Why Trust Is the Ultimate Sales Advantage in the AI Era with Tim Castle

Hey, real quick before we get into the conversation. Look, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while now, you know I don't have sponsors. And it's mainly because I know most people, including myself, skip right through them and I just don't want to annoy my audience with 10 minutes of sponsor spots every single week. However, it also means I don't get paid to do this. So the way I help fund my ability to provide free content and really interesting conversations like the one you're about to hear is through my sales training and coaching services. So if you've gotten value out of some of these conversations on this podcast and you're looking to level up your sales game, do me a favor and go to jbarrows.com and check out the training tab on the top nav bar.

I have training for teens or individuals and you can even get an individual training module focused on a specific skill that you're looking to address like objection handling, negotiations and much more. If you're an individual, you can also use discount code podcast for 20% off the membership. Look, sales is evolving faster than ever right now, especially with AI. And we all need to level up or risk becoming irrelevant. Whether you're an executive looking to train your entire team or you're an individual rep looking to level up, I promise I can help you get to where you want to go in 2026. Send me an email to schedule a call or sign up to my membership today and let's make it happen together.

Now let's get on with the show. If you can master trust building right now, you can out human AI. Human connection is all that's going to be left. 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. Now this one is all sales all the time. We had a conversation with Tim Castle who is a negotiations expert. He's actually ranked in the world's top 30 negotiation professionals in 2025 by Global Gurus and award-winning author of multiple bestsellers including The Arc of Negotiations and The Momentum Sales Model.

He's the founder of the Negotiations Edge Training Academy which is the trusted partner for ambitious organizations that want to win with integrity, trust and build influence in an AI-centric world. So if you're up for sales talk and negotiations and tactics and frameworks and stuff like that, this is your podcast. This is one that you'll like. Although we did explore a few things that I've been struggling with for a while so it's really good to hear his perspective on some stuff. But as always, we talked about his background and he grew up, actually it's history, his family is a bunch of inventors. So kind of put him in a unique position as a kid, he had his blood. But then he got into psychology and really took hold of negotiations at an early age and became really good at it, quite frankly.

One of the things I talked to him about though was the fine line between influence and manipulation and how good sales reps influence bad sales reps manipulate and the concept of the ends justifying the means. This is one that I've always struggled with, right? I always say you have to believe in what you sell in order to be successful, right? But the caveat to that is that you believe in what you sell and it does good for other people, right? And good is a subjective term because, you know, I could convince myself that selling you this stock is going to make you a millionaire and I'm going to manipulate you to get that stock and, you know, because it will ultimately be good for you, but it's probably not.

So that was one I was really trying to understand from his perspective what that line is. So we talked also about how to prep for negotiations, how to increase your like abilities, stuff like, you know, in a world of AI, how do you build trust? And he's got a good framework around that. So, and actually super tactical stuff like how'd you come up with your price, like dealing with those type of objections. So if you're looking for some perspective on negotiations and some good ideas and tips, you're going to love this one. Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's make it up. Tim Castle, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing today? I'm doing great.

And thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks. We were just chatting here in Singapore. It's about 10 o'clock at night. So I appreciate you coming on late here, but I want to get to how you got to Singapore. But let's start with the origin story like I always started with. And this is the stuff that I can't read on LinkedIn. So I know you're a psychoan. I know we'll dive into your psychology degree coming out of University of London. But I want to see how you got there. So talk about like parents, upbringing. How'd you catch the bug for business, entrepreneurship, psychology, all that fun stuff? What shaped you as a child? And then let's get into your college and the way you got through today. I like that shaped me as a child.

So I come from a family of inventors. Actually, if you go right back to like the 18th century, I'm from England. I'm from the East Midlands and my middle names are James Stevenson. And Stevenson sounds like a second name because it actually is. It's George Stevenson, who was my great, great uncle, who invented the Stevenson's rocket, which was one of the first steam trains. And the James, believe it or not, comes from James Beeching. And if you go back, it's 1853 or something. He invented, along with his friends, the first self-writing lifeboat. So that in itself says I'm destined to be quite curious in that sense. I was going to say it's in your DNA. But how we got or how I got to Singapore is I started off my career as a negotiator and doing what we call corporate barter.

And at about the time of the global financial crisis, the job market was terrible, as you can imagine. And at the same time, marketing budgets were dwindling for big, big clients, brands that had assets. So, for example, you can imagine a big auto dealership. They've got tons of cars already made, sitting there in fields and just an asset that is depreciating and it's on their books. And what would happen is a barter company will come along and they will take whatever stock and it can be distressed stock as well. So it can be things like milk. It can be things like paint, anything. And you turn it into media spend. So you're negotiating between media agencies and media publishers. And at the time, the industry didn't have a good reputation because it's very easy to cut corners and shortchange and not expand budgets like the promise.

And so I got a firsthand kind of first-hand view of some of the best negotiators in the world doing multi-multi-million, hundred-million, huge deals that weren't always well-received, yet they always made it through, right? It was, it was this negative impression and you're just coming to take money from me. And then when they left, you would see that, no, we've created value. And so this really opened up my kind of flair for negotiation. I really enjoyed that. We were negotiating like 10, 20 deals a day, just out with people building long-term relationships. And so that job took me to Australia. Can I pause here for a second? Yeah. I want to, I want to ask about that because, because I was going to get into like negotiation tactics and approaches and stuff like that.

But there's one thing that I struggle with a lot. You know, you said that there were multi-million dollar deals and they, you know, didn't have the good feeling. But ultimately after they left, they realized it was in their favor, right? There's, the ends justify the means is what I struggle with a lot in sales. And the balance between belief in what you do and the ends justifying the means. Because I always say the number one thing you need to be successful in sales is a belief in what you do. Like you got to believe that what you do. But there's a caveat to that in, for me, which is that it makes a positive impact, like that you believe that it makes a positive impact to people. And it actually does because some people justify what they're doing with the thought process that the ends justify the means.

Because ultimately, like all those sleazebag, you know, Wolf of Wall Street, right? I guarantee you, they in their head convinced themselves that, hey, if this person, well, some of them, if this person buys this stock, eventually they're going to make a ton of money. So I'm going to manipulate the shit out of them to get them to do this. Because ultimately, they're going to make some money on this, right? And I think a lot of people in sales convince themselves that what they're doing is right, even if it is or not. And use that to manipulate people and then say, okay, well, the ends justify something because eventually they're going to get this. And I struggle with that balance there of belief in what you do, but a belief in what's right and really right, and then convincing versus helping.

So I know that's a lot. Could you help me unpack a little bit from your perspective of what you learned there? Hey, taking a quick break here to remind you to check out some of my sales training programs at jbarrows.com and use discount code podcast for 20% off the individual packages. If you're not interested in training or you don't think you need it, then you can still support me by leaving a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform or G2 if you've already gone through my training before. You can also sign up for my newsletter on jbarrows.com, where every single week I put out a newsletter that breaks down what I'm learning out there, some of the new tips and tools and tech and resources that I'm coming across, and some stories from the streets of train wrecks that I go through and stuff not to do.

So if you could do one of those things, either sign up for the membership, give me a five-star review, or follow me on the newsletter, it would mean the world to me. Thanks for your support. Now let's get back to the show. Yeah, I'd love to. And I think that is the essence of what you've got to do when you're going into an industry that already has a bad reputation or has been tarnished in some way. And some of these clients have actually been burned on all stages of the ecosystem, and they've probably attracted the worst types of salespeople as well. So you've got these bad actors, these bad characters. The way that you break through that is to simplify the complex, to talk to people with respect so that they understand it.

They just come and they sit down with you. We were doing back of the napkin maths to show them this maths is expanding the budget. You're getting incremental money. And the thing is, is it can work for everybody as long as you're able to get to that transparent level of conversation, which really, if we break this down, has nothing to do with the value and belief. Like my motto is believe it's possible, right? That's my motto in life. And I do only want to work for companies that I fully believe we've got value. I think everyone should, if you've got value running through you, you can walk into any room and, and sell properly because you, you understand where it can fit in their problem statement.

But the real thing comes down to trust and relationship building. And so that is really your authenticity. I think when people are trying to persuade or manipulate, what they're doing is, is they're either leveraging a situation by basically manipulating and saying, there's no way out of this, this is happening. And you just have to jump on board. Whereas I think there's this respect element of, look, let me, let me make you an expert in this because I want to show you how all the other sharks out there are going to pull the wool over your eyes and why this is different. And if you can do that, you've created an advocate, but you've also armed yourself against the rest of the industry. So it's about actually changing the whole industry and upskilling and educating and not being afraid if the deal doesn't happen, right?

The deal is kind of second. So, cause this is what's interesting. I've been, so I've mostly been in corporate sales my entire life, right? So corporate negotiations, which, you know, there's, there's some ethics to it in general, right? But now I'm getting a little bit into the B2C side, okay? Because I have an on-demand platform and I, you know, I have a coaching that I'm launching, all this fun stuff. And I hate Grant Cardone, Jordan Belfort, like all those dudes like, ew, right? But I've been revisiting their content recently because they sell B2C solutions and some of their content is legit. And, and there's this fine line between convincing and manipulating. And I look at it from that perspective of, for instance, me, if you don't close me in this, like if I'm looking for you as you as like a personal coach, right, right now, and you tell me it's going to be $5,000 a month or whatever it is, right?

And I'm like, okay, you know, I've looked into this and let's talk. If you don't close me right now, the likelihood, and I probably need it, right? Based on our conversation, but my, my, hey, I got to talk to my wife. This is a budget thing. And if you let me off the hook right there, the likelihood drops by 90% that I'm actually going to do this. And so a lot of the techniques that they use, because I, I know you talk a lot about in your book, like mindset over techniques, like 80% over, over 20%, but those techniques work to get me to do something now. And, and even though I kind of feel like, ah, shit, man, you just asked that awkward question and I feel like you're doing this salesy thing, but I get it and fine.

Fuck it. I'll do it right now. Right. So I guess like in, like in corporate, how do you balance that? Like that, the moment, right? Cause as soon as you let somebody go, you lose a lot of control, you lose a lot of momentum. So, so how do you balance the technique in the moment versus the authenticity of educating them through the process and all that fun stuff? Absolutely. I think it comes down to intention, right? That's the biggest differentiator between whether it's manipulation or just influence. And you're the expert in the room. You're there to consult with them. You have, you absolutely have value to, to offer and to give you're there to serve. And so not everyone's going to be right.

You shouldn't be trying to sell every single person. And that's what makes you, you valuable because your time matters. So I think just understanding who you're dealing with and where they're coming from way more than you think you, you need to, if you're in a position where you can see that the prospect is going to walk and it's going to diminish your chance to close them by 50%, but this is like you said, something that they absolutely need, you step up and you apps, you just lay it out. This is what, this is what's going to happen. This is what we need to do. And these are the outcomes, but it's, it's totally like, I usually relate a lot to the Navy seals. They do this training exercise, um, where they float to the bottom of the, the pool.

It's called a drown pool, drown proofing exercise where they tie their arms and their, their legs together. And they say, you've got to survive in the pool for five minutes. And obviously the paradox is, is the more you struggle, you think you're going to have to tread water, but you're sinking, you're burning oxygen. The way through is to actually let go completely and to, to drop to the bottom of the pool and bounce back up and to get that air and then drop to the bottom of the pool and bounce back up. And it's the similar pattern in sales when you've got that rhythm of, look, I know that you need this. I can sense that, but I've also, and I think that's where you can bring the stories and the social proof to life, but it has to come from almost your heart.

It has to come from a deep place of, look, I got you and I'm advising you like I would advise my best friend. And they have to feel that, right? That's, that's probably the difference between the Cardones and the, the Belfords like that. It's, it's, I would be saying this to my best friend, but you're leveraging me for my expertise here. And, and, and that means that I'm not asking you necessarily to buy the highest thing on the wrong, but I am asking you to get involved and to, to move with me to create momentum. Yeah. Mentions everything in sales, right? I mean, I think that the, we have a, I do a negotiation where we do this give, get scorecard, right? Where we map out all the gives, all the things that our clients ask of us, information, discounts, proposals, all that fun stuff.

And then all the gets, what we want, band, medic, whatever you want to put in there. And then we point score. And when somebody after five, after five in return is kind of a foundational component of an objective way to look at negotiations, to then get to the art where we can ask the right questions and know how to ask. And with that, you know, from a preparation standpoint, you talk a lot about in your book, like, you know, preparing for the negotiations, understanding your walkaway line, preparing for objections and, and thinking through them. Let's talk about what kind of prep do you do? So like in a scenario, there's role plays, there's all these different things, but, and I think this is where we could potentially add AI because you talk a lot about how AI can help you prep, but it can't help you action, right?

So what is the prep for a negotiation? Say you're going into, you know, deliver a proposal or into a negotiations with a corporate client and you have your notes and you have your information about the business and everything else. What is the, what is the checklist for you to prep? I really want to know who, who I'm dealing with as much as possible and multiple stakeholders, right? It's, it's typically there'll be multiple decision makers in the room. I want to understand the context, the leverage and have that foresight so that there's no fear leading the way. And I can actually understand the pressures and the likely objections ahead of time. And that's absolutely where AI can help. It can streamline all of that in minutes to get that kind of counterparty intelligence from everything, right?

You can dump all your emails in there, the LinkedIn, the public interviews, all of this. And you can ask them, right? Based on this, like what is the psychological state, the motivational profile, the disbehavioral profile? Like who is this person? Because I'm looking to connect with them and I'm looking to identify areas of connection. So ahead of time, I want to be able to float those ideas of who I'm a bit like when we started this conversation, Hey, I'm from Nottingham, I'm from Sherwood Forest, like maybe I support Nottingham Forest football team. Oh, which team do you support? Like we get those moments of interaction because I'm lowering the boundaries and that, that emotional temperature in the room.

And then I'm able to increase likability, which is very important just from a relationship standpoint. So all of this to say that, yes, I'll be leveraging AI as my sparring partner. I'll be getting it to do scenario planning. I'll ask it to behave like a disgruntled CFO or someone that's going to pick apart my strategy and I'll plug it all in. Really, I think the biggest thing that most negotiators fail to do and they will fail to do most of what we just said, they will listen to this and then not do any of this, assuming that they can just wing it. And I know this because I've been there. I'm at the cold face. I've been there. I've seen it and it's, it's not pretty and it, it doesn't matter because people don't learn from that.

So you want it to remove your emotional blind spots. You want AI to help you say, look, what are my emotional triggers? Which assumptions might be emotional and which might be biased? Which things in this email, things in the way I communicate is defensive. Like these are all things that if you can start to hone in your preparation, when it happens in the moment and you get that objection, the one you're expecting, you can, instead of resistance, you can almost relax into it and know, well, there's nothing here to push against. And then that's where the curiosity can lead. The curiosity factor here, when you talk about curiosity, because a lot of times objections are surface level, right? We don't have the budget, the, you know, don't have time, don't have the resource, whatever.

But there's the approach, you know, there's techniques on how to handle objections, those type of things. And I think the techniques lead to, I used to roll my eyes at techniques because I'm like, oh God, what are we, 1985 all over again. But the thing that I appreciate about the techniques, or at least when I went through them was, I always did whatever it was. I just never knew the label of it, right? So, when I took a training and they labeled the technique, I was like, oh, that's what that is. And therefore, it was a lot easier for me to be proactive about thinking through how to address them based on that technique. And one of them is obviously the clarification technique, which is you just ask, okay, help me understand, like, what do you mean by that?

Those type of things. So, where does genuine curiosity hit? I guess it comes back to your authenticity and everything else, but there's asking questions just to ask questions, to kind of use a technique to hold back whatever's going, like you said, kind of get contentious. And then there's the genuine factor of, like, can we just talk about this? Like, you would set up all these things. Where is the line for you of the technique leading to the outcome that you're looking for, right? The curiosity and that type of thing. For me, I think you've got to manage your internal self-talk. Like, it's very easy to sit on a podcast like this and we, we go back and forth and have a nice conversation about the objections.

And when it's happening to each one of us, it triggers us. And it's like, we can, I can sit here and say, do this, do this, do this. And so I've got to, the first step is always to reframe, right? I've got to change the meaning of the objection that triggers me because it's specific to me. This, it's, it's annoyed me. It's got me. And in order to reframe that meaning, I want to be thinking about, well, this is, yeah, this is information. It's data. It's actually revealing what they care about. So I also need to start to reduce my emotional response to that because I'm starting to, if I don't, I'm giving away what I care about. And this isn't about being combative in negotiation. I don't believe in that.

I believe in collaboration. I believe that you can expand the pie and that's exactly how you're going to create more value, but it's really important to take that distinction between this is an opportunity to lead by reframing the meaning of what their objection is. And so they're actually telling you what matters at that point, you shift from emotion to strategy. So negotiation strategy, then you can refocus and direct your attention. And you can ask yourself what matters most right now, like what is the focal point? And so this is where I think the curiosity comes in that you match with the right tone. If you're just going to jump in and start asking questions, like you say, and peppering with questions, a lot of people can sense that you're just digging because you don't know.

And I think this is where you've got to actually balance this with the preparation that you've done to really hit home and go, because you'll really want to rebuild value at the end of the day. If it's a cost objection or if it's a authority objection, I've got to get signed off for my boss, whatever it is. Can you send more information over? Like there's a time pressure, like they're really fobbing you off in a polite way. Like what you need to do is step through that and rebuild the value. And the only way you can do that is if you actually uncover their real concern. And I think that's where you create curiosity. That's the exact moment. But you, you've, you, your nervous system is centered.

Your nervous system is unattached to the outcome and you can focus on process, not outcome. So then you shift from this overwhelmed state to intention. And at that point you can re-engage and lead that conversation forward. You mentioned about the collaborative approach, right? The non-combative approach where I totally agree with you, right? The win-win and what makes sure there's value across the board. But what do you do with people who aren't like that? Like that don't have a good intention. So for instance, you have a great job with your champion, whatever it is there, you're on the same page and then they flip you over to the CFO or the procurement who's just going to beat the F11 shit out.

He has no interest in a relationship with you, wants to do everything over email, doesn't even give you the honor of having a conversation with them face-to-face because they know that that's relationship development. There's, there's variables there that they can't control. So how do you manage those negotiations? Yeah, I think you've got to be very careful and you've got to, you've got to realize that they are going to manipulate you in ways that they of course are going to pick up the phone and tell you that what you put in front of them sucks and you need, and everyone else is 20 points below you and you've got to come in if you ever want to see us again. And if you want this business. So it's about expecting the objection so that it's not a confrontation.

And again, this is where it's important that you're building those relationships across the organization, but also leveraging AI, right? Because AI can help you predict those tailwinds, predict those headwinds, those challenges and start forging a narrative that then allow you those moments to explore deeper. And I think, again, going back to human connection, because we all know they won't want to. So my tactical advice is to start showing up where they will show up, start being at those conferences, go, go to the things and the places where they will be, create the moment to build that connection. Because human, if you do that, and if you can break through that almost facade of I am a bully and I am the top dog here and I get my way, and then you can demonstrate value value above and beyond because obviously just getting hit on price isn't always the best way to create the most value in any negotiation.

So you need, the skill is then to be able to demonstrate that without needing it to happen, without being desperate. So let's pair that with the walkaway line, like going in prepared, knowing kind of, I agree with some of the stuff that I read where you talk about knowing kind of when it, when it's just not worth it, right? Just to walk away at a certain dog. The challenge after dog, then there's nuance with that, right? Because I watch Shark Tank here in the US and there's it in London as well. And it's funny because it's the, say it's the walkaway line of, you know, whatever, 20% for $200,000 on my business, right? But then it gets in and they start at 30 and you start at this and 20 is your walkaway line.

But then it comes to 21. It comes to 23 and you're just like, fuck, it's right fucking there. Like, ah, fun. You know, like if that's really what it's going to take, fine. So I guess what's your, again, philosophy on, on the flexibility of that walkaway line? And should you, because there are so many variables in negotiations, should you come up with different flexible options, if you will, that don't necessarily have a hard deadline of below 20% or something like that? I love that. I love that idea. I love that question. The way you, yeah. I, and I do, I love it because it's, it's what it is. The negotiation is the art of possibility. And so therefore, if you're going to have these hard and fast rules that you stick by no matter what, and that even exceptional circumstances, it's not, yes, they're principles, but I think at the same time, I think principles, the skill and the art of negotiation is knowing when to, to be flexible in that hard and fast rule.

These are guidelines. So understanding your banner and then getting AI to start giving you creative options. That's the point, right? AI can help you now as a co-pilot to expand your creativity in what multi-year deals will look like in different volume tiers and give you those points where you may be, again, it's a, it's a trade. It's a trade and you may be able to build in, to build in value if it's 1% over. And I, and this is something you need. And there's like, I would say you're definitely taking it, but you've got to, you've got to know why, and you've got to be able to trust your gut in that, because as long as you're centered in the fact that you've done this and you know, the reasons why I think it's when people get incongruent to that.

And then they get what we were talking about before, where they absolutely getting smashed because they're getting moved all over the place and they're moving the dial on all the different levers and they don't know why and where and how, and now they've lost control. That's, that's a problem. So it's definitely about mapping out that value and building out that value ladder, the concessions ladder that you would actually say, well, I actually rank giving away 1% more equity for this expertise and maybe we can get, this is our ask in return so that you know that ahead of time. So you're not flustered. So that it's not, so it's like a contingency, but it's, it's, it's more about if we're lucky enough, if this scenario presents itself because we're in the spirit of collaboration and building something awesome together, this is what we'd ask for.

This is what would make it magic for us. This is what would seal the deal. And so you can be confident in that because you've done the work. You've done the planning beforehand to understand your BATNA or your zone of, you know, I don't really like all these terms, but they're just good to anchor people in what you need to be thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. I think because the, the walkaway line is an interesting concept for me because it's funny that when you don't define it, you have, we all have one period. And, and it's, and it's unfortunate that a lot of times it's subjective and it's subconscious. So, cause we've all been in negotiations where it's like, okay, fine, I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

I'll give you that. And then it kind of crosses this, this imaginary line in our head where it stops. It starts feeling unfair, right? And, and fair, like Chris Voss always said the worst four letter word that, you know, in negotiations. And, and once it stops feeling fair, we actually start reacting poorly and it has a negative impact on the rest of the negotiations. Cause now I'm getting short with you. I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm responding, taking longer. So I guess it's that defining the line so it doesn't happen anyways, but then having flexibility and options that you can present from a preparation standpoint. Is that what I'm hearing from you? Oh, the way you, and fairness is a great, great thing to throw out there.

The way you just articulated that is exactly how I, how I think about it. You want to be, you want to be a good deal for me and a good deal for you. It doesn't want to, and that doesn't mean it is win-win in the exact proportions, but what it means is, is you're not doing a bad deal that you end up resenting and you end up wishing you hadn't done. There's nothing worse. It's much better to walk away than do that deal that, you know, basically cost you, but also forced you to go against all of your principles and this, uh, this, this imaginary line that feels rubbish. So definitely start to, to understand what your actual walk away line is, is a paramount. Do you feel, so let's get back to the AI thing.

It's a real interesting world right now with this, because you can role play, you can, you know, from a sales standpoint, you can do a whole bunch of stuff. You get the best sales consultant out there. I'm sure with you, I don't know how long you've been putting content online, but I've been doing it for 20 years. You can go on Chiachi BT right now and say, coach me like John Barrows. So that's, you know, and I think it's a superpower for sales reps. My, and, but everybody talks about AI and how it's replacing sales reps and all this. I'm not worried about all those tools or all that's claiming to replace sales reps. What I'm worried about is when the client wakes up and realizes they don't need us that much anymore because they can do just like we're talking about prep for this and all this other things.

They can do the exact same thing and they can go out and say, you know, find pricing for other customers, whatever it is, leverage every single thing about your business. So I guess, have you come up against that yet? Like, how are you coaching against that? The preparation that the client's going to have for the negotiations and, and does it come back to authenticity in that relationship? Yeah, no, that's a really good point because the point there is that AI it's AI plus human. If you don't start investing in getting into AI, you're going to get left behind you. You're going to be New Yorker because the other party will have done exactly what we're suggesting on this call from their lens. So they're just going to be able to, I don't even like the word outmaneuver, but they're just going to have more, more depth and more thought to their process, at least more efficiently.

Doesn't mean that it's necessarily stress tested and right. The data that's gone into it is, is correct. I always think that the biggest thing or needle moving thing you can do in this age of disruption is go back to trust. And Deloitte said there were four elements of trust building. And I think this is the rarest commodity. So I would say, great. They've done their research. They've done that. You've done yours. Great. We're going to have a great conversation here, but there's four elements of trust building. And the first is humanity. Does this salesperson, negotiator demonstrate empathy and kindness towards me? Then transparency. So do they openly share information with me? Do I feel that?

Reliability. Do they consistently deliver on their promises? And capability. Do they deliver quality products? And my belief is that reliability and capability, most organizations will have, at least the top tier organizations. If you're delivering solid value in an ethical way, that's producing high ROI, you've, you're going to do what you say you're going to do. And you're going to develop some kick-ass products where we as negotiators, salespeople can really move the needle is in the humanity piece. Do they understand me and my world and the transparency piece, which I think is the bridge to everything right now. If you can master trust building right now, you can out human AI and you can, I think this is going to be like, like you said, you're not scared of AI replacing salespeople.

Like that's not it. Like it's, and human connection is all that's going to be left. So you better become a master at it. This is the time. If there was ever a time, it's actually now in this digital, digital centric world, in this AI centric world, it's, it's the time to double down. And that's how you, you win because you build the collaboration, but to know those four elements. So with transparency, let's talk about price. Um, there's a question that I have that about sales reps and empowering sales reps as an organization to know, like, where'd you get your price? So it comes from this, like, okay, so how'd you get your pricing? You know, that type of thing. And, and a lot of times it's better to have the rep not know, and the price is the price and value.

Let's focus on that. The other times it's, the question is, is should the rep know details of where the pricing and how it was generated and what they do with their investments? And so they can explain that. And it, cause this brings up recently where somebody was negotiating with me and it, well, I wasn't negotiating with ultimate power. I was negotiating with kind of the go-betweens. And she, she immediately comes at me, was starting to break down my hourly rate and she's like, cause I gave her a bundled package and she's like, well, you know, from my understanding, six hours. And if we only did this and we're only using 25% and I just stopped her, I go, look, I'm sorry. That's not how the price works.

That's not how my pricing works. And I use the analogy of, she's like, well, then your hourly rate is, you know, $300 an hour. And I was like, or $3,000 an hour. And I was like, that's not the way this, I'm like, have you ever heard of the story of the guy who saved the town? And she was like, what? I go, the, you know, there was nuclear reactor was going to blow up. Right. And there was one guy in town that they called to help fix it. And the guy shows up and everybody's panicking and he looks around for about five minutes and he walks over to a screw and he turns the screw. And all of a sudden the nuclear reactor stops and everybody saves the time and everybody's so thankful for him. And, and the person goes, oh, thank you.

Sure. How much do we owe you? And he goes, a million dollars. And the guy's like, are you shitting me? Those five, like five minutes, that took you five minutes to turn that screw? Like, he's like, yeah, I charged you 10 bucks to turn that screw. I charged you $999,990 for the 20 years of experience it took me to learn what screw to turn. And, and she's like, I appreciate that. So I, I use that and, and look, I'm, I'm like, I know what I bring to the table. I know what your needs are. I go, I can work and we can get flexible here, but please don't start to dissect this into a hourly rate conversation because it's just not the way it works. And that, that moved it through to the story. Yeah. So she, she, she, she kind of grins because she was like, oh, I get it.

I go, look, if you want any trainer, like that, that's just been doing this for a couple of years, by all means, they charge 500 bucks an hour, 200 bucks an hour. That's what you're looking for. You told me your outcome was this, the impact of the problem that we're trying to solve is this. I've been doing this for 30 years. I know the problem. I know the issue. Let's get creative and tell me and go, going back to your point. What's the real problem? Is the real problem that you can't afford this right now because it's end of year or whatever it is. So is it a payment term thing or is it like a doubt thing? You don't think I'm going to bring that type of value. Like what is the issue here? And we started to unpack it a little bit more.

So that to me is, you know, the, the, I didn't give her details because none of your fucking business about my price. I came up with it. It's relatively industry standard. I'm not. So I guess going all the way back to my original point of the question is, how much detail does a rep need to, a rep need to know about pricing to address the transparency conversation as it relates to a CFO, you know, procurement using that, like how'd you come up with your price? I mean, it's software, it's SACS, like one extra license isn't going to cost you anything. What the fuck. Right. So how do you, how do you, how do you, or how do you sales team with that, with that information? I love that. And I can see why that worked.

Cause it was real, right? You, you brought that back and you just like, let's, let's stop this right now. Let me tell you what's real. And, and she could feel that. And then you brought it back and you, you were confident in the way you can for 30 years have done this. This is, this is sort of, this is what we're doing. Like I've, I can help you. What I would say in the helping others here is to go back to the person that you're dealing with. Again, going back to that, this profile, if you're dealing with a steadiness person and you start telling a long story that doesn't necessarily, not, not to say your story work on me, I'm an influence type person. And I'm like that story, Jay, like, well, I'm having that, like, let's go.

You've just sold me. But for a steadiness type person, they're going to want guarantees. They're going to want the numbers. And I think that's where the skill of the salesperson can be to empower them. And that's, that was a bit like when they go back to barter, right? Some people would want to understand the nuts and bolts. Others are just want to know at the macro level through a story, what deals went wrong? What, what are they doing with that? And the dodgy, like what's happened and then what went right. And because they, they want to own that story to tell it internally and to become the expert. So knowing who you're dealing with is an influence person. They want to build the relationship.

They're optimistic. They want to make friends as a dominance person. They just want to maximize profits. They, they just want to get straight to the point. So they don't want any waffle. And again, being armed as a salesperson to adapt to each kind of personality type and knowing if you're outgoing or not, or you're task oriented, like being able to do that. I think having that adaptability in the moment on the fly and then knowing your numbers, because if you are talking to a CFO and they probably are a steadiness or a compliance type person, you, you want to be able to outline that if you have to, if you get put in that position and then weave in the human, which is what you did. You weaved in that human to just zoom out a bit and go, Hey, what are we really talking about here?

So let's go to, let's do, so help me answer this question, right? The, the procurement person that literally said, and cause I think you and I, we've been around the block. We have business acumen, we have experience, we have some confidence, you know, we can do the nuanced things of reading people. Cause we understand NLP and disc and all that fun stuff. But for that 22, 23 year old kid, right? Who, who is trying to negotiate with effectively a professional negotiator, like how'd you come up with your price? Salesforce for $1,500 a license for your software. Like it doesn't cost you a dime extra to give me an extra license. So I want 80% off. I want 50% off. So how'd you come up with your price?

What would you say to somebody who like punches you right in the mouth with how'd you come up with your price as a 22 year old kid selling software to a CFO? Yeah, I, I totally get it. And it can be intimidating because I've been there and I was intimidated. I was in those rooms and that's exactly how they would come across knowing that you're 24 and just literally like, how are you going to answer this? And they'd almost do it to watch you squirm. I think that's where you've got to weave in your own flair, right? If you're literally you in that moment as a, and you own it and you go, look, and you own the situation, it can actually weave in some humor there to start to break down the boundaries to then break through.

Because ultimately that person, they're being a hard ass on purpose to try and leverage 80% off. And, and just, that would be a deal you probably shouldn't do because it's going to feel bad. And you're not going to get the high fives around the office that you think you're going to, you never on those, it's a bad deal. So principally, you know, that's not going to happen, but in doing that, in knowing that you anchor to those principles and use the principles to guide you through it. And you go, well, I don't want to be out of a job. I can't be like, are you going to hire me? Like, and in doing it that way, you actually start to impress them and get more respect from them rather than taking it for what it is and arcing up or being defensive about it or trying to justify with 1500 bucks.

And this is why I'm going through. I think every, like they know they've got to pay that if they want to play the game, they're just using the dominance that they have. So go the other way. What are the things? Right. Cool. If you want that, this is what it's going to look like. Be, be that person. Be like, I, I get it, John. I get it. Like if I was in your shoes, I'd be doing exactly the same thing. That's why I like, let me take you out to like this car here. Let me lay out to you the other stuff. What else is important to you in terms of criteria other than just price? And you find the thing that matters more to them than price. And then you leverage everything you've got. You anchor to that to then start building.

And they will, if they're decent, if they're not a manipulator, there's someone you actually want to do business with. They'll start to be impressed by, you'll start to sell them because they'll start to believe in your belief. So sales is the transfer of belief. Yeah. I call it the transfer of enthusiasm, right? You believe that strongly in what you do. And I, and I, cause I going back to, I mean, we're here at, you know, we're recording this on the 2nd of December and I can just hear profitability getting sucked out of organizations in the next 30 days here because personal, especially forget about like the new deal business. It's the renewal coming up. It's the end of the, right? That's the one that I, I, I think customer success and account management needs a lot more skills on negotiation because they actually do have leverage in that scenario unless their product is shit.

Obviously, if there's tons of use case issues and all that other stuff, you're screwed. You're not, you're probably going to have to discount to keep that client. But again, they probably shouldn't be a client of yours if there's that many issues. So, um, I guess let's think about like that because it's always the third party that comes in to negotiate, not your friends, not your sponsor, not your champion, not your, you know, coat, whatever. It's always the black box, you know, wizard of Oz guy behind the screen. And, and it's like, fuck, where do you play hardball in an existing account that you've, that you are, you are providing the value that, that you are providing, not too many issues.

It's coming to the end of the year and you get the email that goes out that says across the board, all vendors, 30% off or else we're not doing shit. And that happened. Like, I think it was around, I heard about this happening and I think it was COVID. I forget what it was where CFOs would just arbitrarily send an email to every vendor that said 30, knock 30% off or else we're not doing business with you anymore. And we're shutting everything off. It was like, what the fuck? Like how do you go back to your champion? Do you go back to do the prep, all the research to justify all the value you've brought to them? How do you handle that fuck off scenario there and be willing to walk away? Yeah, I think, I think that's great.

I think show them the cliff. They send the email there. You've got 30% to be knocked off. You're like, Oh, that's interesting. Cause we were going up 30% this year. Let me, and you start to play that through. You start to show them, well, I've got other options. This is when knowing that having a full pipeline, having other clients, not having a whole book. That's just stacked on one other client that you need. You need to start getting that diversification in your book of business. It's very, very important. And I think, of course, I think if we just break down what you said, knowing that those emails are going to come, knowing that there will be people in those roles in other companies that will fold and will accept the deal.

They will panic at this time of year and they'll just need to close. You're not going to, if you are in that position, the best thing you can do is not be desperate, not be then. Cause they will chase you right down. Like I would hold the line and wait longer so that those people that do accept get, that gets filled. Then he's done his job. Then she's done her job. Then they can rest easy and then close the deal at a higher rate. I think there's a lot to be said for knowing your value, knowing what you bring to the table and just arming yourself with that information before you having one of those high stakes calls. Because it's, it's, it's not complicated. It's the emotions and the catastrophizing and the pressure and other voices and the what if that makes the negotiation feel like everyone's watching and feel, and they, they obviously sometimes are.

It's when you have the information, when you're armed and you know what you bring, like in any situation, you're willing to ask for it. Ask for things you don't think you can get, make it a habit to do that. Make it a habit to not oversell, not over justify, not ask for validation and approval for that pricing for, to, to say what you need to say. And I think that's where something I learned from the days in Barca was because it kind of had to be that way. You do have to hold the line and you do have to be strong and you do have to always stick to that line because there really isn't much wiggle room. This is the deal that's there. And if you want to play ball, we're going to have to figure out a way to do that.

So let's talk about those solutions. Yeah, I think it, and it's always comes down to the person, if they have genuine intent to, to do good business, like I got no problem negotiating with people. It's the people that are nefarious, the people that are coming in with no context, with no, like I'll tell you one of my favorite, I'm sure you'll appreciate this. That happened to me just recently too, is another story. My favorite thing is when a third party comes in at the end, CFO, procurement, whatever, to be the heavy and negotiate the price of my training when I'm training negotiation training. Yes, yes. So this is literally how it goes. And this is how it goes. They want to be harder on you because of that, right?

But this is the beauty of it. Like I don't even have to negotiate because I go like, yes, they're like, oh, all right, John. So, you know, looking forward to working with you, you know, so, so what kind of waiver room do we got here? And my direct answer is none. And they're like, well, come on, man. There's always waiver room. I go, can I, can I ask you something? Do you know what you're buying from me? And they'll be like, yeah, yeah, sales training. I go, do you know what kind of sales training you're buying from me? And he's like, yeah, negotiation. I go, exactly. So if I gave you a discount right now, why the fuck would you hire me? And it stops them dead in their tracks every time because they're like, oh, fuck.

Yeah. And I go, look, I can, I can cut 50% off right now, but that's what the training is going to be. I'm going to walk in and tell everybody, all right, take all your deals, cut 50% off and make it rain, baby. And they're like, man, you're an asshole. I'm like, yeah, I know. But so are you because you're the person that you, that your reps are getting the shit kicked out of them for arbitrary. You don't know the details. You don't understand. You haven't been part of the process, any of that stuff. And all you're trying to do is cut my price. That's it. So I know I'm an asshole for being direct with you about this, but so are you. Right. And a lot of times they like, sometimes that doesn't work.

Sometimes that's like big old fuck off, like whatever. And I only really do that when it's a deal that up to your point worth losing. Like, like if I don't get it, it is what it is. I want to work with it. Like I always say, I want your business. I don't need it because if I need it, I do shady shit. If I want it, I sell the right way. So I love that component of negotiations, but I have the luxury of doing that. You have the luxury of doing that. A lot of reps don't. And a lot of reps, unfortunately, leadership puts it on them that every deal is an important deal. Every renewal is an important renewal. And it's just not true. You know, we need to force rank these and we need to see which ones are worth it and which ones aren't.

Even if we have a bad pipe one, it sets the wrong psychology in motion completely. If there's this, um, this heightened emotion around every single deal and winning every single dollar. I love that there because you, and I do think reps out there can leverage that with the transparency piece. You just told them the reality of what this is. It's like, how good would I be if I didn't, like, if I let you just negotiate it with me just because of like, it's just, people can use that in their own business. Like, and, and just take that transparency and then build trust through it because it builds credibility. Have you ever read, uh, my friend, uh, Todd Capone's book called The Transparency Sale?

I haven't, no. Oh, dude, you should pick it up. You'll love it. Just probably some of what you're saying. Like, he has this great way of negotiating where it's, it's, he presents the solution. So basically he says, look, here's the deal. Here's what you asked for. And here's rate card. Here's the price. Now, I know you're going to want some flexibility here. So here's the levers that we can pull. Here's what's important to me. And what he says is what I'm willing to pay for, not willing to give a discount for. Here's what I'm willing to pay for. Um, longer term relation, long-term relationships I'm willing to pay for. So if you want a two, three, four year, we can get creative with that. Larger size deals, obviously I'm willing to pay for.

So if you want, instead of 50 license, you want to do a hundred licenses and we can create a bet, um, predictability of forecast, which is, I think a really unique way of saying, can you close by the end of the month? He's like, we value our ability to predict revenue. So if you can help me predict revenue, I'm willing to pay for that. Right. And he goes through this process and he's like, cool. So which ones do you want to play with here? And then it becomes this very transparent game of what if we did three years instead of two? And what if we did this instead of that? And it's like, okay, well, based on that, here's your price. So there's no like hiding behind the curtain here. It's like, this is my price.

And these are the levers we have to pull. And I absolutely love the frame. He's controlled the frame. Right. I'm going to get that book. Yeah. It's called transparency sale. He has transparency leader. And then he's just launching another one specifically on those four things. Cause transparency sale was about the wholesale. He's launching a new one. I forget what it's called, but right on like the four pillars. So there's some of that, but it's, it's a really cool book. And he's, and he's actually a great historian too. You should check them out. He's got, uh, he does all this old school sales stuff, like history, like 1906. And you know, how we're all like, oh my God, AI is going to change everything and it's going to replace sales reps.

And he pulls up an article from 1917 about how the printing press, uh, everybody said literally verbatim, the exact same thing. Sales reps are never going to be used again. Your printing press is going to change everything. Right. Or whatever. So you should follow. He's a good shit. Okay. I'm going to do that. And speaking of books, Tim, we got to wrap things up. Cause you got a new one. You've got a few, you already have a couple written, but you have one coming out, right? That's, uh, coming up. Could you talk about, uh, talk about the books where we can find, cause I love this conversation. You can keep talking about it, but I want to leave some for people to go learn more from you. Uh, so talk to us about the books and where they can find out more information about you.

Totally. I run a training academy called the negotiators edge. We train sales and negotiation professionals. I have a few different books. As you, as you mentioned, I've got the first dominant and this is really how to become an opportunity magnet. So you're really thinking about first clients, first products, first services, breaking through and getting that first flagship client that sets everything in motion. And then the, sorry, I had that title. I forgot. Uh, we could have a whole conversation around that one. I'm getting your first client there. And then the next book is magnetic influence. It'll come out next year, uh, halfway through next year. It's all about how to influence and maximize persuasion in, in the centric world that we live.

We're really from the connection standpoint and the human levers that we can build. I love it up on that note and just coming all the way back to Singapore. How, how universal is negotiation? This is the last question I have for you. How universal, like how, how you negotiate here in the U S versus Singapore versus, you know, like if you were to give me a percentage of what's common across the board and what is different across the board, what would you say? Cause culture, culture, culture matters when it comes to negotiation. There's a huge amount of nuance, uh, especially living out here, traveling into Manila or Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta. There's, there's the relationships are valued in different ways and you show that value in different ways.

So I'd say there's at least 45% difference, variation, nuance. There's always cultural nuance. And that means there's always skills that we can be learning. I think that's the biggest thing that I want people to take away is just, just get involved, get the reps going. Because if you're not objection and handling every day, like you can read all you want, you can listen, like you've got to get out there. And I, I, I've seen that example of the, the guy that split the class in two and there was pottery class and they basically said, look, you guys will get the best grade. If you produce the highest quality pot, like one part that's super high quality, exquisite, you're going to, that's, who's going to get the best grade.

The other side of the class, like this is just about volume and weight. Like whoever makes the most pots, they're going to get the highest grade. And it was the guys that actually made the most pots. They also made the best pots because they were in clay all the time. They were using, they were experimenting. They were doing weird stuff. They were inventing new ways. They were trying all these different ways. And it's the same thing with negotiation sales, get out there and try, do the reps, fail and move on, fail and adapt. It's the same thing. I can't, I can't agree with you more on that one, right? You can't, I mean, you can role play as much as you want. You can do, you know, you can practice, but unless you're out in the field and you're doing it, that's why, that's the last point.

That's why sales to me is such a beautiful profession because it's only profession that you can literally practice everywhere, everywhere and practice negotiations everywhere. You can go to the restaurant, you can go to the hotel, let's turn up great. You can go to the restaurant, ask for free dessert. You can, whatever it is and you can practice, if you have kids, you negotiate with your kids every day, all day. And if you ship that mentality of, ew, sales gross to skill life, proactive, all of a sudden a lot of things change because you can start to see the pieces and then you can apply them to work. Such a meta skill. Absolutely. Love it. Awesome, Tim. Well, again, like I said, we could probably keep talking for hours here, but let's leave a little bit for the audience to go read your book and find out more information about you.

Where can they find you? LinkedIn. What's the easiest way to get in touch with you here? Yeah. Website, timjscastle.com. The JS is for the inventors in the family. Go ahead. And then, yeah, Instagram, same thing. Tim JSCastle. Awesome, Tim. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. I appreciate you staying up a little late for me here and I really enjoyed the conversation. No, thank you. Much gratitude to you and hope to stay in touch. Yeah, likewise. And everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I always said at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day's going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile today, you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more than 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.