Mark Raffan: Negotiating Lessons from Procurement

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 what you're about to listen to here is a masterclass in negotiations. Mark Raffin is the CEO of Negotiations Ninja, a sales training company that trains sales professionals on how to negotiate specifically with procurement. Now what makes Mark special and so unique is that he used to work in procurement, so he knows all their tricks and how to work with them most effectively. In this episode, we start by getting Mark's opinion on the current state of negotiations and how it's evolved over the years and discuss the different methodologies and why it's really dangerous to get stuck on using just one.

He breaks down why the win-win mentality is actually a bad thing in negotiations and highlights some of the areas where he agrees and disagrees with one of the most well-known negotiators in the world, Chris Voss, who wrote Never Split the Difference. We then talk about negotiating when you have a nice-to-have solution versus a must-have solution, the value of knowing your walkaway line, and the impact time has on negotiations. This episode is jam-packed with tips, techniques, and approaches that you can use to improve your negotiation skills today. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper.

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Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. Mark Raffin, how are you, my friend? It's been a long time. I'm so pleased to be with you, man. It has been a long time. But I always see your content online, so I feel like I'm always on top of what you're doing and what your team is doing. By the way, kudos, man. Your content has been killing it lately. I love it. Thanks, man. We're trying. I think you're actually going to see, by the time this gets launched, we're doing a whole rebrand, too. So it's funny because we've evolved from Jay Barrows, which was me, right? That's when I first started as a solo guy.

And then got a few people on board, and we had to get away from it being me personally, like when we got Morgan on board and everything else. So we changed to JBSales, and now we're going to sell better by JBSales. So you're going to see a whole new brand. You're going to see a whole new brand. Yeah, I love that new branding. Sell better stuff looks awesome. Yeah, we're trying, man. It's just trying to get better, trying to improve, trying to stay ahead of what's going on right now. It's really interesting what's happening, as you know, in the content space as far as the crap that's out there. I mean, look, there's a lot of good stuff out there, but there's so many people out there talking stuff that just sounds really good.

And I think we're going to get into that today. But really, when you peel it back, you look at some of these people who are giving these tips, and you look at their LinkedIn profiles, and you realize they haven't really sold anything in their entire life. You know what I mean? So it's like, how can I take advice from you when you've really never done this, even though it sounds really good when you put it on a little TikTok video or anything like that? Yeah, we could have a whole separate interview about that. Oh, trust me, we will. What a gong show. We will. I don't get it. I think, quite frankly, I'm going to think I'm going to do a webinar on it. I think I'm going to do a webinar, and I'm going to have you, Josh Braun, and a few other people come on, and we're going to talk about it and talk about the real value of what it is, because I am scared of that platform, quite frankly.

And I don't see a ton of value in it, but we'll see. I got another couple of months on my little experiment that I'm doing with him. So anyways, for those of the audience that does not know Mark, I think he came on a long time ago, right? Probably a couple of years back. Mark, give a little background, Negotiations Ninja, but where are you coming from? Because you have a very unique kind of niche here in the negotiations world that I love. So tell the audience a little bit about the background and what you're doing these days. Yeah, I mean, all of your audience, or at least I would probably say most of your audience, are all salespeople, right? And for the salespeople that are listening in right now, I come from the dark side.

I come from the other side of the conversation. I'm from the procurement world, baby. Yeah, that's my background. That's where I grew up, right? Yeah, let's hear it. Boo, this guy sucks. We don't want to hear this guy talk. No, yeah, that's been my life. I actually started my career out in sales and then moved into procurement. And about four-ish plus years ago, started Negotiations Ninja, which is a training and coaching organization that's designed to help people level up their negotiation skill sets. And the entire purpose of that is so that people can get more value out of their negotiations. And I think so often in negotiations, we settle for significantly less than we should because we're so afraid of damaging the relationship or the deal or losing the deal that this fear is so pervasive in what we do.

But it's primarily because we don't have the tools and the skill sets to get us through to the other side and get more value. And that's been our mission for quite some time now, to make sure that people are getting better value. Love it. And I think that I have always said the best negotiation tool that you can have is a big, fat pipeline, right? Because by putting yourself in a position where you want the business but you don't need it, then you can, quote-unquote, negotiate the right way. Because now you don't, you know, you're not desperate. You don't give away that discount. You don't try to push them to close the end of the month because you can do it in a much more natural fashion. And I think that's one of the things that frustrates me a lot about real negotiations.

And I'd love your insights on this is, you know, when all is everything being equal and there's no like pressure to get the deal done type of stuff. I think negotiation takes on a much more natural flow. Whereas the pressures that we put from a business standpoint, monthly end, quarterly end, and how we've conditioned the prospects and our clients to wait until the end of the month, wait until the end of the year. I mean, it kills me when reps use the end of the month discount, right? The proactive end of, hey, you know, if you sign, but I'm like, God, would you just stop that shit? Everybody knows the discount doesn't go away. It's like, oh, sorry. Like, what did your profitability change over the weekend?

Shut up. By the way, if I don't really need your product, then fine. I'll wait till the end of next quarter and I'll make it even harder for you. Yes, exactly. So talk to me about kind of, let's macro out a little bit here about, I love your kind of, with where we are in sales and kind of today's world. What's your kind of overarching view of negotiations? Healthy, unhealthy? Are we headed in the right direction or wrong direction? Is it situational? Give me some kind of just an overview and then let's dive into some of the details here. I think we're in a good spot in the quality and volume of content that is being produced in the negotiation world. I think there's still a lot of work that needs to be done around maybe some of the finer nuances that exist.

But overall, the information is good. What I see a lot of people falling into the trap of is that they get stuck to a particular method. They get stuck to – and it almost becomes ideological, dogmatic, almost religious in a way. People are like, oh, I believe in this method or I believe in that method. And when I see those kinds of things, it makes my heart beat fast because negotiation like sales is a practice, meaning there is no one way to do something. And each situation that you're going into is going to be unique. You cannot apply the same things that you need and want from one negotiation to the next negotiation because your person, the counterparty that you are negotiating with, is going to be different.

The industry that they're in is going to be different. The company that they're negotiating on behalf of is going to be different. The market or the geography that you're negotiating within may also be different. And so for us to try and apply the same needs and wants from one negotiation to the other negotiation is challenging. Sure, you can have the same sort of strategy, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're – the things that you want to try and achieve out of that negotiation are different. I mean we've seen it. The market has changed so much, especially in the SaaS world, right? We've seen so much change that it would be very foolish to apply the same needs from eight to ten months ago to today.

You're going to have different outcomes. And so the biggest piece of caution that I would throw out to a lot of people is don't get entrenched in one way. Don't get entrenched in one ideology. I mean the main ideology that we see all the time is this whole concept of win-win, for example, right? Which sounds great, by the way. It sounds amazing. We hear it because – and we want to do it because it sounds fair. Like you win and I win and that sounds fair. But what is fair really? Fair is based on what your perception of what fair is and also what my perception of what fair is. And those things may not necessarily align. And so when I say, well, this is a fair deal, you may say to me, no, it's not.

This deal fucking sucks. I don't want this deal. Actually, I think – And so that's a big problem. Doesn't Chris Voss say that fair is like the four-letter word in negotiations because it's something like we all as human beings want to fundamentally be fair? So like I think if I remember this correctly, he talks about if you deliver it as I think this is a fair offer, you're basically putting the other person in a position to say that you're not being fair. So you're automatically putting them in an awkward spot because you're coming from a, hey, I think this is fair. And so is that like – so just on that specific one, is that – what do you think about the word – just using the word fair in a negotiation?

It's very dangerous. It's incredibly dangerous. And then I would – there's a lot of things that I don't agree with Chris Voss on. We can get into that. But there's a lot of things that I do agree with him on. And the one thing that I think he's very, very clear on, very consistent on is the imposition of your perspective of what fair is. Because when you say those things, you're imposing your viewpoint on that person. And that may not – you're immediately creating a sense of conflict when that happens. Because as long as that person really understands what they need or want to achieve out of that negotiation, they're going to immediately look at that and go, well, it may sound fair for you, but it's not fair for me.

And now we're in a conflict situation instead of exploring what may be some things that we can get common ground on to drive for a mutually beneficial outcome. And so I think the whole idea of fair is really, really scary. But that's also what is sort of the foundation of the whole concept of win-win because what is a win-win? I mean even the word doesn't make a lot of sense, right? Because if you win and I win, that's really just a tie. That's not going to – there is going to be someone, by the way, let's get real about this. There is going to be someone who is going to get more value out of the negotiation. That's reality. And so the problem that I have with a lot of these concepts is they deal with the idyllic state of what we want negotiation to be like.

Because, yeah, we want everyone to come away with equal value and we all get along and sing kumbaya and let's all hold hands. Sure, that sounds great. But it's just not reality because you're making the assumption, first of all, that the counterparty is going to be rational and reasonable. And that's a big assumption. You know what I mean? Most people walk in with an agenda, no question about it. And that's one thing I – Absolutely. With the win-win, I'll bring up Chris Voss. I was like, yes, we want a win-win ultimately, okay. But it doesn't mean we get everything. But the scary part is when people walk into the negotiation saying they want a win-win, like that should be a massive red flag because what the likelihood is is they're going to inflate whatever they're bringing to the table and they're going to give up down to what they actually wanted anyways.

And you're going to start with what you had and you're going to go below that. And so it's going to seem like a win-win because they've given up a certain amount, but they really didn't give up that stuff anyways. I mean, I used to put stuff in my negotiations just to give away anyways to make you feel good. For instance, I used to have in my contracts when I was selling at my first company, I used to put net 20 terms. And it was odd, right? And they'd always get redlined. They'd be like, net 20? I'd be like, well, I'm a small business and net 30 is really net 60 and that type of thing. So I tried to truncate that a little bit, but it was not something I'd never gave a shit about. It was like, okay, fine, net 30.

But it was a give so I could make them feel good because I was letting you know that I was giving you something and I was, you know, whatever it was. But it wasn't, it was manufactured. You know, I was doing it because I needed something to give away to make you feel like you were getting something out of that. Yeah, exactly. Win-win presupposes that we can be fully or should be fully transparent with each other. That's dangerous, man. Because if I'm fully transparent with you about where my business is and what I want to achieve and you're fully transparent, like now we're, now we, not only do we need to be fully transparent, but if we are fully transparent, we need to completely trust the counterparty that they're not going to do anything malicious with that information.

Even worse, even worse, we don't have to just trust them. We have to trust their entire organization because they might be honest, they might be transparent, but when they bring in procurement, when they bring in leadership, when they bring in anybody else, they're not. And all that work we did to build that rapport is now getting through. I mean, how many times have you gone through a negotiation with somebody where you thought everything was right, you were on the same page, and then somebody else came in and basically kicked the shit out of you with no context. And this is where, this is why sales reps hate procurement the most is because if we don't involve them in the process, then they do their job and their job to get the best value out of the, and so there's no context to it.

So they're going to beat the shit out of you, no matter what you did to get there. That's why discounting is such a dangerous game because nobody looks at discounting as, oh, thanks for getting us there. It's like, once you get to that point, that's now the negotiations point. Now I'm going from there down. Forget about, you know, oh, thanks for doing, you know, four discounts up until this point. Now it's my turn. I'm going even lower than that. Yeah, exactly correct. And I think that, I mean, this is a really great segue into this whole idea of reciprocity that exists. I'm very cautious with the idea of reciprocity and negotiations because they're, in your, I would say in your personal life, sure, right?

Like with your partner, with your kids, personal relationships with family, fine. I'm not going to jump into those conversations because I'm not a psychologist and I can't comment on that. But when it comes to negotiation, when you concede something in a negotiation and you don't, and you expect the counterparty to give you something in return, you're an idiot. Don't do that. You must ask. Like you give and then expect to get something in return. It's not going to happen because I'll tell you what happens because I'm a procurement person and I did this for a living for a very long time. If you, as a salesperson, give me a discount and expect me to give you better terms on something else in return, I'm just going to ask you for more.

I'm not going to give you shit. There's nothing that's going to come. I promise you this. So instead of conceding something and then expecting something in return, make sure that when you concede, you make your concessions conditional on getting something. If I give you this thing, I need X, Y, and Z in return for those things. Can you get me that? Yes, no. Great example for you. I sell to procurement for a living now because I sell negotiation trading, right? And I had this conversation with a procurement person the other day and we were going back and forth on concessions. They said, Mark, you've got to help me out on price. I said, well, you've got to make it interesting for me to help you out on price.

Like, what are we talking about here? They're like, oh, the reward is the business. I was like, you came to me. That's not how this works. You want the negotiation training, right? Right. Perfect. So this is the price. Well, help me out on the price. Why? Tell me what it is you're going to give me. Let me, I will suggest a few things to help you out on price, right? You prepay me. I will help you out on price. You prepay me for these services. Well, that doesn't seem like a win-win. I was like, well, what's your definition of win-win? And then she's like, well, I want to feel like I've won. I said, and what about me? If you really believe in win-win, then, and I was like, aha, exactly. Win-win is a concept that everyone talks about and no one actually does because it's a great sounding tagline.

I see. And that's why the reciprocity thing, I think that nuance, though, that you mentioned is reciprocity is real. It's actually a human condition, but it can't be expected because, and it's, and there's also an immediacy to it in the sense that if I do a bunch, if I ask you for a bunch of things right now and you give them to me, and then five days later, you try to get something in return from me, I'm not going to like, I'm not equal now. And you're going to be mad because you remember all the stuff you gave away to me beforehand. Now you feel like I owe you something. So there's an immediacy to the reciprocity and there's a skill to changing reciprocity from quid pro quo to reciprocity and leveraging it, right?

Because quid pro quo is, you want a better price, fine. I will not give you a better price unless you give me this, right? And that's contentious. That's an argument. That's beating each other up. But if what I, you know, nuance train on is, hey, Mark, look, I'm thrilled to, you know, yeah, look, I want to give you a better pricing here. In order for me to do that, this is what I need in return from you. Like, basically, in order for me to give you exactly, and I even over-index it. I'm like, Mark, I want to give you exactly what you're looking for, okay? I really do. In order for me to do that, this is what I need. I need you to tell me that if I can get to that price, you're going to sign today.

Or I need you to tell me that, you know, you're going to be able to, you know, go from this many licenses to this many licenses. Whatever that might be, right? Because if you don't get it right then and there, you lose it. So how do you talk about this, though, as it relates to, and let's use this lens, what's the difference between negotiating for a vitamin versus a, you know, aspirin? You know, a need to have versus a must have. Or a want to have versus a must have, right? Like, I don't really need this. It sounds cool versus no, I absolutely need this. Is there a difference in those negotiations? Because you and I probably run across a bunch of sales reps who are like, well, I sell kind of a nice to have.

It's not really a must have. It's a nice to have. And we can peel back as far as discovery and how they fucked it up and they, you know, should position it differently. But when you're in the situation where they don't really have to do this, it's not business critical for them or whatever it is. It's more of a like to have. Is there a difference in that type of negotiation that you take, the approach that you take to those? Yeah. And I think there's two parts to this that we need to break down. So the first is positioning up front of like, how have you positioned your product? Because let me be honest. If you believe your product is a nice to have, you probably shouldn't be selling that product.

That's what I tell them all the time. It needs to be a must have in your own head. Otherwise, you're never going to be able to do that product justice because you'll never be able to show how the features and benefits of that product benefit the organization and how that is a must have for that organization. We can we can we can deal with that separately. But then when we get into the negotiation, we have different needs and wants. But most people go into negotiations thinking about aspirational goals first and not thinking about the objectives that drive towards those aspirational goals. So typical salesperson going into it. I want to make more money. I want to I want to reduce risk. I want to expand services.

These are great aspirational goals, but they actually don't mean anything. So when you say I want to make more money, what does that actually mean? How much more money and then how do you drive that money? Is it by increasing your prices? Is it by increasing the volume of seats? Is it by cross selling into a different department? Is it by getting referrals from that customer? What are the things that will drive more money? Get really objective about that and think about now, OK, what are my aspirational goals? But within that, what are the needs and wants that I have that drive towards that aspirational goal? I need to increase my prices. OK, by how much? So I force people to really think about getting really objective about things that they can now benchmark success on because most of us are winging it, right?

When we go into the negotiations, we're like, I want to make more money. Let's see how much I can get. You have no idea if you've been successful because there may have been an additional 20 percent there that you didn't know you could get. But you settled for five and you're like, yay, good for me, right? So you need to get very, very clear about objectively what you need and want and then start thinking about the range of acceptable outcomes that you have on each of those things. I love it. Talk to me about the concept of a walkaway line, right? So, you know, I've heard you think of like if you watch Shark Tank, right? It always cracks me up when somebody goes in there saying, you know what, I'm going to give 20 percent of my company for $200,000, right?

And then they walk out and they give away 95 percent of their business for like 50 bucks. And they're like, oh, what happened here? It's like, what the fuck? Like, so what's your, I have my opinions on walkaway lines, but what is your opinion on walking and going to your preparation for a negotiation, knowing that there's a certain point that you just will walk away from? And so going back to your point of making it objective, what is your thought on that? Yeah, you need to be, first of all, I like the concept of being willing to walk away. But I think that that's very different than actually walking away. And what a lot of people do is they get wrapped up in the emotion of the deal and don't walk away when they should.

Because they are not clear about what that line in the sand is for them. And it's going to be different for everyone, folks. Like, it's going to be different for each deal. It's going to be different for each salesperson. But you need to be very clear about what that is, because if you don't, that person, if they are a good negotiator that you're negotiating with, will grind you and grind you and grind you until they feel like they've gotten to the point right before your ability to walk away so that they can get what they need and want. And the problem that a lot of people have when they go into negotiations is they're not clear about where that line is. And then they end up conceding, conceding, conceding, conceding.

And then they end up with a significantly less optimal deal than they should. My whole philosophy on this is that we all have a walkaway line in our head. Whether we define it or not, we do. And there's a point in any negotiations, and I guarantee anybody listening to this who's actually been in negotiations knows this feeling, where at a certain point, it just doesn't feel fair anymore. Right? Where you're in it, and they keep nibbling. And you actually labeled this in our first conversation, where they talk about nibbling, where they're right at the end. And right at the end, they're like, yep, John, we're going to sign. But instead of doing that three-year contract, we're just going to do one year.

So if you just update the contract to that one-year contract, we'll sign today. And you've invested so much time in it that you're just like, ah, fuck it. But there's a point in everybody's height. And then the weird thing about that non-defined walkaway line in our head is once it goes past that, it's actually diminishing returns. Because now you're reacting poorly. You start to get aggravated. You're shorter with your responses to them. So it literally unfolds itself. So I think that almost – I wrote a blog post a long time ago called, I think everybody should keep score. And I mean this. And I mean this objectively. And I mean this across life. And I know this is going to sound a little harsh here.

But we all have that fair – that barometer in our head of something where we've given too much and somebody hasn't – and let's talk about our significant others. If you come home all the time and you're the one making dinner and doing the dishes every single time, right? And you're fine with it. It's like, hey, I'm a husband here. I'm going to help out around the house. But every time you're the one doing the dishes. After a little while, you're going to start to get snippy about it and be like, would you fucking do the dishes every once in a while? And then it's going to turn into an argument. Whereas if you objectively go into – and my wife and I, as an example, whoever cooks doesn't do the dishes.

So whoever doesn't cook has to do the dishes. So it's fair. So I don't – I'm – so I'm objectively keeping score here. So what are your thoughts on like that – because other people say, oh, you should never keep score in like a friendship. But we do inherently anyways, don't we? Yeah. For those people that say those things, I think they're just not being as honest with themselves as they probably should be, right? Like – and I think we all go through this material – let's – personal friendships, right? Seeing as though that's the example that was brought up. I went through this evolution myself a few years ago where I was always the person in the friendship relationship that was investing, right?

I'd be reaching out. I'd be having the phone calls. I'd be the shoulder to cry on. I'd be the guy that would take people out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Same thing. And at some point in time, I realized this shit isn't – it's not cutting it, right? It's not going to work for me. So I made a decision at that point to say I'm happy to invest, but only if I get an equal investment in return. And the unfortunate side effect of that is that I've lost a lot of friendships. That's really sad. But the reality is I found out who my real friends are. There you go. And I think that in relationships as in business, we're going to keep score, right? Whether it's subconscious or whether it's objective, we have a tally that we're going through in our heads.

And look, I mean, you know this. You're an entrepreneur. If you're not keeping score, then there's – what is the point, right? There is no point. And so I think if we can apply that, maybe not as – Strongly in our personal lives, but we still apply it, I think it makes a ton of sense. And negotiation is about that. I know when we say like, hey, you shouldn't keep score in a negotiation, let's cut the nonsense, all right? We are going to keep score. You're going to make – you're going to – if you feel like you've gotten a good deal, you've kept score in that negotiation. And so I think people are just not honest with themselves when they – the reality is different because we love to deal with these platitudes, right?

Of like, oh, it should always be this way. Well, yeah. And look, this is a conversation I had the other day. I said to a person, look, you're going to get judged. You're going to get judged based on how you look, how you talk, how you act. All of those things will happen. It's guaranteed. And they said, well, Mark, it shouldn't be that way. And I was like, you're right. It shouldn't be that way. You're absolutely correct. But it is that way. And so you can deal with the way that things should be or you can deal with the reality of the situation. And that's not a lot of – a lot of people don't want to deal with that. What's up, everybody? I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes, and our guests consistently bring the heat.

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Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL, one more time, is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guest for this week. I've implemented in my life a, I call it the three-strike-and-you're-out rule, okay? And I apply this with vendors. I apply this with friends. I apply this with family. For instance, if you and I are, you know, we're friends, Mark, right? And say we're close and, you know, you live close by and we hang out all the time and then you move away. I'm going to call you proactively once. And, hey, Mark, what's up, man? Let's keep going. I'm going to call you proactively twice. Hey, Mark, what's going on? I'm going to call you three times.

And after that third time, if you don't reach back out to me, it's not that I'm not going to call you. It's just now I'm not going to be proactive about it. It doesn't mean that when you and I get together, you're not going to continue to invest. And so it's the same thing with keeping score. Like, that's why what drove me to this training, the Basho training when I took it, was this scorecard that Jeff Hoffman had created where it was all the gives and all the gets. And it's like, let's laundry list every give, everything that the client asks of you and let's prioritize it. Easy to give away, hard to give away. And then let's get all the gets, what we want in early and late and match it up.

So when somebody asks for a five, I'm asking for a five in return. Somebody asks for a 10, I ask for a 10 in return. We score deals. I gave away a one, a five, and a six. I got a two, a four, and a seven. That score, 12 to 13, tells me how healthy the fucking deal is. And it's an objective view of it, right? Now, the subjectivity comes in after that fact, but the objectivity says, oh, wait a minute, the score of this deal is 275 to 15. Like, what the fuck am I doing right now? And for me, what it does is it actually helps me identify it way earlier so I don't go past that annoyance level, right? Because now it's like, if you and I are going through this and we're pretty cool, because when I used to lose a deal or when I, younger years, when I would realize that I was losing a deal, it was usually way too late.

I was so far off that I was trying to get really unnatural things to happen, like huge discounts or, you know, getting, you know, going over your head or something like that. Whereas if I do keep score, I can say, be like, hey, we're good. We're good. I'm starting to lose it right now. And I can do something about it here before I get emotionally involved in how annoyed I am that you kicked the shit out of me for this entire time. So to your point, like, objectivity is a negotiator's friend for the most part, right? Yeah, and I think people, they have these cop-out situations where they're like, well, how do you objectively measure a relationship? Do it, right? Like you say, one of the goals in your negotiation may be, I want to improve the relationship with this person over the course of our relationship.

Great. What are the components within that relationship that you're going to measure that against? How many times are you going to call them? How many times are you going to take them out for dinner? How many times are you going to go for golf? Like, what are the things that you're going to measure the quality of this relationship on? It's like a couple arguing over like, hey, we want to improve our relationship. And then they do nothing to improve their relationship. Like, that's crazy. So there has to be some objective measurement of subjective things. How much does time play into this as far as time invested? Because, and I'll give you the scenario here of the, this is what Jeff Hoffman told me, which I find hysterical, right?

Because he actually used to sell cars and like at 14 years old, he was selling cars and he's, he's one of those natural born pure, like actual sales professionals. Right. And he would say that you never want to walk onto a car lot and hold up the car facts and be like, this is all I'm going to pay. I know how much margin you do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this is what I, right. Because they're just going to be like, all right, get the fuck out of here. Like, no, thank you. Right. Because there's no time invested. So what he says is that if you really want the best deal in a car, you basically waste the sales reps time. So you go, you ask for the, you ask for the, the, um, you know, test drive and you take it on a long test drive.

And then you tell them, eh, I don't know yet. I'll be back. And then you come back and you find the exact same sales rep. You don't go to a different one. You find the exact same sales rep and say, look, I went from the Beamer, the Lexus and the Benz and all these. It's just now between the Beamer and the Lexus, but I really want to just take it for one more spin. Could you take another spin with me? And then they take you on another spin and then you still don't buy. And then you come at the end of the month. And because that rep has spent so much time with you, they're going to give up the farm. Now they do it on the flip side to you where you sign it. You're like, yeah, I want to buy this car.

And guess how long you stay at that fucking dealership talking to the finance people. Like you're literally there for three, four hours, because even though they could just say, here you go, here's your fucking car. They go, well, we'll be right with you. And your kid's running around like a maniac. And they're like, oh, by the way, do you want the sunroof on that? You're like, fuck it. Yes, just give me the goddamn sunroof. I'll take the extra rims on the tires and fine. And now you pay twice as much as what you paid. So how much does time invested impact the negotiation? Timing and time as two separate concepts are really, really, really important. Focusing on time. There's a fantastic book by – he was an FBI behavioral analyst.

His name is Jack Schaefer. And he wrote a book called The Like Switch. And in that book, he spoke about the formula for getting someone to like you so that you can extract more – in his case, it was information – so that you can extract more information out of that person and so that they will give you more things. And his formula was friendship or, as it's known in the book, like someone's liking you, equals proximity, so how close you are to that person, multiplied by frequency and duration. So frequency, how often it happens, duration, how long that meeting is, multiplied by intensity. So what he found was the more frequent our interactions are, the more long our interactions are, and the more emotionally intense our interactions are, and the closer we are together, the more you're going to like me.

And that holds true based on the research that he's done. And so what I would say to you – and this is why transactional sales sometimes get really, really difficult, because there's a frequency and duration aspect to what we sell on an ongoing basis. Meaning, if you – I know you hate these words, but if you are not touching base, if you are not – I know I immediately knew you were going to give me that response. But if you are not reaching out to your contacts on an ongoing basis to make sure that that frequency, duration, intensity, all those things are there, the likelihood of you getting more business is dramatically reduced, because the friendship, quote unquote, or your ability to like me isn't there as well.

And so I would agree with you entirely that the duration is really, really important. But there's an upper limit to that in negotiations that you can utilize to your advantage or you need to be very careful of, and it's called deal fatigue. So if a deal goes on for too long, what ends up happening is we become emotionally and mentally invested in the deal. But then because it goes on too long, we end up thinking to yourselves, God, this is the last thing I want to do. I just want this deal to be fucking done. I want it over. The danger in that is that we are now emotionally vulnerable, and someone who is smart in that situation can take advantage of that and push in like, hey, look, you've invested a ton into this.

I've invested – let's do these things and close the deal right now. And now we're emotionally vulnerable, and so we decide to close right away without optimal terms. That's happened to me recently. I mean, it was one of those ones where I was in a emotionally vulnerable position of weakness for the first time in my entire career for the most part. And I don't think they did this intentionally, but they pushed at the time where I was – and I agreed to some things that I probably would have never agreed to. And thankfully, I never signed anything to solidify that, and we kind of came to a verbal agreement of how – and then – but after a couple of months of me sitting on it and reflecting, I was like, nope, sorry.

I'm rescinding what I said I was going to do because I was in an emotionally vulnerable state, and I'm not going to do it. And it was awkward because we had agreed to it, but I came back to him, and I was like, no, actually, you took advantage of me when I was in that state, and I was not in the right mental state to have this big of a conversation about this. So this is where I'm coming from right now, and this is where we baseline. I don't care what happened before, and we were starting from fresh at this point, and they didn't like it. Yeah, and you bring up a really good point, and this is what a lot of people, they fall into the trap of. They think because they've – everyone's nodded heads that that thing is now agreed to, but until the ink is on the contract and everything is cleared, nothing is agreed to.

And that's really, really important for a lot of people. Look, if – and procurement people will do this for the salespeople. Here's a little bit of insider information for you. They will separate terms to grind you on each term, so they won't look at the deal holistically. This is a tactic. They won't look at the deal holistically. They'll say, okay, let's focus on payment terms. Boom, let's negotiate payment terms. Okay, we've agreed on that. Now let's focus on limitation of liability. No, no, no, no, no. We agree on that. Okay, now let's focus on IP. We agree on that. And so they'll separate all these terms. And so in your head, you're like, okay, we're coming to – but then when you look at the overall deal, you're like, wait, this – something's wrong here.

This doesn't fit right. Remember, you don't have to make that deal. You can still go back. I mean, just like going back to the nibbling comment, right? Like, yes, okay. I mean, how many times – and people listen to this, I guarantee is – if you've looked at your champion, if you will, shaking their hand, said, yeah, let's do this. Again, you flipped it over to procurement. And all of a sudden, you're getting your ass kicked. It's like – so just that alone, that scenario alone tells you that it's never done until it's done. And I think that's the danger of – the key, though, is in a lot of ways – and I've been thinking about this a lot from a psychology standpoint. You know, there's a book I'm going to read, The Power of the Positive No, which is when you say no to somebody.

Yeah. When you say no to somebody – I haven't read it yet, but I understand the concept. It's the same thing with questions and what I train is like you have to have a reason. You know what I mean? And so it's like when you say no but give a reason why you're saying no, it's a lot easier for people to accept that reason. But if you just say no, then it comes across as you being an asshole. And by the way, I've done it before where somebody's been like, oh, well, can we get a discount? And I've literally tried. I've been like, no. And that doesn't go well, right? Because now it's like, wait a minute, you just threw up a brick wall. But if I say, well, no, and the reason I can't do that is because – oh, okay.

It's the same thing if I ask you a question. If I ask you a question, Mark, I assume that you're going to push back on me and say, why do you need to know that? So I have to have a reason for it. So if I know it's an awkward question, I will usually preempt your answer with my reason. So I'll be like, hey, Mark, you know, about this. Well, the reason I ask is because – and once you see that reason, and this is Robert Cialdini, you know, that whole psychology, you know, influenced by Robert Cialdini. When you give people a reason, they're much more open to accepting whatever that reason is as opposed to not giving them a reason. So where does that play in the world of negotiations? Do you need to give reasons for why you're doing certain things to make it easier for the person to accept?

Or should you hold those reasons back? I am cautious with preempting a question with a reason why I'm asking the question. Because what I don't want is a – I don't want to lead your response. I want as honest of a response from you as I can get in that particular situation. And what I think you'll find, especially when you read The Power of the Positive No, Yuri – and if you don't mind, I'll jump into this a little bit. Yuri's big thing in that book is – think of it from his perspective. He's a diplomatic negotiator, right? He's a war and peacetime negotiator. And so these long, drawn-out, super diplomatic negotiations with multiple warring parties and nations. And it takes a long time. The great thing about that book is he speaks to – when people, when they say no, have this feeling of like, I am rejecting the other person.

In his process, what he's saying is he wants you to reframe this. Instead of thinking of it as rejecting the counterparty, what you're actually doing is saying yes to your needs and wants, right? You're saying yes to what your interests are. And when you reject that person, you're not necessarily rejecting the whole thing. You may just only be rejecting part of the thing that they have proposed. And what we do a poor job of, which is – I agree with Yuri on – is that we reject the whole thing. Instead of saying, hey, this part of the thing that you are proposing doesn't work for me. And here are some alternatives that we could do to address that thing. I'm okay with these other three things, but this one thing doesn't work for me.

So I'm going to say no to that thing, but it doesn't mean I'm saying no to the whole thing. Here are some alternatives that we can use to do that. That's his whole process. I'm summarizing it. Do you agree with Chris Voss' approach of hunting for the no for that reason in the sense that when I say no, to your point, I'm saying yes to me. So I'm now more open to what's next. So he looks for – he'll ask the ridiculous question like, would it be ridiculous for me to ask you to blah, blah, blah? Well, no. Right? So now I've said no. I've said yes to my personal – right? Right. And so people feel secure in that. Do you agree with that philosophy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are parts – I'm not going to say that I agree with it entirely.

There are parts of that that really, really, really work. And a lot of that work is like based on the foundational work that Jim Camp did in his book, Start With No. And it's a fantastic book, by the way. I think it's dangerous to always seek the no. And this is what I mean in terms of ideological ideas coming back to our conversation at the beginning. People get stuck on this one idea. And I cannot tell you how many people I've negotiated with recently who have read Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss who now think that they're hostage negotiators. And they're trying to like – cut the shit. You're not a hostage negotiator. This doesn't work in this particular circumstance. There's a late-night DJ voice here.

Exactly. It's great stuff. Don't get me wrong. I have a huge amount of respect for him and the work that he's done and the service that he's given his country. The problem is is that we apply that to every situation. And negotiation and sales is more nuanced than that. And so I would say just don't get stuck on one ideology. It's great for certain circumstances. It's a great tool for your toolbox. Use it and use it where you need it. Absolutely no question. But don't do it all the time because what happens when you do that one thing all the time? People learn how to adjust to that. They come up with objections to those things. They come up with countermeasures to those things. And then those things become less effective, which is why you need a very well-rounded toolkit in your negotiation skills.

I also think you have to understand the meaning behind these, like what's the essence of what you're trying to accomplish here, right? So it's just like any technique. Like any technique by itself, you know, maybe hit or miss depending, right? But if you really understand the true essence of what you're trying to get at by using that technique, then you don't actually have to use it as a technique because you're really just trying to use it. And that's where I talk about unconscious competence, right? Whereas techniques, I think, are really important for a very specific reason. I'd say all the time, I play between the world of giving a shit and unconscious competence, okay? Once you give a shit, right, I will give you every technique that you could possibly imagine because you need those techniques because you don't know how to do this, okay?

But the goal, but I don't know about you, Mark, like at this point in my career, I don't use very many techniques. Like I train a lot of techniques, but I don't use them. You know why? Because I've become unconsciously competent with them. You know what I mean? Like I don't send an agenda for every meeting. You know why? Because I'm unconsciously competent in managing a meeting with an agenda and having a conversation and guiding that conversation. You know, I don't use certain things because I just, now it's more conversational to me because I've known how to apply them and I've known where and when they're right to apply and where not. But you need techniques to get to that point. Yes, I agree with you.

There's a lot of people that know and have done this for so long that they've forgotten the things that they do innately to get those things that they want out of the deal. Like if you, I say this all the time, if you watch any, somebody who you think is an artist, right? In sales, right? Or in negotiations, you're like, holy shit. They just have it. Pay attention. Yes. Just, just watch. I guarantee if you break down their approach, like if you did film on them and you recorded how they did it, I guarantee you, you could see the fundamentals in there broken down. They just, they just make it sound so fucking smooth because they've done it so many times, but there, there is structure there. There is foundation there that they have built on top of all of us have it.

And you talk about sports, you could talk about anything, right? I mean, Michael Jordan, when he shoots the ball, looks like a fucking artist when he, I mean, it's like, oh my God. But Michael Jordan shot 8 million times that exact same shot. Tiger Woods, when he was hitting that thing, it goes right where it was. Well, he sits there with a golf club a thousand times in a row with a seven iron, just so we can know exactly when that happens to make it look natural. But you need the techniques to help you get there. You can't just be natural at it, right? That's right. Let's finish up on just. Yeah, we're on the same page. Improving. So I'm a sales rep. I'm okay at negotiating. I've gotten maybe some piece of shit negotiations training from, you know, I've read a book or two.

How do I improve? Like, what are some tactical things that I can do to start to really pay attention and improve my negotiation skills in the right way? Again, not by doing it in a sleazy way or trying to screw people over or whatever it is or the win-win bullshit. But what are some suggestions outside of like picking up a few books and that type of thing? What are some things that you would suggest to kids to say, here's how you can kind of move on your path of paying attention to negotiations and getting better at it? Number one, keep a journal. Keep a negotiation journal on an ongoing basis about how you did and be very critical of yourself, like constructively critical of yourself on how you performed in the negotiation.

So we spoke earlier about identifying the things that you want to get out of the negotiation, right? Write down those things and then go into the negotiation and then try and get those things. And then if you don't get those things after the negotiation, play back the negotiation in your head. Why didn't I get those things? And it's not a new idea, right? The army has been doing this for a long time. They're called after action reviews where you think about, okay, where did we do well? Where did we not do well? Where are we going to do better next time? And keep a journal. And then once you identify areas where you can improve, add those to your next negotiation and improve on those things. It's the easiest way to deal with improving in negotiations.

It's going to make you a far better negotiation. What about the concept here? Because I agree with this and I love your opinion is a lot of people think negotiations is a thing in the sense that, okay, here comes the price. Here comes the proposal. We're negotiating. I think if that's the case, you've already lost. My mentality is we are negotiating from the minute you and I start talking, right? So as soon as you say, John, send me information, that's a point of negotiation for me, right? So when you talk about going into a negotiation and documenting that, how do you macro that out about the fact that we should always be of a mindset that we are negotiating? And how do you balance that? Everything is influence and persuasion, right?

So we're going to be at sales, negotiation, much of procurement, psychology, marketing. We all have the same base, meaning we all utilize persuasion. We all utilize influence on an ongoing basis. You have specific moments where you may be negotiating particular parts of an agreement. Everything up to that point is also part of that process. And we are influencing and persuading people to get to that point to try and increase our probability of success when we get to the point of negotiating the agreement. Because if you like me more and if you feel like I'm going to deliver really well and if you think that my product or the service that I'm going to provide is the right one for you, the likelihood of me doing better in that negotiation is significantly higher.

The influence and persuasion work that's required from me to get to that point is part of that process. And I think what many people look at is they view negotiation as a skill that you learn and then that's kind of it. Whereas it's like sales. It's a practice. You keep doing it on an ongoing. There is no perfect state. I know that's really hard for a lot of people to like wrap their heads around because they want to be the best in the world at that thing. You're never going to be perfect. And that's really hard. In much the same way that martial arts, yoga, those types of things are a practice. Sales is a practice. Negotiation is a practice. And when you can come to terms with that, then improving your negotiation skills becomes much easier.

Because all you're doing is improving your practice. That's I kind of always make the analogy of sales and golf. Like golf, you can't hit a zero. Right? Which is perfect. Which would be perfect. Like I hit a zero. Like that is 100%. You always can get better and you're kind of coming in. But you will reach a level of very good. And you can stay there for a while, but you'll never be perfect. And so it's the same thing with sales and negotiations, which is why picking up on little nuggets and trying small things and reading a book here or there or applying one of these things that we've talked about today is like, Okay, let me just try that. Let me try to ask this question. Let me try to hold that line a little bit more.

Let me try to be more conscious earlier in the sales process of what I've given away to get to this point. All those things and the consciousness of it is critical. And because that, it's that going back to that unconscious competence, that model there. It's like, I want to be consciously competent in negotiations, but you have to be unconsciously competent, right? I'm sorry. You have to be consciously incompetent first. Like you have to realize like, shit, I don't know what. Yeah. Yes. You have to realize, I don't know. And I need to improve. So now I can be consciously competent because I'm working on this and I'm actually paying attention to it. And then you raise to the level of one day, you just start doing it.

And so hopefully that's where people can kind of get to eventually in their career with some of this conversation that we've had. Mark, thank you so much for this. It's been a pleasure as always. Thanks for having me, man. It's a great time. Where do you want people to go? I know you're doing some awesome stuff. You're putting some great content out there. So where's the best place for people to find? Thanks, man. Yeah, I've abandoned TikTok entirely. We could talk about that on a separate show. But LinkedIn is the best place to get my content. You can just type in my name, Mark Raffin, or go to our website at negotiations.ninja or listen to our podcast, Negotiations Ninja Podcast. It's Negotiations with an S, Ninja.

And it's Mark Raffin, R-A-F-F-A-N. Go check him out. Go consume his content. I always say, Mark, my negotiation training is kind of more like a foundational core. Piece to kind of get that common language going. And then if you really want that second layer, that's third layer to go check out Negotiations Ninja, read a few other books and stuff like that. Because the nuances matter in negotiations. But we have to have that foundation to give us a fighting chance here. So I appreciate everything you do. Thanks, man. In much the same way that I could say, hey, I can teach you something in sales. But if you want the expert, you got to go to Jay Barrows and team. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for listening, everybody.

Hopefully you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. And like I always say at the end of all my podcasts here, look, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad you think your day went, if you made somebody smile today, you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that these days. So thank you all very much for listening. I'll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts in the industry with over a million downloads. And I can't thank you enough. To keep the momentum going, if you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it.

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