HANDLE UPPER-LEVEL NEGOTIATION—WITH CLIENTS, BANKERS AND PARTNERS
For some reason, this is always my clients’ favorite chapter. It tells me that business owners really like the moments when the stakes are high, and that they would like to improve their skills in this area.
Let’s define the keyword from the title. What do I mean by upper-level? It obviously depends on where your business is on its growth journey. Let’s take it from the beginning: The key to productivity is saying NO to most activities. Always keep this in mind. At the launch of your business, you’ll also spend your time dealing with nonessential contacts in meetings and phone calls, as long as you don’t earn enough money to delegate this task.
My goal is to distinguish the people I must spend my time with from the others, whether that be meetings, calls, or online. So how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? A couple of years ago, Michael, one of my business owner clients who, at the time, led a $75m conglomerate told me a tip he used, to ensure the people he met were worth his time.
“The people you consider speaking to or exchange messages with are worth your time IF you think the result of the interaction can lead to at least a 10% increase in your revenue.” He added, “You have to place the cursor somewhere.”
I appreciated Michael’s advice. I’ve even used it. But I personally apply another method. The growth of your business gives you a clue about what your personal time is worth, but here’s the universal truth: wherever you are, if the interaction results in you changing substantially something in your business—hiring (personally), expanding, moving, increasing—that’s an upper-level negotiation.
If NOT, that’s nonessential contact. Not necessarily a total time-waster, but nonessential. You’d probably be better spending your time with somebody else or on something else, unless you don’t have any other project and you need cash. You can choose either Michael’s approach or mine: in either case, at a certain point in time, it’s not your job to deal with your small day-to-day customers. Your focus is needed elsewhere, on high- and super-high-value activities.
In the beginning, let’s say for the first couple of months, you may be the one who answers the phone all the time, meets the clients, answers all emails. We’ve all done it. But DO NOT keep doing this if you have the capacity to delegate it.
Hire or outsource, but DELEGATE it so that you can concentrate your efforts on relationships that really count. You might handle nonessential contacts personally until your business reaches the 6-figure threshold. After that point, it makes financial sense to put this task on someone else’s to-do list, whose hourly rate is much lower than yours. As your business grows, more and more people will want to meet you or talk to you. As your business grows, you must protect your time better because it becomes more and more valuable.
When you grow a company, the biggest threat to your energy, money, and time will be tire kickers, toe draggers, freebie seekers. They waste your time on the phone, face-to-face, in your mailbox, everywhere. One of the main aspects of your job is to avoid them.
Remember when you started your business: you were probably afraid of being rejected, when presenting your offer! Beginners often have this fear. Seasoned business owners have long past this stage. We realize that to build a solid business, WE are the ones rejecting time wasters and people who aren’t serious, are undecided, or are unprepared.
Guard your time like it’s the most precious resource you possess, because IT IS.
To know which meetings are worth your time, remember the universal truth: if the outcome forces you to change something in your business (hire, change, expand, move), that’s an upper-level negotiation. When the stakes are high, who else other than YOU can handle an upper-level negotiation? Who else other than YOU believes that your business is the greatest thing to have happened to humankind? Who else other than YOU stands for those values you founded your company on? Who else than YOU is THAT proud to offer this product or service that they wouldn’t exchange it for any position in the world?
THE HOW
It’s your job to handle these negotiations … and to WIN them. I have sat through hundreds of negotiations with high achievers, and I’ve finally designed what has become my TRIDENT blueprint.
(1) Rise up
To be able to close big deals, remember that effective negotiators have a style those whom they’re trying to influence, relate to, and admire. In a nutshell, people are asking themselves: “Is this the type of person I want to do business with?”
Your approach and manner count for more than the actual content of the discussion. So how do you nurture and develop this style? Whether you talk to your banker, your partners, your prospects, or clients, you don’t need them. You are giving them an opportunity because you KNOW your services or products are gold.
If you don’t believe in this statement, you have a problem. You must first work on your products or services to be convinced that what you offer is the single best thing since slice bread. If not, what do you expect? If you wouldn’t be able to sell your own brother or sister the product or service you’re selling—given that they need this kind of product or service—you’re a crook.
If you don’t believe in your product or service, don’t expect anybody else to. You won’t be able to scam people. And if you do, it won’t last. Especially today. People can spot scammers and liars in seconds. We just feel their presence. To be compelling, you must be convinced in what you’re saying. That’s the transfer of emotion you may have heard of already, and you can’t transfer something you don’t have. That’s the first rule of the negotiator.
There are two kinds of people:
Well-being and confidence are attractive. Dependence is not. It’s akin to weakness. Confidence is what allows you to be admired by your employees, your clients, your partners, and your competitors—and your spouse … which is the icing on the cake. Confidence comes from being 100% certain of the quality of your offer.
It’s always more about what you CONVEY than what you say.
That’s the Clint Eastwood effect. His character in movies never says, “I’m tough; I’m strong; I’m a badass.” But you KNOW in a matter of seconds that he is tough, that he is strong, and that you can count on him to kick your ass.
It’s all about what’s IMPLIED in the words you say.
(2) Be unpredictable
Offer something new. And I’m talking about YOU, not your business’s offer. Be someone they’re not used to seeing; don’t be just another forgettable supplier of stuff. Be original, especially in the beginning of the encounter. Don’t be afraid to be different. Take radical stances and adopt contrarian opinions. It works.
During your negotiations, the crocodile brain—the most primitive part of our cognition—of the person in front of you is slow to process details, especially in the beginning. If what you convey is complicated (with abstract jargon), or if it’s the same crap as others, their brain will label you as boring, lame, business as usual, lifeless. Your message must be recognized as something new and positive.
Our brains are lazy and tend to label people as soon as possible. Our brains are exposed to millions of messages every day, so they’re wired to ignore or at least spend the least amount of attention on a particular subject, on a message, or on a person. If your message is close to what they’ve guessed, they will mentally check out on you, because all they’ll do is wonder how similar your idea is to something they already know. As soon as they solve the puzzle and see the whole story, they’ll drop out.
The human mind is a peculiar engine. When we gauge a person and they slip out of our grasp, they’re beyond our control: that’s when we consider this person important and come to admire them. But when we see that we can control this person, and that we can frame them, then we’re not interested in them anymore. “Thank you, next.”
The human mind causes people to chase what moves away from them. There are a lot of parallels which can be drawn with dating: who’s the prize? Who’s chasing whom? It’s up to you to take control of that dynamic. How? By being different. First, acknowledge that YOU are different. So too are your ideas, your message, what you convey, everything. Give new information, so their crocodile brain is stimulated with curiosity, excitement, desire. Violate their expectations, in a pleasant way. Do so with new ideas, metaphors, bright and short slides, and product demonstrations.
As for your offer, make it exciting and different as well, but not too much, or their interest will start to decline. If it’s something totally unusual, they’ll feel unsafe. People’s brains can’t process too much novelty, and they then tend to step back. As far as I’ve seen, very few business owners offer something truly different. Business owners tend to take fewer risks and do as others do. But I won’t insist on that at this stage.
Being too different is hardly ever a real problem, but it’s important to stand out personally, especially in the beginning of the encounter. Then, as the negotiation advances, stay different and offer something new—but not so much as to alienate them.
Just remember that there are no others like you. Out of eight billion people, you are unique. I’m not just talking about your appearance but about your ideas too; not to mention your will, your values, your story, your projects, and all the things you are made of. Most people have the popularity contest mindset and are often seeking to please others—to be like others. Those people will always be failures, because they try to please everybody.
In forgoing your prerogative to be yourself, you condemn yourself to a life akin to that of the people pleasers … a clone. That’s the worst mistake anyone can make in their life: to relinquish their identity.
The harder you try to fit in to the social scene, the lower your social value becomes.
If only teens understood this, that would change their whole lives. Yet, some people hold on to this illogical paradigm their whole lives.
There are so many benefits just to being yourself. People who are true to themselves, whose exterior (words and actions) is in harmony with their interior (thoughts and emotions), THRIVE to the point that they become unstoppable! They take up all the space, and their world gravitates towards them.
By the way, we’re touching here on the real definition of charisma: those who appear to be exactly as they are on the inside; those who are exactly the same regardless of their environment, whether they’re alone or surrounded with people. Just showcase your values and beliefs, and stick to them no matter what. These are the people who have the most influence. Think about Steve Jobs or Donald Trump: these people are possessed by their own thoughts! They are utterly convinced, and so they find it easier to convince others, and finally, they end up winning the popularity contest—which, of course, they don’t give a shit about. It’s one of the paradoxes of human nature: that people value what they can’t have, and they admire who they can’t become.
(3) Own the conversation
Whoever you happen to be negotiating with, whether you’re the buyer or the seller, you set the agenda. First, you set out what will be discussed and in which order. You decide when the subject is closed, and you decide when to jump on another topic. You ask questions, and you decide if the answers are adequate. When they ask you questions, feel free to reframe the question or to answer with a question. You are the one who ends the conversation.
Let me tell you a secret that will shift your paradigm forever, one which I learned from a man called Patrick, who I’ve seen in action so many times, and someone who I consider to be the best negotiator in the history of negotiation. And even that’s an understatement; he was more than that: he was a student of human psychology—of how people think.
His considers that if you answer people’s questions, you become framed. It’s as simple as that. For him, as soon as you answer people’s questions, you are in the reactive mode. Nobody can achieve anything meaningful if they don’t switch on the proactive mode.
By their very nature, questions induce possible answers and guide the conversation.
We believe that we are free to answer in whichever way we choose, but we are already constrained and limited by the question. We are in a position of dependence, because our answer obviously depends on the question. Reaction means dependence. Action means freedom.
Does it mean you should never answer a question? No, that would be nuts. But what you should do is practice rephrasing them, or answer by asking a question, or explicitly invalidating the question by refuting its assumption, or by not answering at all and taking over the discussion. That reminds me of the first time I saw Patrick in action, carrying out one of his signature moves, which I’ve since took to calling the minus 10° effect.
He was my client, and he was looking to sell his business, so I found him some people who were interested. As soon as we sat down (in Patrick’s office, of course, to keep the upper hand), the potential buyers uttered their first question to my client:
“So, why are you looking to sell your company?”
To which Patrick answered with perfect timing: “I’m not looking to sell my company.”
From there, we took over the conversation, flipped the table, and redefined who was chasing whom. Indeed, Patrick wanted to sell his business, but he didn’t want to give them the upper hand by acquiescing to their first statement, that is, by answering a question which he considered to be oriented. He wasn’t afraid to cool down the atmosphere of the room by 10° in one second.
During our debrief, he told me: “They tried to knock over my queen in their first move! If I didn’t reframe them, I would’ve been disarmed during the whole game.”
It might sound radical (and it is), but think about it: who holds all the cards during a police interrogation? It’s not the suspect. So don’t fall into that trap … unless you’re Keyser Söze. Keep this in mind because it’s a subconscious play. The master negotiator I learned it from always gets what he’s looking for.
Sometimes, it’ll be hard because you’re not the only one out there who wants to own the conversation. But hey! It’s a negotiation, and having a high octane conversation isn’t necessarily a bad thing: when two mavericks come together, they collide.
It’s survival of the fittest, and the stronger frame remains. Sometimes it’s fierce, but most of the time, it’s smooth and you’ll take control of the frame. You don’t need to be confrontational; you might use an accommodating tone and deliver your truths gently … Remember the iron fist in a velvet glove, and be respectful.
Practice this and it’ll become second nature.
You’ll love negotiation. It’s thrilling; it’s a game; and you’re going to have the time of your life.
If your counterpart is as tough as you are, you’ll earn their utmost respect. Alpha negotiators recognize each other.
You’ll be remembered as dangerous, and people like to do business with dangerous negotiators. Some negotiators are bold, but lack competence, while some are very skilled but have too much fear. To be both bold and skilled is to be dangerous. Even if people don’t get what they want during their negotiation with you, they’ll be impressed. They like the interaction with you just for the experience: they learn by watching you in action.
WHAT NOT TO DO
You fall into the other person’s frame by:
Now, you might have other sales techniques that work, but as Oren Klaff states in his book Pitch Anything, sales techniques are mostly there for people who have already lost the frame collision. Most of those who need sales tricks and tips already are at a point where they need some help to try to do business from a weaker standing.
Usually, the kind of sales technique I hear about is either useless stuff such as “smile, be excited”, “acknowledge what they say”, “mirror your counterpart’s behavior”, and all this kind of crap; or obvious things such as “listen carefully”, “look in their eyes when you talk”, and “be on time”.
I am not a fan of so-called sales techniques or tactics. I prefer to give you the big picture mindset of the trident strategy: Rise up. Be different (I say unpredictable just to be different). Own the conversation.
Now you’re really dangerous.
That’s all you need to win the negotiation when the stakes are high. The remainder is mere detail. When the stakes are NOT high, you don’t go into those meetings; you send your people in there (but not without the proper training). Share your skills with your people, so they stop their “smile and be nice” crap.
People I’ve shared this strategy with over the years have seen their lives change, including those who hated negotiation. It helps that there’s no corny tactics or outdated tricks to remember, just a simple shift in your mindset.
The key is to negotiate from a HIGH-STATUS position. Without high status, your message won’t be heard—regardless of your idea, logic, flow, technique, and execution. If they don’t believe you’re a high-status individual, they won’t pay attention to you.
HIGH STATUS—DIRECT EFFECT OF THE TRIDENT BLUEPRINT
There are three criteria to evaluate a social status level (apart from apparent wealth): confidence, popularity, and power.
This is a concept I’ve personally constructed over time, after seeing how my wealthy contacts were handling negotiations, and above all, by applying it myself. But very few of my contacts practiced all these elements at a top level. So by using only one or two of them, you’re already among the best negotiators. In mastering ALL three aspects, you’ll leave an indelible mark and quickly notice the result of the trident effect: with your triple advantage, you set yourself apart and among the 0.1% top negotiators.
It’s worked for me, and it’ll work for you in any kind of negotiation—and also in your personal life. Now that you have the three ingredients, just practice and refine it. These negotiation strategies allow you to communicate below the surface of people’s consciousness. That’s precisely where it’s all happening.
THE 4-STAR TACTICS
While it might not be the primary purpose of this book, I also want to mention four tactics I use regarding effective negotiation and closing.
First: create options for yourself. In negotiation, the one who has the best second option wins, that is, the person who can afford to care less. Whatever you negotiate, you must always have different options to choose from. If you don’t, you’re in a weak position. You’re not negotiating, you’re bluffing.
Second: decide in advance how far you’re willing to go, and stick to it, because the heat of negotiation could push you into giving away the store. All seasoned negotiators do that. That’s why I’m giving you another weapon: disturb your opponent’s calculations and bring something new to the table, something that they haven’t anticipated. This way, they’ll be susceptible to conceding more, because they’ll have lost their mark.
Third: contrary to what most sales experts tell us, make the first offer. It anchors the discussion. You don’t want to be stuck in a STALEMATE. The final outcome of a negotiation is influenced by who makes the first offer. For instance, if you want to work out a deal to sell forty units of something, then anchor the discussion to sixty units to begin with. That way, they’ll view the number sixty as your expectation. It’ll serve you well to artificially inflate your starting position as it’ll give you greater room for maneuver. If you end up selling only forty units, you’ll still be satisfied—since that was your initial goal—and they’ll feel like they got a good deal.
It’s essentially a question of pride. Furtherance to the example above, if your opponent initially had twenty units in mind, saying it out loud definitely anchors them somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five. You can’t move them around like puppets, and it would certainly have been much harder to move them to forty units, mainly because they want to seem credible. The one who says the first number anchors the conversation. Seize that opportunity.
The reason why other people don’t like to make the first move is because it takes audacity. Everyone expects the other party to make the first offer, just to be able to stay in their comfort zone a little longer, and not to risk offending anyone. During negotiations, I’m always the first to jump out of the ship. I’m the one who makes things uncomfortable for everyone all of a sudden. I make the initial effort, but once the negotiation range is anchored, it’s their turn to make the effort to move it elsewhere, and it’s much harder.
That’s what I’ve always done, and it has always worked like a charm.
Fourth: don’t give away everything you planned upfront. Keep some cards close to your chest, and maybe even an ace up your sleeve. More often than not, you or your counterpart will discover new pieces of information during the negotiation that will need a reassessment of the situation. You take something, you give something up. That’s why you always need to withhold some ammo. People are happier to find $20 bills on five consecutive days than a $100 bill once. We like good news spread out.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The three pillars which I base my negotiation teaching on (confidence, popularity, power) are adaptable regardless of your temperament. They can fit any personality: you can be very talkative and loud (extravert), or you can be quiet and calm (introvert). It doesn’t matter. Whatever your temperament is, this negotiation strategy works because it gives you the right substance and the right content. It’s up to you to add your own style.
Everything I mentioned in this subsection to win a negotiation works at least in the USA and in France—where I’ve personally tested it. I don’t know how culturally different negotiation is in other parts of the world, but the main point is that with upper-level negotiation, being a super high-value activity, it’s your duty to handle them.
That’s how you optimize your time, by arranging meetings with the right people and being the kind of person they want to do business with.
Apply it and share your experience right here in the 8 Figure World Facebook group, to sharpen your skills even more alongside like-minded people:
facebook.com/groups/8figureworld
Let me remind you of something obvious that people tend to forget: the better your marketing is, the fewer sales you have to close; and the better your product is, the less marketing you need. The product is so great in the last company I’ve invested in, that there’s no marketing at all! If your product sucks and your marketing sucks, you better be good at selling because you’ll have a lot to do to fill the gap. If your product or service is groundbreaking and your marketing is bold, the sales and negotiation part will be easy.
What do I mean by bold marketing? In one word: unorthodox. Bold marketing is marketing that won’t appeal to everyone; some will even hate it. It’s when a brand decides not to reach out to everyone, and instead focuses on a particular, contrarian point of view. It resonates with the niche, and it works.
Marketing excludes, sales includes.
One of the ways to scale a business is to do more, that is, more work to get more prospects and customers. Another way is to work less, have fewer prospects but BETTER prospects, and ultimately find better clients and better employees (which usually goes hand in hand with raising your prices and delivering a great product or a high level of service).
What I’m talking about in this subsection is your personal aptitude to sell your vision in upper-level negotiations. It’s all about your inner self and what you convey: the lasting impression. That’s where the big game is played and where the big results are earned. But it’s NOT your job to handle the sales of your company. Train people instead. Put systems in place. With a great sales system, even an average salesperson can thrive. Great systems outsell great salespeople.
When you think about it, what I’m advocating with The 400-Hour Work Week method is for business owners to grow their businesses by doing less. By doing the most important things, you inevitably end up doing fewer things. Again, remember the 80/20 rule and work only on the 20%—the most important activities. That’s the whole point of this book.