Giuseppe Conti: Negotiation + Influence = Success

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He is a world-class negotiations expert who went from humble beginnings in Southern Italy to teaching at some of the top business schools in Europe like Oxford and Cambridge. He's also the author of a brand new book called Negotiations Plus Influence Equals Success. As always, we started with his origin story and he grew up in a family of teachers, discovering very early on that engineering was not his path and eventually finding his zone of procurement and negotiations. After 25 years in the corporate world, he made the leap into full-time teaching and consulting, bleeding real-world experience with academic insights. Now, we dug into tactical negotiation strategies on this one, like who should make the first offer, how to handle price-obsessed procurement teams, and how to influence internal stakeholders.

Throughout the entire conversation, Giuseppe brings a rare mix of practicality, humility, and sharp insights on this one. So, hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Giuseppe, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, John. My pleasure talking to you today. Warm regards from Ireland. Yeah, I actually miss Ireland. I used to travel there before COVID. I was there probably once a month and doing some training, but ever since, I haven't really come back. I haven't gone back, so I need to get back out there again because they're, first of all, one of my favorite countries. Second of all, some of my favorite people.

And I think just like every American, I'm, you know, half Irish or whatever they say. So, it's good times out there. Fantastic. I'm actually Italian and I'm based in Switzerland. I'm now running a workshop in Ireland, but yes, you know, I love Ireland as well. Perfect. So, Giuseppe, let's talk. We're going to get into negotiations today. You know, I think you had reached out and we had talked about some of the stuff that we had done, especially on the procurement side of the house, because that's some interesting background that you have here. But before we do that, I always love to know you, you know, you're Italian. And so, where, talk to us about growing up, right? Where'd you grow up? Family, parents?

Like, what gave you that sales bug? What gave you the entrepreneurial bug? Like, where does Giuseppe come from? Tell us what we can't learn on LinkedIn, my friend. Okay. Well, I grew up in Calabria in the south of Italy, which is actually the poorest region in Italy. Okay. So, you know, not exactly the kind of place where it's easy, right, you know, to build a career. There are no multinational, et cetera, et cetera. So, I would say that as of the moment that I went for advanced studies, I knew that it would be unlikely that I will go back. You know, I do go back a couple of times a year. I'm still a family. I love my country and all those kinds of things. But I know that my professional career will be elsewhere.

By the way, I started studying engineering, so I have a master's degree in electronic engineering, but I quickly realized that engineering was not for me. And then, you know, I went to something more commercial, so I went into procurement, then I went into marketing, then I did the project management, and back to procurement, then supply chain, operation director, whatever, you know, a number of different things. But there was probably, you know, I'm glad that you asked about these origin things, because there was probably something in my genes, because my father was a teacher, my mother a teacher, my first sister a teacher, my second sister a teacher, my first sister was a fashion designer, but she was also teaching.

So, you know, at some point in time, I had to go into teaching myself. And then, you know, it started in 2005, and I started teaching at one business school. In 2006, it became three. In 2008, it became five, but I continued to work and teach for 13 years. Between 2005 and 2018, I managed a portfolio career. And then, you know, in 2018, I was teaching at 11 business schools, and I just couldn't manage anymore, you know, a senior job and all this teaching. So, I left at the corporate job, became a professor, and now I do what I love, which is teaching negotiation and influencing, consulting, and trying to spread the good news to as many people as possible. Well, so when did you think you found out?

I always, you know, the passion side, right? Of, I tell people all the time, you know, don't follow your passion, because you don't know it, especially when you're younger, right? But once you find it, then follow it. So, A, is teaching your passion. And B, when did it, like, when did that light bulb go off for you that, ooh, I love doing this? As opposed to the mechanical engineer, or the electrical engineering and all those other things. Like, was there a time where you stood up in front of a group and you delivered something, or you did something, and you were like, ooh, like, this is what I love doing, and started that journey? Well, I would say it was a gradual journey, more than a moment, right?

You know, a moment where I had the revelation. What I do know is that when I was an engineer, when I was really shining, when I was making presentation to management, right? And, you know, when I was on the Procter & Gamble manufacturing line, trying to repair the packaging line, I was nowhere as bright. But when it was about, you know, delivering a presentation or training the workers or the electrician or mechanical or some of the things, that's the kind of things that was already a signal over there. And then I chose to become a trainer when I was at P&G, on top of my job, right? You know, just, you know, a 5% kind of activity where you become a trainer, and I enjoyed it. But again, it wasn't the side.

And then I started delivering the first training at a business school. It went well, and then the second, and then the third. And then I realized that that really was something, you know, I think, you know, there are three things that, in my opinion, you should be looking at is what you love doing, what you're good at, and what the market demands. Yeah. Right? You know, you need to have the combination of the three. So, you know, the fact that you love, I love dancing, but I'm not good at all. So, you know, I couldn't make a career in dancing, neither in singing. I love singing, but I'm just horrible. So, then, you know, you have to find something that you like, that you're good at it, and the market demands.

And that's where the negotiation and influencing ended up being, you know, the sweet spot. I think that's, is that called Ikigai? It's the Ikigai where they have those concentric circles, and that middle part is where you figure out where you land. Exactly. Exactly. I love it. Yeah, and I think the evolution is important, too, because you don't really, like I said, you don't know what you don't know early in your career. It's like what lights you up. But then you start paying attention to energy and what gives you energy and what takes energy away from you. And I think that's where you start to lean in towards what you're really good at, what you can make money, and what you're passionate. So, I love it.

Let me build on this, you know, just to give some means to some of the younger listeners. You know, for a long time, I thought that what I wanted to do was marketing. You know, I worked at P&G, and at P&G, the marketing people are the star, right? You know, you see, if you work marketing at P&G, then, you know, that's, you know, I thought that I wanted to do marketing. So, you know, I did my MBA. I moved to a company, Novartis, the pharmaceutical company, which was encouraging cross-functional moves. So, you know, I started as a procurement head, and then I moved to a marketing head. And then, when I worked in marketing, I realized that creativity was not my biggest strength. That, you know, this type of green, or the other type of green, or this font versus another, what was good, actually, was actually managing suppliers, you know, managing the agents and those kinds of things.

So, I said, well, maybe it's not marketing what I'm good at. Maybe I should go back to procurement, because that's the kind of thing where I have a stronger set. But you have to explore. I think, you know, the message of the younger people is, do not be afraid to move to one area to the other, to one company to the other, to one sector, until, you know, you find what you love. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB Sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process.

It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code PODCAST at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. Love that. And I think that's also important. It's almost like in your 20s, you should just fail all the time. You should try as many different things because you don't have too many responsibilities.

You don't have too much holding you back. And so you can try. And I think a lot of that also adds to business acumen, right? Especially if you go to different departments and different companies, you start to learn the bigger picture of business and how everything fits into it. And I think right now, business acumen is sorely lacking in today's sales professionals specifically. And I think we can translate that into negotiations because I think the more you understand business, the more you understand P&Ls and those type of things make you a better negotiator. Because now you can have empathy and you have an understanding of where these people are coming from as opposed to just trying to get a dollar figure out of them, right?

And so how do you look at business acumen? And we'll get into the details of negotiations and what, you know, your book coming out here. But where do you find that piece fitting into effective negotiations? Now, one of the advice I give to my workshop participants is to involve as many people as possible in the negotiation preparation. Yeah. Right. You know, I'm not suggesting that you should bring many people at the negotiation table because, of course, you know, there are a number of complications with it. But if you do involve many people in the preparation phase, then you start understanding what is important for R&D, what is important for manufacturing, what is important for, you know, business development, what is important for finance, etc.

And then, you know, this helps you, you know, to understand, you know, what is really that you're looking for? And we do know that many of my procurement friends have such a strong focus on price. And sometimes this comes from the fact that, you know, the key API is cost saving, while the other element which represent the business value may be neglected and may not be well understood by the negotiator. Yeah, and I think that's the misnomer. I think, you know, one of the things I learned early in my career was, you know, we always, I was always scared of procurement, right? It was like, oh, man, like, okay, I built my champion and I got my, you know, VP of sales. And, you know, my fight against procurement was like leveraging my champion to do that fight because I can't fight it myself.

So with that, though, I learned the more you involve procurement earlier in the process, the more they can become your advocate. So where, let's start tactically here. Where do you encourage reps to start to introduce or, or, or look to engage with procurement? So it's not the end of the process where all of a sudden, because I always have the, see the mistake of, you know, I, you know, whatever procurement's job is, right? If, if they're not involved, if a VP of sales, for instance, comes in and says, okay, just have it here, here we go. We got to get this done by the end of the week. Could you get this through? Right? Well, without any context, procurement's going to do what they do. They're going to cross every T dot every I and protect their company against whatever it is.

But if they're involved early, they can actually become a catalyst for you. They can actually help the process. So backing up to that, where does it make sense in your experience to bring in procurement or to start engaging with procurement? So it's not the end. Now it's a fine balancing act because you want to start with the business, right? You want to, if you're selling into HR services, you want to make sure that the HR person is very much interested because of course, this is going to give you leverage in the procurement negotiation and at the same time, you know, you don't want to go to procurement at a feta complete, says, okay, you know, everything was made and now we did it on your back because of course, there's going to be resentment and this is not going to build the right relationship.

Especially if this is an ongoing, it's not a one-off type of thing, but this is an ongoing type of relationship. Of course, you know, the fact that you bypass them is not going to start the relationship in the right way. So I will say that once you have a fair level of interest from the stakeholder and then they say, okay, well, yeah, that's something that looks good, et cetera, et cetera, then you may say, okay, well, uh, how is your decision process? You know, does it, you know, can you take a decision yourself? Is there somebody else that's need to talk? Do we need to involve procurement, et cetera, et cetera? What can help, you know, what, what can I do to make sure that, you know, your procurement colleagues actually feels included, et cetera, et cetera.

And actually your stakeholder itself may tell you, you know, the way they work some in some companies, still the case that, you know, procurement only process the paperwork and all the decisions are taken in, in other companies, they will say, well, you know, yeah, we better involve them as soon as possible because, uh, otherwise, you know, we're going to struggle to get this true. Yeah. So to educate the audience, cause I've never worked in procurement, um, you know, and I think there's a healthy, uh, fear of procurement from sales reps because I just don't think they understand their job. And I think they see it as, you know, it's almost like the ignorant sales rep thinks that all a CFO cares about is price, right?

Obviously that's not the case. That's a component of it, but it's more value, but procurement is, is kind of further down the chain there. And, and it's a little bit of a black box and they treat it that way as well in the sense that we almost never get to talk to them. They don't want to, they don't want to negotiate in person over the phone. They use email. So it's like this scary group of people. Could you help educate the audience on if you were to prioritize what a procurement in general, I know every company is different, but what are, what are the responsibilities of procurement as it relates to the business and, and not just getting the best price? Okay. So I think, you know, first of all, let's look at the way procurement is measured.

I started my procurement career 31 years ago, February, 1994, and the number one KPI was cost saving. 31 years later, the number one KPI cost saving. So, okay. So let's get started to recognize that, you know, cost is indeed what's most of the procurement department are measured. Now, another dimension that we should keep into account is the maturity of the procurement function. Let's say, are they more at the transactional stage? And then, you know, in those kinds of things, you know, the only measure is going to be procurement or the more they are sophisticated operating across business units on a global basis with category strategies, et cetera, et cetera, the more their success measure will involve.

Yes, it will involve the price, but it will involve innovation capability. Will involve something very much growing in Europe, less in the U.S., I believe, is sustainability. Right. You know, sustainability, right, you know, is something that in some of the large European companies is becoming a substantial part of a procurement job. So for a raw material supplier, for instance, you know, being able to have a strong track record in terms of sustainability is something that is going to be an important element. So now in some of the companies, I'm thinking, for instance, about the company where the cost of goods is a minimal part, you know, luxury goods. You know, if you're buying watches, you know, then, you know, the cost of goods is just, you know, a small percentage, but also in biological products, right, you know, you know, the cost of goods is very mobile, then probably the availability is even more important than the price, right?

You know, if in order to try to save, you know, 2%, you ended up being late with the delivery of a product and then you cannot produce the watch or you cannot produce the Vuitton bag, then, you know, it's a much bigger impact on the P&L of the company than the 2%, 3% that you saved on the cost of a small item. So on that note, how much do they get held accountable for that? So for instance, say we're going through negotiations, right? And you're my champion and we have a great conversation. And then all of a sudden, I got to talk to procurement and procurement just beats the shit out of me, right? Like they just, they drag it down and I'm not great at negotiation. So I agree to what procurement does, but it takes away some of the value that you and I talked about, right?

Because I had to pull some things out. I had to change it from a three-year commit to a one-year commit. And I can't give you as many resources. So then the decision's made, the implementation happens and the implementation isn't what we had discussed, what you and I had discussed as far as your priorities, right? So now all of a sudden, a year later, this thing you bought as a business, from a business standpoint, you thought it was great, but then procurement beat me up so much that you didn't get what you thought you were going to get or quite frankly, the service level. Because when that happens, a lot of businesses on, you know, on the other side is if I close this deal and I'm an executive, like say a rep closes this deal and the executive then looks at this deal and it's unprofitable as a business, I decrease resources.

I don't give you my best customer success. I don't do any of that. So a year later, it's not what you wanted. How much is procurement held accountable for that? Probably not enough. Okay. Probably not enough. That's what I thought. So I guess the advice to the sales rep, you should not allow to make it happen. Let's say you should always keep your stakeholder into the loop to make sure that if what you're being asked has an impact on the value that the stakeholder will get, then, you know, that they are into the picture and they can be your advocate to make sure that you're doing the right things. I do have a small story to share, you know, that just reflect what you just mentioned. It was a long time ago.

It was the first time that we were using those electronic tools, right? You know, e-auction, electronic RFP, et cetera, et cetera. And I was the director of the team and one of my category management launched a tender on temporary labor. We were a big buyer, temporary labor. The business had not been allocated for the last five years. We always work with the same company. So, you know, all the temp labor suppliers were eager to get to this big business. And maybe because of the electronic tools, they got carried away. And one of the company gave us a very, very, very competitive price. So, you know, procurement, we're all happy. Yes, fantastic. We saved 2.4 million. That's a great work, et cetera, et cetera.

But because the price was so low and because we were a big customer and we needed big, lots of resources to run, then, of course, you know, the supplier could not put all those resources at the prices that we had agreed. So the service started to drop. And what looked like a great deal ended up being a lose-lose kind of a project. So now, in this case, it was a self-originated kind of decision by the temp labor company. But too often, you know, people ended up, you know, giving too much away. Yeah. Under the pressure of the procurement, that's something that we should avoid. So what do I suggest from a procurement point of view? You know, what could be the alternatives? One of the things that you can do is give options.

You know, you say, we have the bronze, the silver, or the gold package, right? You know, we were talking about the gold package. Now, if you don't want to spend much, maybe you go for the silver or maybe, you know, you go for the bronze, you know, just, you know, the bare skin kind of solution. And that's something that you're going to do. Maybe, you know, if you're a consulting firm, say, you know, rather than a senior consultant, I'm going to give you a consultant or I'm going to give you a junior consultant, you know, play with the mix and doing something like this. So let's say you can still find ways to reduce the cost without giving away on your profits. You know, you just simply deliver different things depending on what the customer wants.

Not everybody wants the Rolls Royce. Somebody will just want the Lexus or somebody will just settle with a Fiat. And then, you know, yeah. Well, let me ask you this on that approach from a tactical standpoint, right? There's one thing about coming to the client. I've always said, like, present what the solution should be based on their needs. Forget about price. Forget about whatever. What should this, what, based on what they told you and what you understand, give that solution. And then if they want less, then pull things out of that solution. Okay, well, yeah, we can do, we can get to that price, but it would mean I would have to take this away. So there's one theory about coming in with, okay, this is what you should have.

Okay. The other theory, like you talk about, is giving three options. Okay. You can do X, Y, or Z. So I guess we're, and I know it's all situational, but is it better to, and we're going to talk about anchoring here in a minute, but is it better to present like what the solution should be, or is it better to proactively come with options for them for a second, third? And, you know, the theory on that psychologically is they're always going to usually pick the middle one, right? They're not going to be the most expensive. They don't want to be the cheapest. They're going to pick the middle. So it's almost a default selection, but I also think that detracts from potentially what they should get, right?

Sometimes they should get the Cadillac. Sometimes they should get the Maserati, right? Whatever. And they don't need the Fiat, right? So where, where are you on that? Well, my preference is to give them three options and also tell them, you know, based on what we discussed, what I would suggest you to be the preferred option is this one. Now, what may also happen is that the customer says, well, I like option B, but I also want this from option C. I don't need that, et cetera, et cetera. So then, you know, there is a bit of customization. But the fact of giving them all the different things that you can offer, then it gives them more options, right? You know, if I only give you one solution, maybe you don't know that I also can give you a customized workshop on artificial intelligence and negotiation that helps you to prepare the negotiation automatically.

Maybe you don't know that I can give you also, you know, private coaching to each participant so that they can help. Maybe you don't know that, you know, they can give you a follow-up session. And then, you know, being able to see those things can also make people realize, you know, what is the kind of solution. Now, of course, you know, we are making the example for people that have a variety of things to offer. Sometimes, you know, you are selling commodities and... It is what it is. Yeah. It is what it is. And then, you know, if you are trapped into the commodity world, it's your fault at the business level, right? You know, if at the business level, you position your company in the commodity business, you're in trouble.

Well, and okay, so let's talk about that with, you know, you hear the analogy of, you know, do you sell a vitamin or do you sell a painkiller, right? Like the painkiller you need where the vitamin you could do without. And I think there's a lot of solutions out there right now that, especially in the world of AI, the companies are looking at and saying, that's a nice to have, but I don't absolutely, you know, it might fix a small problem that we have, but it's not a huge problem. And so when it comes to negotiations, I mean, I think, you know, we can macro this out and say, again, that's a business problem. Like if you have a solution that isn't really necessary, then you have to figure it out.

But when you go into a negotiations and you know, fundamentally that the client, like training, like let's, let's use us for as an example. Companies don't have to have training. There's a million different ways they can do it. They can go on YouTube, they can get free stuff that, you know what I mean? So they don't have to have your negotiation. They don't have to have mine. And you and I can do the discovery and, hey, you know, you're losing 20% on every deal. And if I made you negotiate better, you'd make millions of dollars. Like we can do that if we want, but you and I both know we can, anybody can pick apart those numbers. And unless that pain is big enough, you know, for me to admit it.

So how do you go about negotiating a vitamin, something that isn't absolutely critical to addressing a short-term priority that the client has? Because I think, and one more piece of context, when that happens, I think we have a lot of power as sales professionals. Like if I know you have a problem and it has a significant impact on your business, and if you don't do this, you're going to lose out. Well, and I know mine is the best solution to address it. I think I have a lot of leverage in the negotiations, right? Because I know I can fix this problem. But if it's just kind of like this amorphous, like, yeah, we got to hit our numbers and we're, you know, we missed our quarter, but we just don't know why.

And I think negotiate, you know, how do you approach negotiation for a vitamin? Now, I think, you know, a first advice that I will give to sales rep is to have multiple options. Let's say, when you have something that is not directly, you know, linked to the bottom line, something that is a company absolutely needed or they're not going to survive, you know, timing may be a factor. You know, this year I ran the first workshop for a US chemical company that have been talking for the last seven years, you know, and, you know, never was the right time. We kept in touch, we did, et cetera. And then, you know, at that moment it became the need and then we started doing it. So sometime, you know, rather than wasting too much time on people and trying to convince people that are not interested in your thing, it may be more effective, you know, to talk to many people and out of those, find the ones that may have a need.

That's probably the most effective way to, rather than trying, you know, to push a pill and persuade somebody that doesn't even have a need. This also involves, by the way, the fact of being persistent, of going back again and again. Okay, we tried this year, we tried last year, we tried five years ago. So, say, hey, John, are you doing this, et cetera, et cetera. How do you see your priority for next year? How about, are vitamins one of the things that you want to include in your portfolio? And if you don't get a reply, you say, I know, then, okay, you're going to try again. And then, and of course, you know, on this one, you know much more than me, is, okay, with a good discovery phase, right?

You know, if you do ask the right question, understand more about the interest and priority of the other party, maybe you can discover something else that may not be, you know, your initial starting point in selling the vitamins, but to realize that actually because of this happening, then it becomes the right moment to do it. Maybe, you know, I don't know, I'm just making up the story. If during the chat, you discover that they just read Out to Live by Peter Attia and they become excited about longevity, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, by the way, yeah. One of the five pillars of Attia is supplements in medicine, okay, you know, what are your thoughts on the vitamin side? I like it. Okay. So let's talk about anchoring.

You talk about that previously in some of the stuff that I've read about you, you know, in the idea of who starts first, right? Because anchoring always is that now we know, right? So if you're in a negotiation and you have no idea what the price is, you want somebody else to say the price so you can react either way, right? Because sometimes if you give a price, it could be way cheaper than, you know, there's this beautiful war, there's a movie here, it's called War Dogs. I don't know if you've seen it. It's in the States. And Jonah Hill. And what he does is they're government contractors, right? Or they just get into selling to the government. And they bid on this project for $50 million and they won.

And they were so excited, right? These two kids who had just started a business, they put a $50 million hole in their head. Holy shit, right? And when they sat in front of the committee who made the decision, you know, the committee was like, yeah, you guys crushed it. Like, yeah, we're going with you. And they're like, can we ask why? And they were like, well, we almost never say this, right? Because we don't want to let people know. But you guys were so much less expensive than everybody else. Like, you were like a factor of 10x less expensive than everybody else. And so to them, $50 million was a shitload of money, right? But they could have gotten $500 billion if they had known going in.

So I guess, you know, in most companies, their price is their price. You know what I mean? There's some fluctuation. There's some flexibility there. But when it comes to, like, raw negotiations, what's your theory on or what's your approach to anchoring? Okay. Well, you know, of course, you know, before I go into the theory, let me share a real life story. I was a procurement director. I went to visit. The negotiation took place at the supplier premises. We walked into the conference room. And the supplier had already put their proposal on flip charts on the wall. You know, they really wanted to be sure that they were the ones making the first proposal. So as we went into the room, their proposal was already on the room on flip charts.

So they wanted to go first. Now, like you were saying, what is comfortable for many people is to let the other party go first. Because, you know, you avoid. And I think, you know, the discomfort is particularly big for procurement people. Because usually the sale people know their market and they tend to have a better idea about the market. Then, of course, you know, when it's a very complex kind of project, of course, things may shift. But let's say, if you're selling your machine, if you're selling your raw material, if you're selling your commodities, right, you know very well your market. So I would say, what is more comfortable for good people is not to go in first because you avoid giving a number which is too high or too low.

Either you lose credibility or you ended up making a bad deal, like, you know, in the movie example where the number was too low. Now, was it a good idea to have the price on the flip chart in the conference room and immediately starting the negotiation with the price? Probably not, you know, because what we both know is that as of the moment that you start talking price, then the discussion becomes more difficult, right? You know, the exchange of information, you know, the understanding about the needs and priority, the wants, the needs, the dreams, the hidden agenda, all those kinds of things. You know, you're going to stop because there is a number there and you're going to start fighting about the number.

So what does the theory of anchoring says? If you do not know the market, let the other party go first. Then you avoid giving a wrong number. When you know the market, so when you have a good idea about, you know, the zone of possible agreement or the reservation price of the other party, if you want to use negotiation terms, then you should go first. Because not only you take advantage of the anchoring principles, you set a reference, you set an anchor in this negotiation, and most of the people do not move away enough from this number. So basically you shape the negotiation range. But also what you do is you decide what kind of issues are being discussed. Let me make an example, right? You know, let's pick, I don't know, consulting.

Let's say you're working for one of the big four kind of companies. You know, they do the taxes for your company. They do consulting activity. And we are at the year-end negotiation. You let the procurement people go first, what they're going to do, they're going to say, listen, the times are tough. For next year, we need a 7% price decrease across all the different roles. If the salesperson goes first, it's not only about the number that you mentioned, but the kind of issue that you're going to bring. Then what you're going to say, you're going to say, well, listen, you know, we have been working together for the last seven years. We have some good news. We have identified four projects that can help you save 20 million and we can help you to implement them.

Then, you know, we have seen that you have a strong presence in the U.S., but you have lots of opportunity for growth in Asia. We have very strong consulting capabilities in Shanghai and in Singapore, and we can help, you know, to grow your business there. And then, you know, your CFO gets challenged during the quarterly calls. He's a new CFO, and so maybe we can help you prepare the quarterly calls so that, you know, the value of your company goes up. Then one of our senior consultants, you know, can help, you can have a monthly call with your CEO and give you some insight about your industry, etc. You see, there are plenty of value-added ideas that you can bring. And by talking first, you're going to shape the discussion about moving the business from 20 to 40 million rather than discussing about whether the prices will go up or down by 2% next year.

But that's kind of my theory. If the problem's big enough, then the price is somewhat irrelevant, right? Because if we do understand the problem that you're faced with, the impact that problem is dealing with, then, you know, theoretically, if I found out that there was a million-dollar problem that you were dealing with, then theoretically, I could charge you half a million dollars. Now, I just got to prove to you that I can get you that million, right? So where does that, with that, where does your head fit or where does ROI fit into the equation, if at all, at this point? And the reason I'm asking now compared to previously, because I think that was always, okay, we need an ROI and ROI calculator.

And, you know, I don't think executives use that as much as people below the power line and just kind of checking off some boxes to make sure it's there. But I think the challenge with ROI right now is it's for an investment today, you're promising a future return. And things are moving so fast right now. I don't know if anybody can look out a year, six months at this point and say, oh, yeah, definitely that's going to happen. So my belief is, my experience is that ROI is kind of almost like a, it's a sales reps tool that they try to use that doesn't have a huge impact. So what's your positioning or approach to leveraging ROI or is it even valid right now with where we are? Now, in some areas, like in our field, the negotiation, the ROI is so big that already after three months, you can deliver, you know, 10 times the cost of the training.

So it's easy to leverage ROI because, you know, we both know that people are completely untrained. Let's say the companies are not investing enough in negotiation training. So, you know, a small increase in skills can have a huge impact on the results. So whenever it's so easy and so evident to measure the ROI, then, of course, you know, then you should talk about it. When the market is evolving very quickly and, you know, in this VUCA world where so many things are changing, then, of course, you know, for some of the sales reps that are listening to AMP, bigger to us becomes much more difficult to be able, you know, to defend their ROI, recognizing that in a couple of months from now, things may be completely different.

So it really depends from the interest, the market, the context, right? I think is, in your eyes, is it more important to uncover the problem and the impact that that problem is having on the business or the potential ROI of your solution to that business? Well, if you want to talk the language of your customer, if you want to talk about what the way procurement thinks, a concept that procurement keeps close to the heart is the total cost of ownership. So, you know, we always say that you should talk the language of the people you're interfacing with. So, if you're able to explain to your procurement counterpart that the total cost of ownership is going to be better because maybe your raw material is faster to process on their lines and, therefore, you know, they can run their machine faster.

Or, you know, any other kind of thing, you know, that, you know, your product uses less energy or other kinds of things. Then, of course, you know, that's something that will resonate with your customer and that will be not only about price, but let's say other element of value that will be important. Now, let me make a disclaimer, many procurement people talk about total cost of ownership, few really are able to measure it. Few, they have really their number under control that can really understand, you know, what is the impact of one or the other thing. So, you'll have to understand your customer and what they really want. I love it. So, let's talk about negotiating and different forms of negotiation.

Obviously, I think the best and easiest form is face-to-face, right? Because I can read you, we can have a conversation about this. You know, second best is Zoom, like this, great. Third is phone. Fourth is email or last is email, right? Because there's no context to it. There's no tonality to it. It's a one-way communicator. And procurement is masters at putting up the wall against sales so that we don't get to talk to them, right? Because I think they kind of fear the ability of a sales rep to say something slick or get them to do something or whatever it is. So, they put up this wall of email. How do you approach negotiations or, if at all, over email and kind of that one-way communication tool?

Okay. So, first of all, you know, some data to confirm what you just mentioned. You know, a professor from Northwestern University, Eli Thompson, did the research about email negotiation versus face-to-face, eight times more likely to be competitive. So, the email communication inevitably makes it more difficult to create value, to understand needs, et cetera. Let's say, if you and I have to negotiate and I send you an email, then you reply back. It's going to take 35 emails before we start to understand the interest and priorities for creative ideas and put in place contingency agreement and all those kinds of tools that can help to create value. So, now, I would say, if the goal of the procurement people is purely, you know, to hammer the supplier and it's a competitive category, it's a leverage category, and the only things that you care about price, like a commodity, then it may make sense to revert to an email negotiation.

But sometimes, like you were mentioning, people revert to email because maybe they feel less skilled. Maybe because they are uncomfortable, you know, having difficult discussion when talking with people. Maybe because they need more time to think. So, you know, there may be a number of reasons. By the way, one of the things, the younger generation, they have a strong preference for written communication, as opposed to verbal one. You know, because of the social media, because of the way they have been grown up, then, you know, there is an extra education work to be done with the younger people, because they grew up so comfortable to do everything in email that they don't want to do the face-to-face or the Zoom type of discussion.

Now, if you want to create value, like you were mentioning, of course, face-to-face is the best, and then the Zoom and all those kinds of things. Now, what I will even say is that even when you don't do face-to-face, you can still use different kinds of tools. You know, what I mean is maybe you send a proposal by email, and you give some time to think to the other party so that they can analyze it. Then maybe you do a pre-call where you explain the proposal and give some additional insight. Then, you know, there's some other time, and then, you know, maybe you have a second call. But while you're doing the second call, maybe you still use messages, text messages or WhatsApp or whatever to communicate with your primary counterpart.

And then after the meeting, you're going to do some. So, let's say, being able to use different things, phone, email, Zoom, etc., may be actually the most effective way if you're not able to meet face-to-face. Now, how do you get the procurement people that only wants to talk, wants to do email, to open up and do something else? Well, then I would say probably you have to find the motivator for them to do it. So, what could that be? Could it be that, you know, you have a complex kind of proposal that will be difficult to explain? Will, you know, there is some sort of decision tree in what you have to do that you need to get a few input from their side in order to prepare the right answer? Sometimes you may even say, listen, as a company policy, we do not provide offer to customers unless we had a chance to have a discussion with them.

Because, you know, it happened to me, you know, a very large pharmaceutical company, one of the top 10, send us a tender with, you know, 70 open-ended questions in all kinds of very detailed, strange things, you know, that you never heard. We didn't win it, we didn't even take the time to explain why we were not selected. And so, you know, those kind of situations where they put all the work on you and there is no exchange. At some point in time, you have to say, well, maybe it's no work. Now, of course, you know, if he's one of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies and there is a huge business behind, etc., then you say, okay, I know that I may be wasting a lot of time into this, but the opportunity is so big that sometimes when you realize that the other party is just an accommodation.

I did it, by the way, yeah, this is another example that I received a tender a few years ago from the world leader in their field. And the tender was so much focused on price that I decided not to bid. I explained, replied candidly, says, listen, you know, when I look at what you're looking for, listen, maybe we are not the right player for you. Thank you very much for thinking about us. Last year, they bought from us. Last year, they became a customer, right? You know, so, you know, three years later, four years later, maybe realized that, you know, what they needed was not the cheapest, but they wanted something else. And without any tender, they came to us and says, you know, can you do this for us?

I think that's the power of also knowing your value and knowing your walkaway line, right? It's like there's a certain point where, you know, once it gets past that line, it's like, okay, never mind. It's just, you know, I want your business, but I don't need it that much. And at that level, it's unprofitable. It takes too much time. We don't have the resources, whatever. And having the confidence to walk away from that. And I think when you do that and you are one of the best providers out there, then it does tend to have this reverse psychology of, well, wait a minute. You don't want our business? It's like, no, I'd love your business. I just not in that form. Like, I just can't do it that way.

And that's not the right way to do it. So if you want to find somebody who can do it that way, feel free. Now, that takes a lot of confidence and a lot of back, you know, and a lot of abilities to walk away from that. But I think, you know, there's been more than a few opportunities I've seen where companies have chased the logo, right? Because it's like, oh, man, we'd love to have that because there's a ton of, you know, business moving forward on this if we just got this one deal. And then it effectively buried their business because they did get the deal. But at a price that was so bad. And what sales reps don't understand is that the price they negotiate to get the deal, that's now the baseline.

So that when renewal comes up, it's not like the client's going to accept the fact, oh, yeah, I know you gave us, you know, a couple years back, we know you totally helped us out with that huge discount that you gave us. So we're going to take that into consideration with our negotiations for this renewal that no, they're not. They're going to look at the price of what they're paying and they're going to want to pay less for it. And so if you discount, you're discounting not just the current, but the future. By the way, one of the things to keep in mind is that usually the rep feels their alternatives are weaker. The more you go up, let's say, if I am the key account manager of Apple and I only work with Apple, then, you know, okay, all I see is Apple.

And for me, if I don't get the deal from Apple, I'm in trouble. Now, of course, you know, if I go at my boss level and he's in charge of all the companies in that sector, then they say, well, you know, maybe rather than doing this deal with Apple, we are going to do this with Intel, whatever. And then, you know, that's where sometimes, you know, going up is an opportunity to say, well, maybe, you know, does it make sense or not? And the people in the higher level have a better vision and may decide, you know, whether it makes sense or not to close certain deals. All right, Giuseppe, well, we got to tie things up here to keep it under the hour. So talk to people about, you got a book coming out here.

Talk to us a little bit about that, where you can find more information about you, about the book and everything else. Well, that's very kind, right? You know, actually, my book, yes, Negotiation plus Influence equals Success. So it goes out, went out on the 8th of September. So that's fantastic news. And I try to put, I try to prepare something which is very pragmatic with 67 short lessons that can be read, let's say, in three minutes each. So, you know, I took 67 points about negotiation and about team financing. There is also a section about career, like, you know, asking for a raise or networking or those kind of things. But I will say, you know, it covers, you know, a broad set of elements that can help you to be successful.

How can negotiation and influencing be a way to be successful in your work? So, yes, I guess, you know, that's really what I wanted to do with this book. You know, this year was a special year. I got to the number one Global Guru for Negotiation Award. So I said that, you know, combine it, this award that I'm going to collect in Orlando on the 29th of September. So combining the award with the book publishing sounded like a great combination. Love it. Awesome. Well, we'll put all that in the show notes so that everybody can find out where it is and where to find out more information. Giuseppe, thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate the conversation. Fantastic, John. It was a true pleasure discussing with you.

Thank you. Likewise. And everybody, hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Just like I said at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile, you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much and I will see you on the other side. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now and I can't thank you enough. Now, to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network.

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