Jeremy Hurewitz: How to Sell Like a Spy

There's a famous quote, it's attributed to Abraham Lincoln. He said, I don't like that person. I must get to know him better. And this is where spies have a lot to teach us because spies, you know, are not just recruiting from a pool of people they would choose to be friends with. You know, you think you might meet somebody that you don't like or is a little sleazy in the business world. Well, spies have to recruit and try to sell to criminals, terrorists, diplomats from some pretty bad places. Hey, everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us.

And we got an interesting one here for you today. Jeremy Hurwitz is an espionage expert, corporate intelligence agent, and the author of Sell Like a Spy. Now, in his book, he draws from his extensive network of former CIA, FBI, and special forces operatives to explore the secret world of spycraft and how those strategies can transform how we build relationships, persuade others, and ultimately sell anything. And this was just a super interesting, I got a forward of his book and I skimmed through it and the concepts in there are just absolutely bananas. And first of all, it talks about, you know, demystifying what spies are really all about and made the analogy here with sales, right? There's a perception of what sales really is versus what it actually is.

And the same thing we're spies. Then we unpack some crazy stuff like how to build rapport with people that you know you don't like through radical empathy that he talks about. And the difference between manipulation and influence and how he doesn't really see it as a black or white thing. It's one of the interesting ones that, you know, we all hear that he can't judge a book by his cover. Well, he completely disagrees with that. He thinks he can and shows you ways to connect with people up front and build trust. And there's just so many different analogies that we went through. And I tried to unpack a lot of it, but you're going to have to also probably get his book on this one when it comes out.

So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Jeremy Herowitz, my friend, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Great to be with you, John. Yeah, this is going to be a real interesting conversation, man. I just one came across my docket and all of a sudden sell like a spy, kind of perked my interests up. I mean, we're both in a little bit of a similar industry, obviously doing some sales training here, but we take, I think, a bit of a different approach. But as I was reading through the book and some of your content here, it all aligns pretty well. Again, coming at it from different angles. So before we get into that, as always, though, I love talking about origin stories here, man.

So give the audience a little perspective more than they can find. I mean, you got some really interesting shit on your LinkedIn profile, by the way, that I'm going to dive into. But talk to me about growing up parents, like where nature nurture, like where, where'd you come from? Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, blessed with two tremendous, amazing parents, wonderful sisters. I grew up really well. I joke around that and I tease my parents that I don't remember a lot of my childhood before puberty. Because my theory is that unless you had trauma, childhood should be a time of kind of dreamlike kind of wonder, if you will. So I, I, of course, I remember some things quite a bit, in fact, but it was really just a great, you know, unbothered childhood.

And, you know, my parents are have really wonderful, warm, outgoing personalities, which, you know, to get to the heart of kind of where you're going with this. My dad was a salesman. My mother's father is a salesman. My dad is a gregarious, outgoing personality, loves to laugh, you know, draws people to him and form durable relationships that way. My mom was a beloved educator that when she retired the town where she was an educator, dedicated a day to her. So these were the type of wonderful people that I was lucky enough to grow up with. That being said, I had, you know, ants in my pants to kind of go out and see the world. I started playing music when I was a teenager that spurred a little bit of an adventurous streak.

I'm still a very active musician as well. And I went to college and was kind of a hellraiser and wanted to be a writer, you know, a novelist, all those things. And I just decided I wanted to go overseas after that. And we can get into some of those experiences because they informed the writing of the book. But in summary, you know, lucky to grow up with the parents that I did, and they helped me kind of spread my wings and open the world to me. Love that, man. It's funny. You and I have very similar backgrounds. So my same thing, two parents, unbelievable parents, like sister, right? The whole thing. And I remember I interviewed with Jack and Susie Welsh when they first started their online MBA program, right?

To be their kind of VP of sales. And I'd worked with them for about three months. But I remember Susie Welsh, she asked me the question, like origin story, right? I was like, oh yeah, well, you know, I grew up, two parents. Dad's an engineer. Mom's an artist. You know, my sister, dog, you know, that type of thing. Had fun and, you know, went to college. And after I was done explaining it, and I, it's funny, I have the same exact nubs that you do, which is, I don't remember much of my childhood because none of it was, and I almost feel bad. I'm like, was there trauma that blocked off a whole bunch of stuff that I just didn't remember on purpose? But regardless, when I was finished, Susie goes, so you're the one.

And I was like, what? What do you mean? She goes, 2.5 children, white picket fence, you know, that type of thing. And it was funny because when she said it, it took me that long in my life to realize, like, holy shit. If I think of all my other friends, like divorced parents and, you know, all these different things, like, yeah, shit. I actually, there isn't too, too many people that have grown up with that type of support structure. I was so extremely fortunate. Wanted to ask, actually, wasn't planning on this. When I asked that, do you feel like you have to go through troubled and trauma to have grit? I think so. And one of the things I say to people, and I can tie that into my book, there's a section on vulnerability, but that the key thing about human nature, and one of the key things rather, is that while not everybody experiences tragedy, all of us experience misfortune.

That's not my phrase. I picked that up somewhere down the road or along the road. So people can relate to that, and it does give you grit. And I think in some ways, coming from the comfortable childhood that I did, being middle class and all that, I wanted to experience grit. That's why I went overseas and, you know, put myself in difficult positions to develop my character and figure things out, because I wanted to grow in those ways. And I've had ups and downs in my career and my personal life, as anybody, you know, in their middle age has. So, um, I think it's helped make me the person that I am. So I think, I think the answer to the question is yes. Yeah. I tend to agree. I don't think you can go through life on unscathed and have grit.

And I'm a little bit worried these days that things have been a little bit too easy for the past, you know, I don't know, 10 years or so, as far as, uh, you know, how, how prevalent information is and how many opportunities that are out there and, and the crash, if it comes, you know, I use Tik TOK as an example, like all these kids went Tik TOK, you know, famous for instance, right. Built these businesses. If Tik TOK gets shut off, I'm curious what's going to happen to a lot of these people who have built businesses off of potentially a lack of foundation. And, uh, so I don't know, I don't know if it was a sidebar topic, but let's, let's, let's get into kind of how you got into doing what you're doing, like spot, like sell like spies.

I mean, the people that you interviewed for this book are off the charts, like as far as the, what they've been through and some of that stuff, but what made you decide to write this book in the first place? Yeah. Well, it goes back to, you know, a little bit, uh, picking up maybe from where we left off in the origin story. I went overseas. I was, I was abroad for about a decade based out of Prague and Shanghai, both as a freelance journalist. And I helped build and run, uh, a newspaper association, a media association called project syndicate. And that had a lot of biz dev work. We expanded it, you know, hugely. And I got to travel all over the world. And I wrote some great stories and really incredible experience.

And I came to really focus on foreign policy and intelligence. I've always had an interest in espionage and intelligence. Uh, wasn't going to be my line of work working for the government in that way, but I was interested and read everything about it. Cut to, you know, coming back to New York where I'm from after that decade abroad. And I found this world of corporate security, which I describe as, um, the best known industry that no one's ever heard of. It's a, you know, a multi-billion dollar industry that quietly influences global business and politics behind the scenes. And it's staffed by these firms are staffed by former government officials. Um, and I'll, I'll talk about spies specifically, but, um, the book and my work experience has been informed by a much broader set than just kind of CIA case officers.

I worked in the field of kidnapped for ransom, which is a very interesting niche field we could talk about if you want and had the good fortune of working with two really well-known and amazing individuals who are former chief hostage negotiators at the FBI, uh, secret service, special forces, military interrogators, snipers, law enforcement, you name it. I, I worked with them and they all had interesting skillsets and being the intellectually curious, you know, former journalist I was, uh, I started really picking up on this, but getting to the nature of the title of the book and everything, it was the CIA case officer veterans that I worked with the X case officers who I saw play out, um, relationship development skills that were just remarkable.

You know, they, I saw them building rapport with people. I knew they didn't like, I saw them influencing people. I saw things that flew in the face of, you know, what Hollywood wants you to think about spies. And I've been intrigued by that. And I started implementing some of the trade craft, if you will, in my own business development and relationship development. And I saw dividends over time. And I'd been thinking about this for a while. Um, during COVID, I decided, you know, now was the time to write a book and, you know, do some, you know, training work. I'm still an advisor to a corporate intelligence firm called intro for international, but, um, you know, I do a lot of this work on my own as well.

Uh, so that's kind of how I came to think about it. And it's, it's really resonating with people. Once I get them over the misconceptions of how we think about spies. And again, we can talk about that because, you know, people have the wrong ideas about what spies do. But once I level set on that, it's like the clouds part of it and people suddenly see both how they can use the same kind of trade craft in their salesmanship and in their everyday communications. And also, you know, how to bring that into, you know, the rest of their lives basically is, is, is the key point there. 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'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like chat, CVT 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. I love it. Now, how did, I mean, freelance journalist, Prague office, growth and international association.

So where did, I guess, I mean, it sounds like all of it's been introduced to sales, but where, where was it a conscious connection between what you were doing or evolution for you about sales specifically, right? Cause talk about misperceptions, right? I mean, there's misperceptions about hostage negotiation, all that stuff and, and spies, but there's also autonomous perceptions about sales, right? So where, where in this journey for you, were you like, you know what? A, I'm in sales, whether I know it or not. And B, holy shit, all of this stuff that I'm being exposed to, it can be, can be translated into very specific sales things that people can use outside of the negotiation side or, you know, outside of hostages and that type of thing.

I think that learning came a little bit later and I'll come back to it. I think I've had a, you know, I don't want to, I don't know if it's quite as strong as a love, hate relationship with sales, but you know, despite having wonderful parents, I wanted to kind of define myself in my own way. And I kind of resisted thinking about myself as a salesperson. And to some extent, maybe I still do. I see myself as kind of half practitioner, half salesperson. I've always been a writer. I've always had other things that I've focused on. And part of what I talk about is that side of things and encouraging people to develop those muscles and, you know, being an expert in your field and developing other ways to connect with people.

But you know, the work I did with Project Syndicate, which was a media association with about two dozen member publications, mostly in Eastern Europe and a desire to grow, led me to go travel all over the world and meet with editors of, you know, some of the biggest newspapers and magazines around the world. And I needed to essentially sell why they should be a part of the association, run the articles that we were featuring. And that led me to have to learn to relate to people in widely different cultures and widely different circumstances with widely different buying power. So whether I liked it or not, I found myself at a position, even though I was an executive and I wore a few different hats of having to sell.

And, you know, I like to say the life of sales. We're all selling one way or the other. That's why I believe strongly that sell like a spy is well, you know, interesting for beyond, you know, just salespeople. I talk to relationship counselors and those kinds of things about ways to use some of these skills. The second part of your question was, remind me there. Like when you realize that you could translate this stuff to the audience, right? Right, right. So again, it was working side by side with these CIA case officers and watching their tradecraft and methodology and collecting information, which I still use to this day. I was working on something earlier today, actually, with that. But then watching my success, when I started to use some of the same things that I saw them doing and telling me about with people that I was looking to influence.

Once I saw that, I said, you know what, I could probably share these learnings and synthesize these lessons from, you know, a wide group of government officials from somebody outside the government, because I've never worked for the government, and make it real and put it on a level playing field for people. So, you know, I started realizing that, you know, I came in the early 2000s, 2010s, rather, I was thinking about it. So I've been kicking this around for quite a while before putting it into practice. Nice. I think, you know, it's funny, I got a similar love-hate relationship, even though this is my, I am sales true and through, but my love-hate relationship, I think, is the perception versus the reality.

And I'd love your perspective on this as far as manipulation versus influence. And because I think that is the crux of good versus bad sales. I think the best sales reps influence, the worst sales reps manipulate. And I'm curious what you see as it relates to, you know, sell like a spy or all these interrogations and all this other stuff. I mean, to me, it has to be rooted in transparency. It has to be rooted in, you know, wanting to do the right thing, if you will, and not trying to screw somebody else over or not trying to quote unquote win an argument, a negotiation or anything like that. But before we get into the details of like actual B2B sales, how do you come across as sincere when you are dealing with people who are, to your point earlier, like vastly against what you believe in and those like people you don't like, you had said earlier, build rapport, you notice people build rapport with people you knew they didn't like.

So if you don't like someone, how can you, I guess, how can you relate to them in a way that is genuine without it being manipulation? Or is, is, do you have to kind of take that manipulation when you're in certain situations? Yeah, I'm not as fixated on the question of influence versus manipulation. I take your point. I think you're dealing with adults and, you know, they, and most of the time they're going to understand they're being, you know, sold to, whether it's a product or service and let the buyer beware. You know, I'm, I come at it from an ethical standpoint. I'm not looking to screw anybody over. And a lot of what I write about in the book is how I, you know, live my life, which is, I don't want to, you know, sell something to somebody.

And then six months later, they're unhappy with it. I want to form a relationship for years to come, you know, but I've also seen where I've sold a big package of consulting services and the business falls down on the job. It does a bad job, you know, and that's not my fault. I swung hard and, and, you know, pieced together a really great package for them and it didn't execute. Right. So you can't really, you have to have conviction about what you're doing and you have to work for a company that does a product or service that you believe it. You know, you can just phone it in. If you don't, people have to make a living. I get it, but I've always gravitated towards jobs that are mission driven, that are products or service that I feel strongly about.

So that probably is why I don't fixate on the manipulation versus influence side. But you touched upon something that's really interesting that I spent a lot of time writing about in my book and talking to people about, which is how do you sell to people that you might not necessarily like, right? Because even though you don't want to manipulate somebody, if, you know, John, you and I meet and I, and I'm sure this would be true in real life, we made, we say we hit it off. You know, we have a rapport. We like each other. Right. But I'm sure you've experienced many times where either somebody clearly does is wary of you, or it's rather neutral, or you really don't like that person for whatever reason.

Right. Um, there's a, a, a, a famous quote. It's attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Some think it, some people think it might not be him, but he said, I don't like that person. I must get to know him better. So you take it as a challenge to try to find a way to get to know that person. And this is where spies have a lot to teach us because spies, you know, are not just recruiting from a pool of people they would choose to be friends with. You know, you think you might meet somebody that you don't like, or is a little sleazy in the business world. Well, spies have to recruit and try to sell to criminals, terrorists, diplomats from some pretty bad places. And the way they do that and get into the heart of your, your, your question is, is through radical empathy by understanding that even pretty much the worst person around has a kernel of humanity.

And the way I describe it is it's the criminal with, uh, you know, who's a devoted family man or the terrorist that practices acts of charitable good, you know, just about everybody. Um, the only person I've researched in history that had almost no redeeming qualities is Mao, you know, the former Chinese dictator. It was truly a monster. You know, even Hitler loved, uh, Eva Braun, I think they loved their dog. So there was some, you know, most people, even the worst of humanity have these redeeming qualities and the CIA case officer, the training that they're given and their own sort of natural approach to people is such that they look for that. Um, and one final thing here, and I think I was alluding to this earlier, but one, uh, you know, powerful lesson that I've learned in my life, John, is that, uh, vulnerability breeds intimacy and humanity breeds credibility.

And I spend time talking in my book about, um, a very personal story of my own about making myself vulnerable, um, and how you can leverage vulnerability and sharing from yourself to completely change the, the tenor of a conversation by getting people to respond and people respond to things in kind. So as we were alluding to before, everyone doesn't experience tragedy, but everyone experiences misfortune. So if you share something that you're going through, some health problem, some issue with your kids, or even just being disappointed at the ball game last night or something, if you open yourself up and share an emotion, people tend to respond to things in kind and someone who might be treating you and keeping you at, at, at arm's length is all of a sudden going to draw closer to you when you share something about yourself.

So this becomes important when I deal with people and I'm training people about, you know, the professional environment. I think COVID changed, uh, the world in the sense that we're not wearing suits and as much, we're not in the office. There's a little bit more room, I think, for those personal feelings in business communications. And it opens up for the smart salesperson and ability to draw closer and get personal with somebody. So how do you do that? So let's take that, um, and talk about building rapport and break in and kind of getting that trust barrier down early. Right. Cause I think, you know, I'll again, going back to the love, hate relationships. I love sales. I hate the fucking game of sales.

I hate this back and forth shit where it's like, we're playing, you know, the clients like only giving us a certain amount of information because they don't trust us. How do you, and I say that like where people say they buy from people they like, I disagree. They buy from people they trust. And so how do you break down? How do you in this world now, how do you break down the trust barrier sooner rather than later? And to your point, do you just jump right in with sharing? Cause there's different personalities too. Some people like, dude, I don't give a shit about your problems. Like let's get the fucking business. So how can a sales rep in this virtual world right now? Whereas before we could go in, Oh, I see you're a fisherman.

I fish too. You know that bullshit. But now I, I, I see a, a thermostat behind you. You know what I mean? I, I can barely see your shirt here. So how do I relate? How do I break that barrier and figure that out as quickly as I possibly can to get to the point where we can actually have a real conversation? Yeah. Well, you know, again, another area where we can learn from spies is on taking notes and building, you know, profiles of people. I spend a lot of time talking people, talking to people about taking notes, like a spy. I'm a jerk. I'm a journalist. So I naturally take notes. Uh, so there's a lot in my book about taking notes organizationally, how to do it, how to learn from the FBI about how they manage crisis situations.

For instance, who take notes, who doesn't, how to think about note-taking, what it means. Um, but what I tell people is that when the CIA decides to recruit a foreign agent, a lot of times that happens these days with, um, a signals intersect. They, perhaps they found in, uh, in Vienna, there's an Iranian diplomat who has a sick child at home in Tehran, and they can't get the care of this esoteric disease that, uh, they need care for. Um, but there's cutting edge care in the U S so this spurs, uh, some people at the agency and the analytical side to think about how they might, you know, make an approach to this person. And they start to think about who is the right rep to do it, right? Who is the right salesperson to go after an account?

Who is the right, you know, case officer to recruit this person? Well, it turns out this guy, uh, is actually an avid basketball player. And, uh, you know, is at this gym twice a week to play in this pickup league. Um, he also loves a particular restaurant because he really enjoys French food while there's a case officer that is a basketball player. Um, and also it has been to that restaurant. So you start to develop a sense of who that person is and, you know, sales reps can do that through LinkedIn, which is an extraordinary resource. And, you know, I tell people to think more deeply about LinkedIn beyond just where they work, you know, think about where they went to college. Is it a big sports school?

Do you follow any of those sports? Are they passionate about a charity? Maybe they have animal adoption on their LinkedIn page and you've adopted a cat recently. It's my wife and I did earlier last year. So, you know, you find, you want to do your homework and develop a dossier of information on a sales target. And then you want, so you want to be as prepared as you can going into a meeting and people think preparing means knowing your pitch. And I think people over prepare on that and they talk too much, which is another story, but I want to know all about the person I'm sitting in front of. I don't want to creep them out by sitting down immediately being like, Hey, how about that Duke basketball?

You know, you gotta, to your point, you need emotional intelligence to go into a meeting. And I write about reading body language and just using your instincts, which are really sound. I talk about how you can judge a book by its cover and we can get into that, but using your instincts. And then, cause I can't give you a blueprint, you know, a blueprint of, you know, when you walk in and you sit down, then you should make yourself vulnerable and then you should mirror their behaviors. I want to arm people with tools to expand their toolkit of connectivity and figure out ways to use it. I can't hold your hand in the meeting and talk about it. But what I say when it comes to vulnerability, if I'm in a meeting with somebody and I'll just give you the quick story here about what happened with me.

I had a brain tumor about 13 years ago and it was a benign tumor, but it was choking off the auditory nerve in my right ear. So we discovered this, it was a long process and the result of this very long and, you know, complicated and dangerous surgery left me, um, death in my right ear. So since then, you know, it's a different world for me. If I'm with you and you're a client and we're walking on the street, I got to walk with you on my left. If I show up for a business luncheon, running a little late, everyone seated, it's loud. I might ask if I could swap seats with somebody so I could hear a little better. Now, John, when this comes up, something extraordinary happens and I've seen it happen over and over again.

I've been in a room where people are cold to me. They don't want to be sold to. They like their current provider. And all of a sudden this comes up and people, again, regard me as a human being and not just a salesperson at that time. And human nature is wired that they will share something about themselves. We respond to things in kind. So if you use this powerful technique at the right moment, that person who was previously being cold to you will all of a sudden say, you know what, here's something that happened with me or a family member. And you're on the road to building, um, that trust that you talked about, um, you know, uh, trying to achieve. So I think that's a, a building block to get to that trust level.

Yeah. I think that have you, um, so it's funny, you know, you said you would listen to the guy, Kawasaki, you know, he's deaf, right? I didn't. Yeah. He's deaf. He actually has a ear implant to help him here. And there was a point where he lost his hearing for a while and he still wanted to do podcasts. So he had to have live transcription of the audio so he could still do them because he loves podcasting, but he couldn't hear anything. And, and there, it was really interesting, certain tones of voice he can't hear. Wow. So I had to like, when I got on the call, I was like, Hey guy, I just want to see if my tone of voice actually is resonating with your ear, you know, whatever he has in there.

So it was just really interesting to hear him. That's really cool. I would love to connect with him about that really fast. Yeah. I can connect you with him after this. Cause he's, uh, he's a fascinating individual too. And going back to a good person. Um, but you know, going back to the building trust through preparation, what about, um, what are your thoughts on like disc profiles, Myers-Briggs, those types of things. And some of those studies that help us better understand and make connections to people. And the reason I'm asking this is because have you ever heard of a tool called crystal nose by any chance? No. Look it up. It's not a drug site, um, but it's crystal nose K N O W S. And it can actually connect with your LinkedIn profile.

And based on how you write, it can tell me your disc profile. So it says you're a high D or a high C or a high I, and then how to communicate with you. And it gives me little cheat codes again, not to manipulate you, but to be like, okay. Cause I know for me, like I'm pretty direct and in your face and I'm like, I'm right there. But if you're not that type of person, I could run you over and I might not even know it. Right. So the rapport there is brutal. But if I recognize that I'm a high D and you're a high S or a high C or something like that, and I can slightly shift my approach to you, you are more open to the conversation. So where does that type of psychology or, um, profiling fit in your world?

Yeah. I, I haven't done, I don't know about that site. I haven't done a ton of the Myers-Briggs. I know the agency, you know, gets into profiling like that, you know, whatever helps you to do your homework and figure out how to put yourself in a position to, you know, again, I think you highlighted, well, it's not, you're not manipulating somebody or figuring out ways that you can connect with that person and get to know them, you know, and, and, you know, you're, you're, you're actually doing them a solid by figuring out their communication level and methods that would make them feel the most comfortable. Right. Um, so I don't, I don't, um, I haven't used a ton of those, but what I can say is that, um, I think I figure that out when I meet somebody, you know, and some of it goes into, you know, my, my research previously, even though somebody might be here in New York, if I see they were born in the Midwest, I'm automatically going to say, yeah, I'm like you, John, I'm a, you know, Northeast guy.

I'm, um, I'm a straight shooter, man, by the way, that was a sidebar. That was really tough to be in China like that. They're exact opposite. They make Midwesterners look like the most extroverted New Yorkers. So I struggled there. So I do a little, it was part of my research initially, you know, where they're from, what their culture might be like. And then I, I'm, I think I'm adept at picking up clues based on the person or how are they carrying themselves or what are they wearing? Are they in a, you know, a suit and tie and it's really buttoned up, you know, what's their bearing, you know, are they talking about golf? Are they talking about, you know, being out last night and being exhausted today?

I try to get those things as we're kind of like settling into the meeting and that sets the tone for how I might, you know, seek to engage with that person. Yeah. I think that's, I do something to say, cause you have to figure out the rapport building. I talked to reps a lot about like rapport building with me is a waste of time. Like if you, if you come in and you're like, oh, John, the Celtics and that, yeah, I'll have that conversation with you. But the only thing that's happening in the back of my head is like, all right, you have 20 minutes left. You have 15 minutes left. You have 10 minutes left. And I'm not going to give you extra time at the end because you made niceties in the beginning.

You know, the way to develop rapport with me is get right to the fucking point. Let's talk about this and then give me 10 minutes of my life back at the end. And now you're my best friend, but other people are the exact opposite. So do you start with like, based on your preparation for a meeting, do you start with a couple of like open-ended questions just to see how fast they respond, if you will, or how they respond, whether they respond in an open-ended manner, which means, all right, they're a little bit more talkative and I have a little bit more leeway here to develop rapport or this person's like, get to the point and you just, okay, fine, here's what you're here to talk about. Do you figure that, do you have like ways to do that yourself?

Yeah, I do. There's a section in my book and people enjoy hearing about this when I speak or do trainings, what I call the atmosphere and intangibles. So once again, it's not a method of, oh, I have like five questions that'll help me take the temperature. I walk into an office and much of the same way I've assessed the individual, again, are they wearing a suit? Are they, how are they carrying themselves with their body language? Like I think the environment in which we're going to sell into can dictate to us, you know, what the type of sale it should be. And I'll tell you what I mean. If you walk into an office environment that is, you know, very Spartan, you walk into the lobby and there's no artwork.

It's gray. There's, you know, a receptionist sitting behind a table. That's it. You peek into the, you know, the, the office and it's just cubicles again, not well adorned. It's really basic. That says to me that they're probably more of a value sell, you know, they're that, that budget's going to be something they're going to really care about. And you're going to, your approach should be trying to give them the best bang for their buck. It's going to inform how I'm thinking of it. If I walk into, I've sold a lot to hedge funds here in New York, you know, so I walk into a hedge fund, these masters of the universe guys on the 50th floor of a skyscraper overlooking central park with a huge Rothko on the wall and gorgeous furniture.

Well, they're not looking for the value sell, are they? That doesn't scream that out. What they're going to look for is to get the best of the best. And they're going to, I'm going to leverage FOMO there. And I'm going to talk about, you know, what I'm doing for competitors. So, and I spent a lot of time. That's where the whole book cover cliche thing that I train people on too. And how CIA case officers use that as well. So a lot goes into trusting your instincts and, and trying to, you know, follow your gut. Say that again, cover cliche. So I have this theory that you can judge a book by its cover, John. Yeah. The idea that you can't judge a book by its cover is proven wrong in science. We make rapid judgments of people that we, we meet and they're in less than a second.

And they prove to be overwhelmingly true to how we wind up getting to know people. The critical caveat is that people are complex. You know, one of my favorite quotes that's in the books is that Whitman quote, do I contradict myself? Very well that I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes. We all contain multitudes and you could be kind of right about somebody, but they could be having a really bad day, you know, and not be that fun person that you think they are. Or they could be having an incredible day and they're showing a more extroverted side. So people are complex and change day by day, but it is good practice to say, Hey, that person over there dressed the following way, you male, female, this culture, that culture.

I think they, I will have better rapport with them at the networking event. They're going to be an easier person for me to talk to. I'm going to trust my instincts about breaking the ice and talking to people. And it informs, um, high level networking and how you should go about it. And spies do it too. General on that note, do you still, do you believe that people buy on emotion and back it up with fact still? No, I don't believe there's one truism that that fits under. I think if, you know, and I, I understand what you say about buying with trust, but I always say that people buy from those that they like, and I've seen that a lot. So I, I don't think there's one tried and true, um, you know, idea there, but I don't think you're wrong either.

Let's talk about some of the specifics here. Um, elicitation, the technique used to collect information without raising suspicion. You spend on that for me. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the ones I usually have to, when I talk to HR people or learning and development people, I have to tell them, I'm not going to train your team to steal secrets or do anything sneaky. And that's part of the level setting of, you know, misconceptions about spies. You know, they're great relationship managers. They're not James Bond. They're not Jason Bourne. They're incredibly good at building rapport and doing these things. And elicitation is just a smart way to collect information in a slightly more circumspect manner.

So, you know, one of the, the casual examples I give is, you know, say we're throwing a birthday party for you, John, you got a big part birthday coming up, probably turning 30, you know, and, uh, you know, so we want to throw you a big surprise party and we want to have your favorite food on hand, but we can't remember your favorite food. So instead of calling you up and asking me, Hey John, what's your favorite food, which will tip you off? Why are you asking that? Why be so direct? Because you ask some direct questions to people in a sales environment, and you run the risk of them feeling interrogated, defensive, suspicious. Instead, I'm going to look to elicit that information. So I might lead with a piece of information I either know is false or just have no idea if it's true.

And I'll say, Hey John, there's a great new Thai restaurant in my neighborhood. Didn't you tell me Thai is your favorite food? How about we hit that up next week? And you'll say to me, I don't know where you got the Thai is my favorite food. Pizza is my favorite food. Well, now I know what food to have on hand. And you might think, well, what a strange question. And I actually have a way to mask that and what I call the violin conversation. But the point here is that I was able to elicit that information from you without asking it directly, which would have had some negative consequences. And I let you tell me what it was. And because there is another powerful side of human psychology that makes you correct the record.

John, you will correct like most of humanity, just about anything I get wrong about you. We're all vain. We're all the stars of our own little universe. There's no detail too small that we won't correct about ourselves. So that's one of the triggers for elicitation. That's how you can get somebody to tell you something about yourself. Is it called like, what is it called? Omission bias or something? I forget what it's called, but it's like the desire to correct somebody. Tendency to correct is, you know, how I've heard it described, but yeah. So that's kind of where, like when we talk, when I talk to reps about like understanding the priorities of an executive, right? Instead of walking in and saying, hey, tell me about your priorities, you're going to get a pretty general answer on that.

Whereas if, hey, Jeremy, we're typically deal with CSOs in the tech industry or tell us top priorities of X, Y, and Z are those yours, right? Well, no, but right. And then they go on for some, for a bunch of details about what their priorities are. But if you just ask, what are your priorities? It's kind of a lazy question that probably isn't going to solicit a lot of information. So do you, do you encourage that to like, kind of come with either a hypothesis or I don't want to say an assumption because I don't like assumptions, but like, hey, here's what I'm seeing out there based on my back, here's what I think. And then getting you to correct me versus just an open-ended question. Open-ended questions are great because it gets people to talk and that's what we want.

But being smart, I call it the premeditated elicitation is smart, is really good. Cause you want to think on your feet and elicit information where you can, but the premeditated elicitation question, which I did with your surprise party is a great way to go. So for instance, you mentioned going in to see a, you know, a CRO or something, instead of saying, what are your priorities? I might sit down as we're building rapport and just sitting there saying, I just had the craziest experience with a CRO who told me his biggest priority was reducing the size of the team this year. I was just really surprised. Well, that's open-ended and that invites the CRO to say, that's crazy. I'm looking to build up my team or my biggest priority is growth and you know, we're ready.

So then they're going to start talking about their own priorities and you sit down and you're relating something, some competitive Intel. You might not name who that was, but you're going to say what you're hearing about it. And you're, you're, you're providing a service to that CRO at that point by sharing that kind of Intel and it gets them to open up. So that's a route I tend to take. Cool. Detecting deception. I want to talk about this one because I think so many reps get happy ears because they hear what they want to hear. Like we do this scorecard thing, this give, get scorecard and we talk about, okay, if you, if you give away too much and you don't get much, you know, you're conditioning the prospects to treat you, treat, treat you poorly and take advantage of you.

But if you get too much, but you don't give a ton back, that sometimes feels like, hey, happy is because you're getting all decision process timeline. And these are all buying signs for most sales reps. But a lot of times you're calling fodder, right? They're just telling you what you need to hear so that they can keep you in the game because they got to evaluate three vendors. So what are some ways that sales reps can detect deception in a sales process to figure out if somebody's just dragging them along here without being, I mean, without being very blunt about it, being like, you know, cause I've gotten to the point in my career, like, I don't like playing games. So if I can tell, if I can sniff out that you're full of shit, I'm just going to go like, Jeremy, do you really, do you really want it?

Like, I don't need to waste your time. And I sure as shit don't want to waste mine, man. Like, if you really don't want this, we can stop this conversation, right? I got no problem doing that, but a 23 year old kid's not going to do that to a CISO. So how can you detect that if someone's, if somebody is really being deceptive in sales? A couple of things to say, or first of all, there's a lot, I've seen a lot of former CIA case officers, FBI agents kind of leave, go into the private sector. I've seen a number of cases where they claim to be able to make deal teams into a human lie detector, right? And there's a lot of big claims on that. And it's not my specific expertise, but again, researching, writing this, working with many of these people, I've been told over and over again, that that is not the case.

And I've never been told that it is, that there's no foolproof way to detect if someone's lying, even a polygraph gets it wrong. Again, humans are so complex, but there are a number of different ways where we can detect if someone is uncomfortable. And I can talk about that with body language a little bit. And then there are ways when people respond to questions that you can, you can potentially observe what might be deceptive behaviors and would create a red flag, if you will. So I'm not able to, I want to make sure I'm not BSing anybody. I'm not able to tell you if someone's lying or not. But when it comes to body language, if you're in a meeting and you're meeting with, you know, a CISO, and that CISO winds up reaching out, it's sprawling out, opening their arms out wide, their legs are sprawled out wide.

They put their papers all over the boardroom table, right? What that's doing is showing territorial behavior. And it's not just for, you know, National Geographic documentaries. Humans demonstrate territorial behavior too. So as a sales rep, you might want to say, this guy is really vibing me like, hey, I'm in charge here. So my person might be saying, oh yeah, that's really interesting. I can't wait to see your proposal. For me, I'm taking that with a grain of salt because of the dominance they're trying to show here. And they might be bullshitting me. When I see someone behaving with that kind of territorial behavior, I take everything they're saying with a slight discount, not knowing if it's true, or if they're just trying to assert their dominance.

If I say, yeah, look, you know, we're competitive on price. It's going to be X amount, but we'd love to get you a proposal. And I say, oh, that sounds great. I, you know, I can't wait to get that proposal, you know, and then they're rubbing their neck. There are soothing behaviors. And I write about this in the book. We can look at soothing behaviors and determine when someone might be feeling uncomfortable. And the key there is to find a baseline of behavior when you walk into a room. Are you someone who is gesturing a lot with a lot of body language, you know, or are you somebody that kind of sits placidly? Well, when you see a deviation from the body language and you're talking, you want to ask yourself, why did that deviation come up?

Was it a question I just raised? Was it something she or he touched upon? So those are some of the triggers I'm looking at as well. And then specifically when it comes to detecting deception, there are a number of things I write about in my book. So I'm going to piss off some New England Patriots fans with this example, but failure to understand a question, right? Tom Brady. Yeah. Yeah. With the, with the deflating scandal, you know, they said, Hey Tom, did you know, were you aware that the footballs were being deflated? And Tom goes, Oh, well, I'd never cheat. Well, he didn't answer the question when he did that. Right. So, you know, if you ask your, your client a question about, you know, what do you think of our proposal?

And they say, um, we got a lot of proposals in and I'll get back to you soon. Well, that's an interesting answer, isn't it? So while there's no way to absolutely tell when someone's lying, you need to be really sensitive to the body language and the way they're answering your questions. And then you can read into a little bit more about how they're feeling about you and your proposal. Yeah. I find that always interesting. I mean, going back to the guy Kawasaki, when I asked him like, Hey, what's the point of this fucking conversation? And he was like, well, legacy. And he like, and he moved to legacy. I'm like, that wasn't the answer to my question, man. I'm like, this is a deep philosophical question about AI.

And I know he didn't want to get, we were at the end of the conversation anyways. So I didn't want to pull that thread anymore, but it was really interesting to see him react to it the way, cause you could tell he was like, I don't, I know I don't have a great answer. I don't think anybody does. So it was maybe an unfair one. Um, let's finish up on a couple of things. Um, mirroring, right. We talk a lot about mirroring, you know, voice inflection, leaning in, uh, leaning in when people do. And again, I think people, some people take it to the nth degree and go a little ridiculous with it, but where for you, um, first of all, could you just explain to the audience if they don't know what mirroring is and, and how far you take mirroring when it comes to relating to people?

Yeah. Uh, I need to see it, save a couple of details for the book, but, uh, generally speaking, mirroring is the physical replication of another person's behavior. And it has been shown scientifically to, uh, shortcut the report building process. We actually have mirror neurons. It's been demonstrated in, in, uh, monkeys and they've done a lot of science on this. When people mirror our, our physical, uh, behavior, it gives us comfort. And we think we know this person more. So it is just an incredibly smart way to make sure that you're trying to connect with your clients. And the simple thing is if your client is at the meeting, attentive, leaning forward and interested, you don't want to strike a pose of sitting back, relaxed in a different position.

You want to mirror that the, the, there's been a lot about mirroring and it's very powerful. I write about it in my book. What my edition is what I call verbal mirroring, uh, that I described as kind of the varsity move of mirroring. Um, this is where I'll leave, you know, some details for readers about how, how to think about that, but it comes from the world of FBI hostage negotiators and how they build rapport with people who've taken people hostage. So imagine the tensions in that situation and the need to quickly build rapport. Because when people, what I can say is when people come out of these hostage sieges, they don't come out because they've gotten, you know, all the things they wanted.

They're going to, they come out because the hostage negotiator made them feel respected. They, they say, I felt heard. And we can take those lessons into the sales process as well. Do you, have you, have you met Chris Voss? Do you, have you interviewed him? I've never met Chris Voss, but my book is compared to him, you know, comes up all the time. I've worked with, I think both of the two former chief hostage negotiators that I know well and worked with Gary Nessner and Steve Romano. I believe that they both had Chris working for them. And Gary, who's in the book quite a bit, um, was the guy, uh, who, who did Waco, Mike, the Michael Shannon character on the TV show. And Gary has a little, uh, cameo in it as well.

Uh, but I think Chris worked for those guys. Chris's book is terrific. And, uh, we're all hoping my book does, you know, close to what he's done with his, he's, he's taken that to that, but he talks a lot about that mirroring and just upward tone inflection and repeating somebody and you know, how, what you want to do is, you know, that's right versus you're right. You know what I mean? Like small nuances like that, but that is like for, uh, like for me, I'm a keep it simple, stupid guy. Like I pick up on stuff of this along the way. And there's little nuances that I've been picking up that I, Oh, there's a little indicator there. Okay. I'm doing a good job or I'm not doing a good job. So I think all of these little pieces are fantastic.

And, and I think you're on the, you're on the right track with this, because I think, you know, it isn't about hostages, right? I mean, that's one of the things I worry a little bit about with negotiations that people think it's like that high stakes negotiation, but it doesn't have to be right. We can, we can learn a ton to your point, like the misperceptions of spies versus really what they are. Uh, and the misperceptions of sales reps versus really what they are like true sales reps, what they really are. And so, uh, you know, I love all this stuff that, that, that you're doing here. Cause I think there's something for us to learn from, from all of it. Um, last question. What was like the craziest fucking story you heard out of all these interviews?

Like that was, that just like either an example that you were like, Holy shit, I can't believe that happened or panned out that way. Like what was the craziest one out of all of them that you were like, wow. I don't want to disappoint you, but a lot of what, uh, what I'm doing with spies is debunking the craziest shit because, uh, you know, there's a, there's a more humdrum aspect to espionage than people want there to be. But one, the first thing that came to mind might not seem that extraordinary, but it, it relates to what, um, I, I, I find is a popular thing to teach sales reps, especially when you're, you're dealing with a big, um, like big fish sales, you know, with something that you can take, people would need to take time, you know, six, seven figure sales, that kind of thing.

The idea of the access agent, sometimes people call it the internal champion. I have a client that calls it their coach looking to identify that person. Um, and, uh, spies think about this as an access agent, right? Um, and one of the stories in my book is of a, uh, during the time of the Soviet union, the U S case officer based over there, um, cultivated, uh, I'm not sure if the person was Russian or not, but they were on the diplomatic circuit and they hosted many parties. And this person was recruited as an access agent, not because they were going to be the person that was going to be sold to, right? So they're not the person who's going to be the buyer, but they're the person that's going to help.

And they helped by hosting parties, having this case officer come and slipping them the key to the cloakroom. And the spy would get into the cloakroom and rifle through the different pockets and copy keys and note down calendar dates. Um, and I just thought that was a really nifty piece of spy trade craft. Um, so, uh, that's, that's one of them. I usually, if I want to tell people crazy stories, I talk about drinking Cobra blood in Taipei or getting deported from Brazil. And so I have my own crazy stories. I love it. Did you, um, favorite spy movie? Like that's, that's true to like, you know, bridge of spies, that type of stuff with Tom Hanks. Like any, do you have a favorite one that's like, this is or, or kind of spy movie?

Like, you know, I think of, um, which was the one with Leonardo DiCaprio, where he was in Boston and he was mighty bulger, you know, and he infiltrated that, um, whatever. Uh, yeah, I do remember the whole one. I'm better with spy books, but I just was watching my favorite spy movie last night. I'll turn, I'll keep it on, especially at the ending, whenever it's on zero dark 30, um, which is really great. Um, you know, the, the, the chase for bin Laden and ultimately getting him as a huge part of my life. You know, I was overseas during nine 11, I'm a New Yorker. I was living in Prague. I was writing about, you know, terrorism. We all went through this. So the, the ultimate, you know, tracking down of bin Laden was an amazing moment in American history shows our perseverance.

Um, it's something I still get emotional about even watching. Um, but I do like the trade craft and the, the tenor of it and how the, the people go about doing what they're doing. I remember seeing the movie in the theater with, um, uh, a former case officer that's known as non-official cover. So he didn't have diplomatic cover. It's very dangerous. He was posing as a business person. He didn't have any of those protections. We watched it together and he thought it was really credible. Um, the scene at the end with the seals is just incredibly riveting. I had the good fortune of, uh, hosting Matt Bissonette, one of the seals on the seal team six mission who was 60 minutes and did all this for a talk at one of my consulting firms and really admire him.

And then, uh, that, that movie, I think is just one of the best out there that or so that bin Laden stuff, right? Uh, I want to think I had to, but yeah, yeah, please. Well, I was going to, yeah, no, go ahead. No, you go in first and I'll go. The Robert Grenier, um, Grenier, when he talked about how he was the first guy to talk to the, his, the first thing in the forward, right? Where he, he was the first guy to talk to the Taliban after nine 11 and he got, um, I don't Muhammad, whatever, um, to, to agree to like, all right, we're going to do this. And he had him convinced, but then he went to, you know, the long trail to go do it. And he couldn't, he couldn't convince his crew to, to get that done.

I find that a lot with sales. It's like, you have your champion, you get your champion all fired up, but then once they go internally and they try to get everybody else on board, it's like a fucking disaster. So it was a really, um, interesting story for him to say, yeah, I wish this had actually turned out the way I wanted it to after that, but we learn a lot from our mistakes, not exactly our mistakes, but you know, the, the falsities of getting that belief in one person and not necessarily getting them to get everybody else to believe. I thought that was just like, oof. Yeah. It's a tough one. Bob Grenier is a friend and mentor. And we talked about that forward and, um, you know, whether that would work because he didn't actually make the deal, but I still feel it's a compelling sales story.

And the only other, the other thing I wanted to mention for spy movies is the movie Munich, uh, the Spielberg movie. Um, the, the, you should see it. And the, the firm I currently advise, uh, Interfor International was founded by the person who, who the Eric Banna character in the movie is based on. So he's a former sod agent. Uh, and that is a really good one as well. So I'd encourage you to check that out. All right. I'll put that one on the list. Awesome, Jeremy. Well, look, I think I could talk all day, but, uh, you probably want people to read the book. So, uh, where can they find out more information about you, about what you're working on, about some of those, uh, seminars and stuff that you're doing and the book, uh, is it, is it out yet?

Cause I got the forward copy here. Is it out yet? Yeah. The book is out on August 27th. It's available pre-order now everywhere, you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whatever. Uh, encourage people to go to their local bookstore. Uh, keep those going. I'm a big fan of local bookstores. It's out August 27th. You can find out more information about me on my website, sell like a spy.net. Um, similar on Twitter with that handle. Uh, I have a new Twitter account. So go there and follow me. Uh, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn as well. So those are some great places to keep up with what I'm doing and love to hear from your listeners and, uh, everyone should go buy the book and I'm so grateful for you having me on here, John.

I've enjoyed the conversation. Absolutely. Thanks for coming on. I truly enjoyed it as well. I always like to take interesting angles from sales and not talk about the same shit all the time. So appreciate you coming on and, uh, and, uh, all the information you're sharing here. So good luck with the book and, uh, we'll do what we can to get it out there for you. All right. Thank you so much. Awesome, everybody. And thank you all for listening. As always, like I say, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, make somebody smile and 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. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day, just like you go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today. Let's all level up and make this happen together.