negotiation like that, that means that they felt like they lost, that you hammered them and you made sure they knew you hammered. Yeah. So you, you cut your own throat because they never want to do business with you again. So again, it's, it's, it's the mentality and focusing on the outcome and not being taken hostage to a couple of ideas. You know, first of all, I don't want to be taken hostage to yes, in any way, shape or form.

I don't want to be taken hostage to the future where you're, you're painting this rosy picture for me in the future, it's going to happen. And I also don't want to be taken hostage by feeling like I can't say no. You know, as soon, as soon as I've reconciled myself to those ideas, then there's pretty good chance we're going to have a highly collaborative negotiation and you're going to want to continue to do business with me. And is that the big thing that people like, what I found is that, especially some of the younger reps that I trained, um, you know, they think of negotiations as in when the price comes up, right now we're negotiating. I always try to say, look, you literally from the minute someone picks up the phone, you're negotiating.

Yeah, right. So, so is that one of the bigger mistakes that people think is that they're not in a negotiations from the minute they start engaging with somebody? Yeah, exactly. The most dangerous negotiation is the one you don't know you're in. And, you know, we call that a law of negotiation gravity. You may not like it, but gravity's there and you step off that building, you're going to smack the concrete one way or the other anyway, when you fall. Okay. And if you, if you're not aware of that, then yeah, by the time price comes up, you've been in a negotiation for a long time. You didn't even know. I mean, when I first started working on, on Never Split the Difference, the first author I spoke to, or writer that I tried to engage, you know, we went back and forth on the process of how we were going to get together.

And when this writer finally made, said to me, you know, what, what the, what she wanted, I just flat rejected it. And no, and, and, and stop talking to her. I mean, people are startled when I stopped talking to them. Well, we've been in a negotiation for a long time. She said, you know, I, I thought we were negotiating. I, you know, I thought you were going to give me a counteroffer. And what I didn't say, because I don't have to, but I like you, we've been negotiating since we first started talking and you've been a pain in the neck getting to this point for the last two months. And the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. And you've demonstrated to me what implementation with you is going to look like every step of the way.

And I don't want any part of it. But yeah, the most, you've been negotiating for a long time. If you think the negotiation is kicking in now, it probably, it started when the phone was, when the phone was picked up. When the cold call was made. Right. And so let's go back to that getting to know. And, and I think, you know, from a tactical standpoint, when you're making, you know, I deal with, again, when we talked about the demographics here, probably about 75% of my audience are the SDR BDRs, the ones who are making the cold calls, not necessarily negotiating the entire, you know, the, the entire deal, but negotiating for that next step. And so you talk about the power of no and, and starting a cold call, for instance, and saying, Hey, did I catch you at a bad time?

And that no gives them that, like, usually it's a, well, no, but what? And that, and you're saying that no gives them power that no right up front gives them, makes them more comfortable. Yeah. The crazy thing is, is that anytime you try to get a yes out of somebody, if you asking a question where the answer you're driving for is yes, it stops them. It makes them worried. What am I letting myself in for? What's the hook? How much have I committed myself? What am I not seeing if I say yes? I mean, I literally once I asked my girlfriend about a shirt that I wore that she complimented me on earlier in the day. And, and I said, so you say you like this shirt, right? And she's like, if I say yes, what am I letting myself in for?

She literally said that, but that's, you know, that's what everybody thinks. If I say yes, what am I letting myself in for? Now, as much anxiety as yes creates, no does the opposite. Like it's stupid that you can simply flip the question and people feel protected and safe when they said no, as, as a parent, when your teenage kid says, dad, can I, I say, no, I used to say no before we finished the sentence. But, you know, I said, once I said no, I felt protected and I'd say, all right, now tell me again what you wanted because I felt like I can now listen with no commitment. And as stupid as changing from, have you got a few minutes to talk to is now a bad time. I mean, you could hear people dial in and focus on you when they say that they'll hesitate for a second.

They'll clear their head and they'll say, no, it's not a bad time or no, it's not a bad time, but what are you after? The point is you want their focus and yes, creates distractions. And no clears distractions. Is there, do you see a difference between is this a good time versus is this a bad time? I never ask anybody if it's a good time ever. It's a, you know, it's counterproductive because is this a good time? Well, I don't know what you want to talk about. I don't know how long you want to talk. I don't know that I want to talk to you. I mean, is now a good time to talk is actually a solid four individual questions. Do I want to talk to you? Do I want to talk about what you want to talk about?

How long are we going to be on the phone? How do I get off of the phone? You can't answer that question without having all those subsequent questions running through your mind, which means you're completely distracted. And that's why something as simple as is now a bad time is a really bad question. I like it. Let's talk about the preparation. You talk a lot about there's a fine line between preparing for a negotiations where sometimes you prepare too much and so that you have assumptions versus hypothesis. So I've always been taught, you know, walk into a negotiation with as much information as you can. You understand their situation. You understand their options, your competition, all of it.

So that with that preparation, you can go in and be ready for whatever they throw at you. But you say a couple of times in the book or when I was reading it, rereading it again, that you don't sometimes less is more when it comes to preparation for a negotiation. Let me answer that after I go back to what I said a second ago, because I think I misstated the question that I said was bad. Have you got a few minutes to talk is a bad question. Yes. OK, and I think somehow I misstated a moment ago. OK, so now let's go forward to preparation. All right. So we got to look at the negotiation process as an information gathering process. So you don't gather your information and then negotiate. You gather some information and then dive in to confirm it.

There's always going to be pieces of information you can only get from the negotiation to start with. Those are black swans. No matter how much research you do. There's no way you can find out what time pressures they're really under without talking to them. No matter what their take is on what you think their problems are. You can't find out if there's anything about your value proposition. You can't research it and find out exactly what they value most. without getting into the negotiation. There's no way you can find that. You can guess, but you can't confirm. So a lot of people are scared to get scared to get caught off guard in the negotiation. You better get caught off guard. Like I said, if you didn't discover stuff in the interaction, then you're actually a horrible negotiator.

You're not discovering anything. And then, you know, like there was one guy in sales that was applying. I must have talked to him two years ago. He's getting the second meeting 80% of the time. And his job is to get on the phone and get a second meeting. And I said, so since you're applying our skills, among which is he starts out with the question, have I caught you in the middle of something? He said, every single time the answer is no, but what's this about? And that sort of response tells you that they're completely dialed into you, which is where you want to be. But I asked him, how much research is he doing? Are you doing more research or less? And he said, oh, way less. They're going to tell me more than I could ever find out anyway.

Their LinkedIn profile is not going to tell me what I need to know. Their Facebook page is not going to tell me what I really need to know. I got to get it from them. So I don't, I totally, I mean, with the, I guess what is too much, right? I mean, what are some of the core things that you should prepare for? I mean, obviously who you're talking to, what their title is and their background and those type of things. But I like what you talk about as far as instead of role-playing things, you create hypothesis. Or you create, like, what are all the reasons they shouldn't do business with us or something like that? Is that the right, is that what we should prepare for? You know, I got to tell you something.

Anybody that's ever asked me if I've looked at their website, the only answer they wanted out of my mouth was yes. Like, I have not had anybody grill me on the content of their website, where they went to college, anything beyond the first line of their LinkedIn profile, none of that stuff. You know, they want, they're dying to tell you all that stuff. I mean, they're dying to tell you about it. And if you spend two weeks researching and learning everything about them, they still want to tell you about it. You just blew two weeks. I mean, it's insane. People are dying to tell you about it. I mean, they're proud of that LinkedIn profile. They don't want you to read about it. They want to brag about it to you.

The minimal exposure to this information is all you need. Can I ask you something on that note specifically, though? Is that a byproduct of their desire to want to talk, or is that a byproduct in the sales world of bad sales? And let me give you an example. Historically, before LinkedIn and before website, you know, not before websites, but before LinkedIn and stuff like that, back when I was selling early 2000s, late 99 type of thing, you know, it was a valid question or it was a valid statement to get in front of you and say, so, Chris, tell me about your business, right? And so, it would prompt me, well, we were founded in this and we did that and that would be their chance to tell you about their business, right?

Now, I actually think that very generic phrase is a very insulting thing to say because they put so much effort into telling the world about their business that you not being prepared and understanding their business, look, I'm all for asking contextual questions about your business, but not the broad statement, tell me about your business. And I feel like we've done the prospects a disservice and they're so conditioned because most sales reps are still lazy. They don't do homework. And so, people jump right into, well, John, let me give you a little background on us. And as they're doing that, like, I appreciate that, but it's almost like I want to preempt that. And I've had it before where I've been like, look, Chris, I appreciate, you know, I've taken a look at your quick website.

I know where you were founded. Now, I have some questions about your business, but we don't have to go through the history here. And it's almost like you feel them being like, oh, okay, wait, we can have a real conversation here with a sales rep who's actually done, you know, like, isn't going to ask me the bullshit questions. So, what are your thoughts on that, where we've conditioned them to do that versus their true desire to talk about? All right, so, it's an interesting question, and I think it's really how salespeople get off track. Because, really, none of your clients care as much about whether or not you know their history as to whether or not you know their challenges. Now, there's no shortage of B2B surveys that say that the vast majority of buyers prefer to talk to experts on the industry.

By definition, that means they prefer to talk to people that know nothing about them. An expert doesn't know you from Adam. An expert understands the challenges of the industry. Now, it might be cool that you know that I was founded in 2008, and I'm a founder, CEO, owner, the family business. It might be cool, and again, to give me warm and fuzzies. But if you don't know anything about my industry, as soon as I find out you don't know anything about the industry, not me, the industry, I got no time for you. And I will dial somebody up on the phone who's an expert on the challenges of the industry, who doesn't have any idea about any of my history. So, you know, this idea, you know, relationships are great, but business is more important than friendship.

Friendship should follow from business, not vice versa. I can love you as a person. Our kids can play softball together. Maybe you love coaching Little League the same way I love coaching. If you don't understand the challenges of my industry, you're wasting my time. So what people need to research, what salespeople need to research are actual challenges as opposed to company histories. Because what I was faced with back in 2008 is not what I'm faced with today. You could give me chapter and verse about what happened when I founded my company and how long I've been in existence. I still have no idea whether or not you understand the challenges I'm faced with right now. I like that. So let's kind of talk about that as far as challenges versus opportunities, if you will.

I mean, loss aversion is huge. Okay. And it's what is a three or four X. Let me stop you right there, please. It's not huge. It's the single driving decision factor. It is the biggest factor in decision making. It outweighs everything else. Nothing else is close. The concept here is you'd much, if you save 200,000 or gain 200,000, or I'm sorry, not lose 200,000 or win 200,000. Most people would do everything not to lose the 200,000, then get the opportunity to win the 200,000. Is that effectively kind of an easy breakdown of it? Yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't tell you what the source is, but somebody that was quoting sales stats to me not long ago, so I'm satisfied with the person, said that 70% of buy decisions are made to avoid loss, not to accomplish gain.

70% to avoid a loss. Do you think that's dependent on who? In the sense that I talk a lot about the power line, right? People below and above the power line. People below the power line are focused on today or yesterday, which is usually pain, right? Because they're in it, whereas people above the power line, like decision makers, those type of things are focused on the future. So my general guidelines to reps is, you know, the C-level executive doesn't want to talk about feature function pain stuff because that's what they delegate to. They want to talk about, where am I going? Like, how are you going to help me get to where I want to be, which is aligning with their priorities? So do you think that loss aversion is as strong with an executive leader who's trying to bring the company to the next level over the next 12 to 24 months?

Well, you're talking about what their vision is and their fear over losing that vision, aren't you? Fair enough. See, and that's why you got to be real careful over assuming that you know what their loss is. Okay. And that's why, you know, hostage negotiation techniques are designed to get into somebody's head and find out what's in there. Right. You know, we got to get in there. We got to find out what's in there. And simultaneously, there's a same set of techniques that you can get in there. You know, you've gotten permission to get in and find out what their vision is, what their fear of loss is. And the way you got in gives you the opportunity to make some changes because of the way that you got in.

It gives you the opportunity to have what we call trust-based influence. So, you know, the executive, like if he's got his eyes fixed on growing to $100 million in the next two years, and he's got a path, what he's afraid of is losing that opportunity, losing that growth. And so the fear of loss thing, you got to be careful about what your assumptions that you're making. And then also, you got to be really careful about how you wield that power, how you get into understanding what that potential loss is, takes you from being someone who's a trusted advisor to someone who's trying to take them hostage. So, I mean, it really is a matter of definition, but it doesn't matter where you are in the world, the overriding driver of decision-making, so much so that's why in a book we call it bending reality, because you bend people's reality when you understand what the losses that they're trying to avoid are.

And is this more of a, is this almost always a personal thing as it relates to that person when you're talking negotiations? Because, you know, we've all been taught, like people buy on emotion, they back up with facts, right? So when you're selling, and first of all, I want to see if you believe that. Second of all, if you do or don't, when you're negotiating with somebody, is your goal to understand the personal drivers of that person to be able to uncover this, or is it really more to focus on the business drivers? Yeah, well, the dominating decision is going to be how it affects them personally. What's in it for me? How are you going to help me? You know, and that's why, and if it wasn't, then I mean executives and business people and, you know, contracts people across the board, no one would ever make a stupid decision that would hurt their company.

But when it comes down to it, you know, people are, people are worried about themselves first. And depending upon the company environment, you know, it might not be a team atmosphere. You know, they, you know, the, the culture code, Daniel, Daniel Coyle. Yeah, he, culture code and talent code, two brilliant books by the same guy. He talks about, uh, I, I think the stat that he quoted that only 6% of people, of business people know their company's values. 6%. Wow. If that's true, and it's probably pretty close, then this is not a team oriented culture. So they got to be out for themselves. You don't even know what the company's values are. Your executives aren't living it. If your executives aren't living the values, then you're, you better, you're looking out for yourself because the other people are not looking out for you.

They're looking out for themselves. I mean, culture, culture is a dicey issue. Um, and then a lot of people overlook, well, we should think as a team, we should think as a team, it makes, it's only smart to think as a team. Yeah, it's true, but should, you know, it's a, if you're saying the word should, that means that reality and philosophy are not lined up, are out of alignment. So I've been talking a lot about values recently. So you kind of struck a nerve there. Um, first of all, why don't most organizations, I mean, there's mission statement, vision statement stuff, but why don't you think more companies, um, define and live their values from a, from a leadership standpoint? I, well, it takes a lot of effort.

It's a hard thing to do. Yeah. And you also become fear driven and, you know, have, uh, did you define them for yourself? Um, and you know, the problem is they just, it's, it's hard to get them to line up. Yeah. You know, it's, we focus on that all the time. I mean, internally in our company, we're always talking about it. Now we're, you know, we're relatively new company. We're a family owned business. We're, you know, we're defining ourselves as we go. And we know some companies that are really good people out there. I mean, we just stopped doing business with one company because of values. I don't know what their core values are as articulated, but I can tell you the values that they live are contrary to ours.

Today, we're giving a big shout out to Raj Singh of Avanti Software. After training with JB Sales, he went from booking four meetings a month to setting 16 plus meetings a month, every month post-training content. He was suffering from a bit of cold call reluctance since COVID-19 hit the scene. But then after changing his opener and earning permission to keep speaking, the results changed for him big time. Way to go, Raj. Change brings progress. That's true every time, all the time. JB Sales Training is proud to offer well-rounded sales training content that's anchored in data-proven sales techniques that yield consistent results. From prospecting to demos to negotiation and proposals, JB Sales On Demand will shed light on what's working, why, and how you can leverage new sales skills to achieve your sales goals month after month.

Sign up and become a member today at ondemand.jbarrows.com. So with that, I said this the other day on a panel, communities, they would ask me about building communities. And I said, the most important thing about a community is that you have shared values. You can argue, you can debate, we can disagree as long as we have shared values. Do you think that's the same? First of all, do you agree with that? Second of all, do you think that's the same in business negotiations? Where you and I, at least from a value standpoint, treating people right, not being an asshole, whatever those are, we have to align at least a little bit in order for this relationship to work. Is that a critical factor to try to uncover?

Yeah. Well, we're never going to be able to implement it otherwise. Right. You know, and it can be, there can be little things like a company that we, you know, we've had some value alignment mismatch recently. They've been very successful lately. So they're in the entertainment industry. So now their risk aversion is high, which means they're scared to death of not having a success. You know, we want to engage in something with them where there's no guarantee of success. So they're horrified that they'll drop something in the entertainment industry that's not as successful as the other thing that they've done. Now they're extremely risk averse. They're no longer entrepreneurial. They're no longer willing to take the risks that they were willing to take three years ago.

They throw something out there and say, you know, we'll work like crazy. We'll make it successful. You know, it's like somebody, I can't, you know, an author who's had a great book who refuses to do another one because they're afraid the second one won't be as successful as the first. People's fear of failure increases highly after their successes and they lose their entrepreneurial edge. And that's really the biggest problem with our core value mismatch. Now, which I pointed out to them, I said, you know, we're willing to do this and it might not be that great. And I said, you guys are terrified that you'll drop something out there that's not as successful as your last project. And then you'd be criticized over it.

And they went, yeah, that's it. Exactly. So did their values change? I think so. I think that's what happens with a lot of people. They don't feel like their values have changed and they probably feel like the same people. They just haven't become aware of how risk averse they are right now. So I've really been trying to think this through from a sales training, but also from my own approach of, you know, I talk when we do prospecting, for instance, look for triggers. Hey, you know, they open up a new office, they launch a new product and make a connection to that. Say, hey, I saw that happen. You know, we help companies where in that stage, let's talk. It's just a, you know, personalized way.

But I've been really toying around the idea of trying to figure out how to align values, because I think once, if I can come across somebody who I can connect with pretty much immediately, because I can tell their values are similar to me, similar to mine, like, I don't want to say the sale takes care of itself. But man, it's so much easier to have that real conversation and not bullshit conversation where it's, you know, real surface oriented. And I'm trying to figure out how do I get to that early, so that so that I can get in and out of deals faster with people who I know share a core value of mine. Is there something you do to uncover that part early? Well, not as we're probably looking after values right after the fact that we try to figure out whether or not there's a deal there anyway.

Okay. This is something that we've discovered is a much bigger problem in the business community than we realized before the book came out, because we're consulting all the time now. But, you know, for example, there's no such thing as an open mind, period. Okay. Nobody that you encounter has an open mind. And B2B data out there now is that 50% of people have made up their mind. 50% of buyers have made up their mind before their first contact with a salesperson. Half made up their mind before they contact the salesperson. And nobody's close rate is 50%, which means, you know, what's wrong with the math problem? Well, I came across a book, The Challenger Sale, recently. They pegged a number at 20% of opportunities that come salespeople's way, that come businesses' way, are actually fake.

You know, they don't use the term fake. They have a different term, but it's fake opportunities. People are doing due diligence. They're checking, you know, you're the competing bid. They get somebody they want to go with. They need three competing bids, so they go with who they want to go with. They just want to price with you. They just want to turn with you to prove that they can, they're doing due diligence is what they're doing. And in effect, and why this number is low is because in this survey, they're asking people how often they lie to salespeople. Now, there's no way that they're inflating the amount of time that they're lying to salespeople. They're hedging on that. If, you know, nobody's going to admit to all the times that they lied.

So there's, that 20% number has to be low to start with. And then, then the second problem is there's more B2B data out there that says that even if they haven't made up their mind, there's somewhere between 70 and 80% of the way through the decision-making process before they talk to a salesperson. And that's admitted. I mean, there are a lot of people out there that I think feel that they have an open mind. I'm willing to be talked into this, but I'm so prejudiced to begin with. You know, I've made, I've done so much research that, you know what, you probably never had a chance at all. So we got to find out in the opening conversation whether or not there's any opportunity there at all. And now we'll talk about cultural values, but you may be just looking for free consulting or due diligence.

And I got to know about those things before I put any more time into this. So that's, I call that happy years, right? The reps who hear what they want to hear. I think you have a selective listening or whatever, but I call it happy years, right? They hear what they want to hear because it's a deal. Oh yeah, I'm interested. And we, our negotiations, it's a really simple but effective give, get, right? So what we do is we do brainstorm all the gives. What are all the things your clients ask of you? They want information, they want discounts, they want proposals, they want ROI and all that stuff. Prioritize it one to like 20, say that's a number, you know, it could be more, it could be less, but easy to give away, hard to give away.

And then flip it over and say, what do we want? What are the gets, right? So we want some gives to the client and then gets for us, which is we want decision process, timeline, signed contract, testimonial, early, late, and then match it up. So when somebody asks for a five, I'm asking for a five in return, 10, 10. And we score deals, right? So I gave away a one, a five, and a six. I got a two, a four, and a seven. That score, 12 to 13, tells me how healthy the deal is objectively. And it works off of reciprocity, which I know you're a fan of, which is when somebody asks for something, they feel obligated to give you something in return. The funny thing is, is when we get everything, right? And don't give anything in return, sometimes reps, that's happy years.

But what they're not realizing is if somebody, if you're not giving somebody something, that means, A, you're consciously not doing it, or B, they're not asking for anything. And if they're not asking for anything, that's a dangerous sign. So how do you prevent happy years? How do you prevent a rep early on from hearing what they want to hear as they enter a negotiation? Because that's what kills reps, is that those deals that they think, they're saying there's a chance. And so they sit in their pipeline forever. And those are the ones that the managers get pissed off at month over month, because they hear what they're, so how do we prevent that? Well, I mean, you got to be willing to challenge the contacts from the very beginning.

I mean, the question you got to be willing to ask is like, you know, there are a lot of people out there. You know, we got a lot of competitors. You get people that are good. I mean, I'm impressed with our competitors. What made you choose us? Now, if they don't give you an answer to that, you're in trouble. Anything better than I found you on Google, right? Yeah, well, you know, if they say, I found you on Google, they haven't chosen you. Right. Or, you know, a big one is, will you tell me? They throw right back on you. You know, you're in trouble now. You're in trouble right now. But you hope that you have such a great value proposition. You can win the day. You hope your sales skills are so good, you can win the day.

And you won't take, you won't listen. You know, and that's the biggest problem. I mean, the biggest thing is that customers, clients, people who are buying, they hate not being listened to more than anything else. And yet every salesperson wants to make a case, wants to make a value proposition, wants to tell why they're the best choice. That, by definition, is not listening. Should you almost disqualify more than you qualify? You should be ready to instantly disqualify somebody. Now, I think the number is well in excess of 50%. So, if that's anywhere true, and we've got clients now that we're coaching on this are telling us that the number can be as high as 80%. Then just by sheer numbers, yeah, you should be disqualified more than you talk to.

I mean, everybody out there, you know, some of the stats out there, 3% of the people there are, you should convert, 3%. Then that means that 95, 97% are to be disqualified. But nobody acts like that's the case, although everybody knows that those are what the stats are. Yeah, and it's unfortunate because I think that we're in this world of, like, short-term results, which is driving bad behavior, which is preventing people from, you know what I mean? Like, forcing almost reps, especially young ones who are inexperienced and haven't gone through the hurt of having a huge pipeline that nothing closes in. You know, so we push them towards these monthly things, which drives bad behavior. So I don't, I actually am, I'm worried that we're in this world where we're in almost a transition world, I think, right now, where it used to be a numbers game.

And so that's kind of how sales was approached in a lot of ways. And so kind of Gen Xers, like, that's how we grew up. I mean, when I grew up in sales was, here's your quota, here's your territory, here's a phone, go. Okay, right? Now I think everybody understands quality is the issue, empathy is the answer, empathy is the answer. But we're stuck in this old-school mentality forcing, because it's way easier to coach towards numbers. Like, did you make your 50 dials today? Did you hit your quota today? Versus actually coaching on quality. So is there a way, as managers, for instance, we can help reps drive short-term results while having that tactical empathy, while having that disqualification mentality, especially in, you know, you work at a lot of publicly traded companies.

You know what I mean? If they miss their numbers on a quarterly basis, you know, all of a sudden Wall Street comes down on them pretty hard. So are there things that you talk to people about, about how to put them in a position to be able to listen, while still hitting their numbers, and those short-term results that we're looking for? Yeah, you know, I mean, it's stupidly simple. You know, all you've got to do is change the way you evaluate them and you compensate them. But nobody's willing to do that. I mean, I gave a keynote presentation to a company the other day that I'm really impressed with because of their dedication to their clients. It's SAP. And I'm sitting around with them at dinner and I'm like, wow, you guys, you guys, you guys learn fast.

You guys seem to like each other. I mean, I'm blown away at not only how fast you guys learn, but the fact that you guys enjoy working together. And one of the executives said, yeah, well, you know, one of our main core values is we can't let our clients fail. Which means they all unify over this great purpose. You can't let, you know, because they agree that they got to knock themselves out for their clients. That goes back to the value conversation, right? Yeah, but and at the same time, though, you know, in the training session, I said, all right, so how do we handle a procurement guy calling us with two days left in a quarter? I said, that's easy. Don't make the deal. Stop grading your people on quarterly results.

You're taking your people hostage if you're putting them on quarterly results. I got news for you. That procurement guy, he's praying to God because he thinks he's got leverage for 48 hours and he or she is not prepared to wait three more months for this window to come back up. So in reality, the person on the other side is a lot more scared than you are. If you're just willing to accept that, that they think they're done if they don't cut the deal with you in the next 48 hours, but they're taking themselves hostage over quarterly results. And you just said something, you know, Wall Street's holding these people to quarterly results. Only if you care if Wall Street badmouths you or only if you care if your stock dips by five cents.

And as soon as you pull yourself, as soon as you stop taking yourself hostage over quarterly results, as soon as you stop taking your people hostage over quarterly results, now they can perform. Now, with two days left in a quarter, they're not scared to death. They're willing to wait. So how would you do it? How would, if you were to build a company and compensate to compensate, you know, we do have to drive results on a consistent basis, right? So it all doesn't happen at the end of the year or something like that. So kind of in a utopic scenario, if you will, what would your best approach to organizations be as far as compensating sales reps on their results? There's a fair amount of data out there that sales reps do better if they're just on a straight salary.

Okay. You know, so, you know, take a look at the people that are working for you. You know, everybody responds to compensation differently. I mean, be willing to tailor your compensation. Some person just, some guys just want to work on commission. They want to know the sky's the limit. You know, you got that guy, guy or gal, fine. They thrive under that environment. Some people just want to know that they can make their monthly mortgage payment. And if they're satisfied they can make that payment, they'll work 24-7 for you. I mean, you know, when I was with the FBI, I was on a straight salary. I was, I worked my last seven years on the job. I don't know that I had two days off in a row because I loved what I was doing.

I mean, I was into it. I mean, people used to say to me, you breathe what you do. I didn't have to worry about how much money was coming in the door. I knew exactly how much money was coming in on my paycheck every two weeks. And I was the type of person that would just knock myself out because they didn't have to worry about the amount of money that was coming in. So, you know, be willing to tailor your compensation to your people so that they could thrive. And then have an ongoing conversation with them and make sure they continue to thrive. Because there's a pretty good chance that however you dial it up for them at the very beginning is going to be wrong or at least need adjustment. So say, all right, so here's a compensation package that we're going to start out with.

And then let's talk about how things are going in three months, in four months, in five months to see whether or not you're thriving. And let's make the adjustments so you can thrive. I mean, and look, I'm running my company. And that's the way that that's we're changing our compensation slightly, tweaking it all the time because we want our people to thrive. Going back to that procurement example that you used and also bad behavior by reps. When I, one of the things I come across all the time and I, you know, biggest challenge I see sales reps having is creating urgency. Like how, how, how do you, how to create urgency when it's seemingly not there, right? When, when they don't have to do it, it's a like to have, not a must have, those types of things.

Right. What do you try to do to uncover urgency? So that the reps don't default to end of the month discounting and those types of sad, sad things. Any insights on urgency? Yeah. Well, it's the issue of what's top of mind with people and what can you count on to consistently eat at people? You know, the, the great question, you know, what's keeping you up at night. All right. So yeah, you got, you got to get in their head and find out what's keeping them up at night. And then, you know, you know, there's a presumption here that what you're offering actually has value. I mean, one of the, one of the greatest, greatest sales pitches I ever heard, um, a gentleman had a company that, uh, put together compensation packages, retirement packages for executives, you know, uh, effectively golden handcuffs.

No, we, we put together such a great package for you. You're never going to leave. So it was, uh, pension investing, golden handcuffs, if you will. So his pitch to companies wasn't, here's how much money I can make for you, or here's how much I can help you retain your executives. He said, let, let us take a look at the package that you've got now and we'll compare what we could do versus what you're doing. And then he would come back and say, right, stay where you are now. Don't change your thing. And this is how much it's going to cost you every day. Okay. That keeps people up at night when the status quo, you need top of mind when the status, when your vision of what's going on now, when what you perceive the status quo to be, to be costing you every day, day in and day out.

That's what keeps people tough. That's what keeps things, keeps things top of mind. And so, cause I, I believe that, you know, there's, I don't know if you follow gong, but you know, the gong.io blog. I don't. So if you quote a lot of stats, go to gong.io and check out their blog. They got one blog post that's 55 sales tips that are the best sales tips you've ever read. And it's, and it's off the charts because it's, they do, they use artificial intelligence to analyze phone calls, like millions of phone calls that reps make through their system. And they, they tailor like what, you know, great people do versus what average people do. And one of their things is, you know, the number one goal that we have as sales professionals is to get you to a, before I can sell you anything, I have to get you to agree that status quo is not okay.

Like you have to make a change. And if you, and if I can't convince you that you have to make a change, then the rest of that stuff doesn't matter. So there, for instance, like selling to the C-suite, it's about coming up with your nexus. Like, what do you believe that, that, that in this industry, um, that is a polarizing statement that either people get people to say, holy shit, yes, or no, I completely disagree. So in our world right now, you know, sales training, one of my nexuses is, uh, I think sales methodologies are bullshit. I think the historical sales methodology is bullshit. And because if you're not in agile sales right now and constantly iterating and trying new things, you're going to be a dinosaur.

If you subscribe to any one singular methodology. Now there are people out there that are flat out methodology people. You know, I'm a Miller Hyman guy. I'm a Taz guy. I'm a Sandler guy, that type of stuff. And going back to values, like you and I aren't on the same page. So let's stop talking now. But once you hit that nexus, then it's, what's the statistic that says where, you know, whether you like it or not, the industry is changing. And so you have to make a change. And then you talked about your unique piece there. Uh, and then you share a story. So it's kind of a four step process of selling to the C-suite, which I'm a huge fan of. So do you agree that it's our first job to get people to commit to the fact that they have to make a change?

Well, I, um, the status quo has got to be the problem. Yeah. Yeah. And the status quo has got to be the source of loss. How big of a loss does it have to be in order to get you to move? Uh, it's an interesting question. I mean, lost things twice as much as, as an equivalent game, according to prospect theory, which they won the Nobel Prize for in behavioral economics. And Danny Kahneman then gave an interview where he said that, um, it's actually five times as much. We just lowered the number to two because we wanted fewer arguments from our academic colleagues. So any, any loss is a distorted perception. So you got to find out what's in the other guy's head, you know, guy generic guy or gal.

Um, and it's not something you can calculate in advance because your calculations are not bent. By the feeling of loss, the way it is on a person you're talking to. And so there's a lot. So, so I'm trying to focus a lot more these days on like impact questions. Like, how can I ask questions that uncover the impact of you making this or not making this decision? But what are your thoughts on like quantifying that impact? And like, you know, and, and going to down the road of like ROI calculator type stuff, because, and, and, you know, some reason I ask is because I've always looked at ROI calculators. Even if a rep uses my numbers and all that other stuff, you know, okay, fine. That dollar figure good, but there's still something that I, I don't trust about it.

So what's your stance on quantifiable pain, if you will, uh, and then using that, but, but it's not always as obvious. No, no, I don't, I don't think you can do it. Not at all. I mean, um, because, uh, and here's an example. Um, uh, one of the, one of the negotiation cases at Harvard that we used to exercise all the time is called radio station. The sale of a radio station where the guy who was selling, um, was just not taking any sort of offer whatsoever for his radio station. Now it ended up being a real case, um, that Roger Fisher, you know, the author of getting to yes, actually solved. The interesting thing about Roger Fisher is his emotional intelligence was through the roof. There isn't any emotional intelligence in getting to yes.

It is utterly rational and people are utterly emotional, which is why unfortunately getting to yes is not going to do any good. But I remember hearing this story and when Roger Fisher solved this and got the guy to sell the radio station, he went down and talked to the guy. The guy said, my wife's going to kill me if I sell this radio station. Right. So how do you calculate that ROI? Right. Yeah, I forget. I think Gary Vaynerchuk's the one who says, how do you calculate the ROI of your mom? You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, so what's really driving a people is not going to be quantifiable in a spreadsheet. And you can sit down and run every number that they give you and have them agree that everything about your analysis is flawless.

And it's going to cost them this amount of money. And it's not going to matter to them because what's really driving them is going to be some emotional factor that you can't put in a spreadsheet. And so with that, to your point of, you know, going back to urgency, they're losing, you know, by not doing this, they're losing every day. Like that, that example that you use right there. Okay, so great, I'm losing, you know, by not doing this, I'm, yeah, okay, I'm losing $100,000 a day. What's missing? Is there, is there, is there the emotional connection to it? Like, hey, I don't, like, yeah, that makes sense. And we're losing $100,000 a day by not doing this. I get it. Was there something else other than that number that got that deal to go through?

Well, yeah, now if somebody, if you, if you're not making your case based on your numbers and you're not paying any attention to what's driving them. Okay. So, yeah, you, you, you gotta, you gotta get in there and find out what's going on. I mean, this gets us back into, get into their head and find out what they're really seeing. And you're not going to be able to find that out unless you, unless you come in with an emotional intelligence approach, which assumes that people are not rational and that, you know, it's, it's, the iceberg is the cliche to everything. But the, unfortunately, the reason it keeps coming up is there's more here than meets the eye. And your analysis is based on what meets the eye.

So how is it possible your analysis could be accurate? I could keep this conversation going forever. I got one more question that I'm personally curious about. You talk a lot about mirroring where you say the last three words and what somebody says and the power of that. And then you just shut up. Mirroring versus layering. Example, when you object. Okay. Or when you say something that's like, look, we don't have the budget for this. Right. Mirroring is so you don't have the budget. Sit, let it sit. Layering would be, help me understand. What do you mean by you don't have the budget? Is one more powerful than the other? Because what you're both trying to do is get them to talk more and really uncover the true, like, meaning behind what they're saying there.

Is there a difference between that? And do you see one as more valid than the other in certain circumstances? Yeah, well, yeah, absolutely. Because to begin with, if you're at the point where somebody says, we don't have the budget. And you say, help me understand, what do you mean by you don't have the budget? You're telling them that you've not been paying attention up to now. Yeah, I use that as a kind of a very simple example. But you see what I'm saying? Like, layering questions. Tell me more about that. Could you explain to me? Could you give me an example of versus? Hold it. The first thing you said, tell me more about that. It's not a question. It's a command. And then you follow it up with two straight yes-oriented questions, which are trap questions, but nobody wants to say yes to anything.

You hit me with what three straight bad communication techniques. Okay. Right off of that. Tell me more about that. It's not a question. It's a command. It's a grab for autonomy. It's an attempt to take control of the conversation. Taking control is taking away somebody's autonomy, which we will die to. Preserve our time. But when you talk about calibrated questions, don't you talk about how you want to make the illusion of them in control when you're actually in command? We want to have the upper hand. We want to have control. Okay. And I'll tell you something else. We don't try to get information by asking questions. We use questions to shape thoughts. Questioning to gather information is a third of the people that you run into will be so-so with it, and two-thirds of them are not going to like it at all.

The very analytical person, every time you ask them a question, they stop and they think, I have to think through the implications of every possible answer before I get back to you. So, I can't answer you for at least two days. So, I mean, we don't use questions. All right. So, somebody says, what was it? It's too much. What was your example before? So, it's like, it's too much. We don't have a budget for this. Yeah, we don't have a budget for this. This is out of our budget range or something like that. Right. So, you want to demonstrate understanding. What do they tell you if they don't have the budget for it? They're telling you one or two things. Either under pressure or what you're offering is not delivering adequate value.

Right. The value alignment. Yep. So, a demonstration of understanding would be seek first to understand, then be understood. Demonstrate understanding. Sounds like the value is just not there for you. But they have just communicated to you very clearly that something's wrong with your proposition. And instead of you demonstrating any understanding of that in any way, shape, or form, instead, you want to challenge them as if they weren't listening. Help me understand here. What's not here for you? Which is equivalent of saying, you know, you haven't been paying attention. So, I'm going to have to go back over my value proposition again because you're not paying attention. So, let me see if I can isolate where you weren't paying attention so I can go back and correct you.

I mean, that's what you're communicating when you say, help me understand what about this is invaluable for you. And in most cases, a lot of people probably say it in a tone of voice that indicates that you think they're stupid. Yeah. So, but to say, sounds like the value is just not here for you, is an indication of understanding and it's an invitation to fix it. And it's taking responsibility on your side to be responsive to them instead of them being responsive to you. Cool. And what you're searching for is the, that's right, not you're right. Well, exactly. At some point in time, you get, if somebody's saying you're right to you, they are trying to finish the interaction and go home. You want to go to lunch.

It's the same reason why you don't say, I understand. Because what's the, what's the negative part of me, like after you tell me, so just one about summarizing and rephrasing back to you. But then after you tell me something and me saying, I understand, what's the danger of that? Well, all right, let's pretend like you actually do understand. Right. But when you say that, they're not clear on what you understand. I mean, you're trying to give them the Cliff Notes version of it. I mean, how do they, if you say, I understand, how do they know, how do they really know that they got their points across if you don't repeat back to them the points that they in fact got across? I mean, you know, since we were kids, we played the telephone game, you know, tell somebody a secret.

By the time you tell four other people, the secrets completely changed. I mean, it's, it's nearly impossible to hear somebody's side of things the first time and get it right. So to say, I understand, even if you do, chances are, let's say you're the best listener in the world. Chances are you got it 80% right. And you're taking a real risk on a percentage that you got wrong. So I understand is, that's just too nebulous. You tell me that you understand. I'm not sure I'm getting a warm and fuzzy feeling they actually do. And most cases I understand proceeds, but here's where you're wrong. Is it, is it okay to say, let me make sure I heard you correctly and then rephrase it back to them? Or is there a better way of, of, of summarizing what you heard from them that, that makes them more open to understand that you really do understand?

No, it's not bad at all. I mean, you know, we don't coach people to say it like that. There are other ways of saying it. I mean, let me make sure I heard you correctly as a command and it's a, it's a grab at control again and it's to take autonomy from the other side. And, you know, I mean, that just, that just, uh, commands just, uh, they just don't sit well with other people. I mean, if you're a frontline salesperson and your CEO sets you down, you, you might be a little bit slow to say, tell me more about that. Or let me make sure I understand, you know, you might, you might want to demonstrate your understanding. Um, or you might change your tone of voice, but you know, we like deference to begin with, uh, which is not to take control.

You know, we love deference as an approach because there's great, there's great power in deference. I mean, we love deference because everybody loves it. If I'm deferential to you, you're going to give me a lot more opportunity to talk because I'm deferential. You're going to feel like you can stop me at any time. I mean, we love, we love deference. So it's more in the sense of, it seems like you're those, that instead of, let me make sure I heard this correctly scenario. Yeah. And again, tone of voice is going to make a big difference. I mean, you, you can get away with a lot of bad words with great tone. You know, I, and we were, um, we're on a coaching call just the other day. And, you know, we coach people to identify negatives, identifying a negative diffuses it.

And people say, okay, that makes sense to me. And we say, and identifying a negative never plants it. And they go, okay, that makes sense to me. And then we say, all right, so let's be proactive. Let's say, all right, you're probably, you're probably upset with us. They say, oh my God, that's, you know, they, they're going to respond to us. Well, I wasn't, but I am now. But wait a second, two seconds ago, you agreed that we couldn't plant negatives. And now you're, now you're arguing. So we get somebody arguing with us. And so I just stopped and I said, so it sounds like when I said, identify negatives, doesn't plant them. You thought it was wrong. Now, listen, listen, that my tone was clear there.

Right. And I could have said, so it sounds to me like when I said, identifying negatives, doesn't plant them. You thought I was wrong. Same words. Much different. Tonal voice on a second one kills me. But the first one, you know, I'm the, the tone of voice. I'm makes all the difference in the world. I mean, I'm a thousand percent convinced that, you know, the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort. You know, everybody wants to learn from Jordan Belfort. God, no. Fuck no. Sorry. But they do, right? So what, what, what was there, what was there to learn from him? And in my view, tone voice. Yeah. Well, the guy, the guy, I think the guy mastered tonality. I mean, a thousand and, and clearly he mastered something because he wouldn't owe a hundred million dollars in restitution, which means he stole way more than that, you know, but I mean, so what did he do?

Because you take a look at straight line selling and it's no matter what the client says, your widget is the answer. I mean, that by definition is not listening. So how, how did, how did he, how did he get over so much? And in my view, the guy mastered tonality and that is something that's fair for anybody to master. Yeah. I'm not a fan. Otherwise, don't get me wrong. You know, I, you know, the guy owes, the only reason that if you should ever consider buying his book would be to help give some of the a hundred million dollars back because he owes restitution based on book sales. Yeah. Tell me that. Whenever anybody asks me what my favorite sales movies are, you know, Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room, Glen, Gary, Glen Ross.

I tell him, no, those are literally the worst sales movies I've ever seen in my life. You know, the great movies, they're funny, but they're literally everything that's wrong about selling. Yeah. Everything that's wrong about selling. And I tell them to go look the two best sales movies. And actually I'll finish with this. I want to understand what yours are. My two favorite sales movies, uh, uh, pursuit of happiness. Right. With Will Smith. Wow. And Tommy Boy. Have you ever watched Tommy Boy? I didn't, I never thought of it as a sales movie, but you know, it's a, it's a great thought. It's a great thought. Watch it. Cause I talk about catching your sales groove, right? And there's a, there's a moment in every sales rep's life where they wake up and it's just a little bit easier today than it was yesterday.

And you don't know what it was, but it's when you stop pitching your solutions and you start having conversations about your solutions. Ah, right. You start caring more about the client's needs than you do about your commission check. And there's that beautiful moment in Tommy Boy where he catches a sales groove. Helen, you look like a Helen. Let me tell you why I suck as a sales rep. And he goes through this whole like Jojo, the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet. And she's like, wow, you're twisted. You know, I'll go fire up those wings. You know, Tommy, like you Tommy, want me? You know, in that moment, he was, he would be caught in sales groove because before that he was pitching. He was trying to be like his dad.

You could stick your head up a butcher's ass type of stuff. Right. And couldn't figure it out. And then after, and then it was just him and it was empathy. It was self-deprecation. And so it's a, it's a beautiful sales movie. If you, if you get a chance to go see it again, I'll probably go back and watch it again. Yeah. Go watch it. Put the sales lens on. Cause right. You find it first. It's like, yeah, Tommy boy, that's fun. You know, big fat guy making fun of himself, but look at it with the sales lens on. It's a, it's a blast. That's really cool. Yeah. All right. Very good. Do you have any favorite sales movies or anything like that? Or, you know, well, I look at it through a different lens.

I look at it through negotiation, right. And as, as opposed to, as opposed to sales, but that's a lens I'm going to have to go back and take another look at it. Awesome. Well, Chris, this has been, like I said, I think I'd, I'd love to have an entire day with you asking all these questions just for myself and me learning on my end. But, um, but I think we've got to cut this up. Uh, tell everybody, uh, how they can learn more. I know you got public workshops. I know you got your blog. I know you got a bunch of things. So tell everybody how they can find out more information and pretty much mandate. I'm going to mandate everybody who listens to me, go pick up, uh, never split the difference if they haven't already.

Because it's, it's one of my favorite negotiations. Thanks. So how can people learn more? Yeah. Well, our newsletter slash blog is a great supplement to the book. I mean, a lot of people get a long way on just the book and the blog alone. Plus, uh, you know, the newsletter is a gateway to everything. It training announcements, a gateway to the website. It, you know, we're training across the country announcements are in the newsletter. It's short, it's sweet, and it's free. Um, it's, it's not a lot of work. Some newsletters are a lot of work. Yeah. And the best way to sign up for the newsletters, uh, we got a text to sign up function to text to the number 22, eight, 28. And the number you're texting to again is two, two, eight, two, eight.

The message you send to that number is FBI empathy, all one word. Don't let the spell check, put a space between FBI and empathy. Make sure it's one word, send FBI empathy, one word to two, two, eight, two, eight. You get a response back asking for your email address. You signed up. You're off to the races. Awesome. Yeah. And I'll attest them into that. I've, you know, I think I read never split the difference probably about 10, 15 years ago. And so with our interview here, I refreshed myself, but one of the biggest things I went to was that blog and just picked up a lot of the nuggets and the tips along the way that really are, if you put that entire blog together, you pretty much have never split the difference, but I I'm a big micro learner as far.

There's those tips and nuggets and small things that we can do along the way. So I really appreciate what you do, Chris. Thanks, man. Cool. Well, this has been awesome. Everybody, hopefully you got as much value out of this as I did. Check out Chris's blog. Check out his workshops that he's doing. Bring them into your company. I know, you know, I do negotiation training too, but this is next level shit here. So bring Chris in, go to some of his public workshops and hope everybody got some value. Thank you all very much. Have a great week and go make somebody happy today. If you do nothing else and you make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day. Thank you all very much. Make it happen.

All right, y'all. That's a wrap. As always, we encourage you to become a JB sales member and gain access to the JB sales team. Our training, our courses, tips, webinars, and replays are all available for you at on demand.jbarrows.com. Follow us on Instagram for daily sales techniques and tactics at JB sales training, all one word, and we'll catch up with you on the gram. Have a great week, everybody. Get out there and serve those clients. Catch up with those prospects. Be sure that you are asking the right questions, doing the right things and serving people to the best of your ability. Get out there and make somebody smile today. It'll make your day and theirs. We'll see you next week when we bring you another stellar guest to help you sell better.

Make it happen, everybody.