The Entrepreneur's Guide To Human-Centered Negotiation with Walker Thrash

0:01Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down the Entrepreneur's Guide to Human-Centered Negotiation. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Walker Thrash into EO Fire Studios. Walker is a real estate developer and verticals managing partner, specializing in multi-million dollar public-private partnerships, delivering hotels, housing, and mixed-use projects through innovative financing, creative problem-solving, and human-centered negotiating. Today, we'll talk about the preparation advantage, recognizing authority, people over dollars, turning ideas into greatness, and oh, so much more.

0:41And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Walker and our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you love stories that entertain and educate, you've got to grab the book, The Dealmaker's Will by Walker Thrash. It reads like a novel, but teaches like a masterclass, packed with timeless lessons on power, leverage, and negotiation. Whether you're raising capital or closing deals, this book will change how you play the game. Get it now on Amazon. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software.

1:17Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Walker, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Awesome. First, man, I'm a long-time listener, John. I appreciate you having me on. I run to your podcast. It's your cadence, man. You fire me up. Thank you. There's not a lot I can run to. I can say that. But no, I love it. This will be fun. To your question, I'd say that the thing that I believe is true that I found to be true in what I do is that the most successful people are not necessarily the most talented people.

2:07And I think that's the popular misconception. But I'm sure you've done this too. I've left meetings and thought like, how the hell is that guy worth a billion dollars? We just talked, This is the most down to the earth, salt to the earth person I've met. And I didn't see some outlier, you know, that would tell me that he rises above. But, you know, you get a room full of 10 people, the five most talented people, they're come up with great ideas. They're doing back of the napkin math. You know, they're doing stuff that I can't do. But they kind of stop there, right? Like the most successful people, they're leaving the room figuring out how am I going to implement that idea or that plan?

2:47They're taking risks. They're taking action. They're just not going to stop until they're successful. And I think that's, so there's not the most talented, right? They're the most active. And I think that's the difference. And that's the thing people should hone in on. I firmly believe the most successful people are just genuinely the most active. Well, Fire Nation, today's episode is focused all around the entrepreneur's guide to human-centered negotiation. And as you heard, Walker loves to listen to the show as he runs. So he knows you, he knows Fire Nation. And Walker, on that note, when entrepreneurs, when they step into the negotiation arena, how can they flip the script?

3:30How can they turn it into a true collaboration instead of falling into that tired win-lose battle? Oh man, that's a good question. You know, first I'd say, don't start with price, right? I think that's what a lot of us do. and I mean, I've done it a million times, that's not negotiating, that's haggling, right? That's a fabulous way to lose whatever deal you're working on. You had, I told you I'm a listener, you had a guest on, I don't know how long ago, Tommy Walker. I remember his last name because it's my first name. Oh yeah, Tommy Walker. And he talked about brand narrative, which was an awesome episode, by the way.

4:10And he discussed wants versus needs. And I thought that was a really interesting way to talk about a lot of different facets of business. But, you know, what people want in negotiation is they want this like Swiss army knife of tricks, right? They want it to be super complicated. I got 50 moves written down or they're in their head. You know, Johnny's going to do this. And if Johnny does that, Sarah will do this. And I can say this and Mark will agree to that. I mean, that just never works, right? It never happens that way. However you play it out in your head, it just doesn't. And the more complicated the deal is, the less it's going to play out like that, right?

4:48It reminds me, I'm a big sports fan, but I used to love Mike Tyson. He had a great quote, and he was a badass. I'm not talking about 50-year-old Mike Tyson. I'm talking about Iron Mike in his 20s, right? Right, right. But he said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth or something like that, right? Right. I mean, and that's what happens, I think, to a lot of, you know, deal makers, negotiators in the room in the first meeting is they've got this whole thing laid out in their head. One thing goes wrong and it's like you get punched in the mouth and then the wheels come off. Right.

5:23And it does. It happens over and over. And like I said, it's happened to me plenty of times. But I think if that's the one, if what you want is, hey, let me have a bunch of tricks and tactics. I think what people actually need is they just need a much simpler approach, like decompress the situation. You know, like try this next time. Instead of talking about price, you know, first meeting, just light the room on fire with a vision, period. It's not about dollars and cents. Just that one thing, forget numbers, forget positions. What amazing thing are we going to do together? Right? Just have a conversation.

6:01You're asking questions, listening to answers. There's nothing predetermined in that discussion. You don't have 50 different things you're trying to carry around with you that you're forgetting. You're just gathering information. And if you approach the meeting in that respect, the people are going to appreciate it in the room. But watch how different your outcomes will be. You play from 30 ,000 feet instead of starting super granular. And what it takes is it takes building the confidence to believe, hey, I'm going to arrive at answers in this meeting. I'm not going to have them all predetermined.

6:37Well, I think that leads perfectly, Walker, into the preparation advantage because preparation is actually the ultimate unfair advantage, at least according to you. So why do so many people overlook this? I mean, how can we out-prepare our competition so we walk into every single deal, not just ready to win, but ready to dominate? You know, in out-preparing, I think there's just a piece of it's just prepare, right? You're going to walk into so many meetings. And I look at everything through the lens of real estate. That's what I do. I can't help it. But what I find quite often is the majority of the room is unprepared, completely unprepared.

7:17You know, they walked out of, everybody's busy. You walked out of whatever the last meeting you had, which was on a totally different topic. You know, there's new introductions every time. And then you sit down and we all start from scratch, right? So like, think about this. You walk into a meeting or you get on a Zoom call. Someone, let's just say one person's done their homework, right? They've got, and it can be simple. You've got a full project budget, a draft of a budget for whatever product or development you're talking about, that one person, who's going to field 80 % of the questions in the meeting?

7:53The prepared person. And it doesn't matter their age, rank, none of that matters. If they've done some preparation, all of a sudden the conversation starts to gravitate to them. And I don't mean by prepare, you know, you can't go back and talk out of both sides of your mouth. I don't mean pre-bake the whole idea of the negotiation. I mean, just do your due diligence, know your numbers, know the parties in the room. You'll get the most questions, but when it's important, if you get the most questions, you get to ask the most questions. And that's what steers you to a deal. I mean, opening up dialogue, asking questions, getting people to open up is how you get to a deal.

8:30And if you're prepared, I promise you, you're going to get more dialogue. You're going to field more questions. You get to ask more questions. And it's just such a simple tweak to the approach. Well, that kind of leads me into recognizing authority? Because you actually talk about recognizing others' authority and our audience wants to know, what does that actually look like in action? How do you make sure you're not diminishing your own authority along the way when you're there recognizing other people's authority? Yeah, I just think there's enough to go around. I firmly believe that. Let's think about it in terms of an anecdote.

9:10So let's say, I'm developing a building and there's a restaurant in the building. So if there's a restaurant in the building, there's a chef in the meeting. And John, I don't know how many chefs you know, but 100 % of the ones I know have an ego. I can't help it. So I'm going to acknowledge that. I'm going to acknowledge his authority. If we're talking about menu, we're talking about cuts of meat, even the lighting in the space, that's always a big conversation when you talk about food and beverage. I'm acknowledging him. he knows more about that than I do. And if I'm willing to accept that now, if we're talking restaurant budget, the chef will acknowledge mine.

9:53It's that simple. If I have given him the authority to talk about the restaurant, he'll see that authority to me to talk about the things that I understand best. But I will say there's nuance to all of this, right? And you could get super granular. But what's important there is that I actually do acknowledge and believe that he understands what he's talking about. Otherwise, you got the wrong people in the room, right? If this is all fake and it's tricks and tactics, it falls apart. I believe that if you're in a room with five people, four of them should have different disciplines than you do, right?

10:29They are going to know things better than you. If you want to put it into a real world scenario, like I've walked so I do public private partnerships that's mostly what our company does and those are interesting because they do they're dynamic projects there's a lot of different negotiations going on to try to get a deal off the ground so walk in the room there's a city manager mayor you know head of economic development typical players in the room and this I mean this is a real meeting I had recently. There's this one sharply dressed young lady. And I mean, remember I'm in Boulder. So like I'm in jeans, button down shirt, maybe, you know, this is a pretty lowbrow crowd as far as dress goes.

11:14Right. She might as well just had consultants stamped on her forehead. I mean, she's, she looks perfect dressed to a T and the first thing out of her mouth is you miscalculated the permit fees. So yeah, I know this is going to be contentious, right? I mean, right out the gate, it wasn't, hello, you know, let's do our introductions. That was just, she wanted to make sure she was important in the meeting. So, you know, you have two moves there. You can, I could have second guessed her, right? Then she's my enemy. She's entrenching even more on her side. Exactly. I mean, she can't wait to prove me wrong if I do that.

11:51So I can, or I can acknowledge her authority, right? Which I did. I said something like, you know, nice catch. You're probably right. And that's important. Let's get together after the meeting and talk about that. I want to make sure I've got that dialed in. But what I want to talk about today is the margin in these condos. We've got to improve that. So now she's not defensive. As a matter of fact, she's appreciative. I've acknowledged the fact what she's talking about is important. We don't need to dismiss it. It's just not what we're here to meet about. So now we're talking about the deal again, not miscalculated permit fees.

12:27Fire Nation, that's a master class in handling people's quote-unquote egos. And we're going to talk about people over dollars, turning ideas into greatness, and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Imagine a story so gripping you can't put it down, yet every chapter quietly levels up your business mindsets? That's the deal maker's will. It's storytelling that teaches. Fiction built on decades of hard-won negotiation wisdom. You'll follow Will Powell, an entrepreneur drowning in debt, and his mysterious mentor, Julian Darrow, whose seven rules reveal how real deals are done. These aren't fluffy theories.

13:07They're actionable frameworks that scale. Whether you're raising capital, closing a sales deal, or negotiating equity with a partner, you'll learn how power, perception, and timing decide everything, and how the best negotiators control more than just the numbers. They control the narrative. If you're ready to sharpen your instincts, elevate your mindsets, and learn what separates deal takers from the deal makers, go grab your copy of The Deal Makers Will today on Amazon. Read it once for the story, then again for the strategy. Again, that's The Deal Makers Will by Walker Thrash. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business, and they are also our featured partner, HighLevel.

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14:59High Level, join the revolution. Walk, we're back and I want to talk about people over dollars because deals, yes, they might end in dollars, but they always start with people. So how do you keep spotlight on relationships and humans just across the table, even when the money feels like it is the main event at the end of the day? Yeah, I think it's most important that you can diminish the power of the dollar conversation immediately, right? Or you can spotlight it immediately. And again, maybe at your own peril. So in these public-private partnerships and relationships that we do quite often in real estate, the more dynamic that deal is, the less it's about money, right?

15:45It's about vision. It's about trust, ability to execute. And that goes across all of the lines. Forget real estate, any product, any service, ultimately it comes down to some vision of how this entire plan gets executed. So let's say I'm up against three developers going for a project. That's a typical scenario. I'm not selling price. If I'm haggling to be the cheapest, if that's what I'm peddling, what am I saying? I'm saying my value in this deal is to be the lowest price. So I'm a commodity. Right? I mean, that might as well be what you say. Hey guys, I'm the commodity. I'm gonna do this cheaper than everybody else.

16:30That's a great way to get a deal you don't want to end up with a thin deal that has no margin in it. So what I'm trying to sell is design my team, our track record, you know, projects we've done that are similar. And this goes back to being able to have dialogue, like asking questions, understanding their desires, then I'm going to show them what it you know whatever picture we're painting that we can deliver that and if we can we're talking about like i said a much loftier objective and how much are we paying and how much is this going to cost we're talking about execution and then the dollars that conversation comes secondary and that's you know a whole nother uh maybe discussion point about how to make that an objective discussion but the most important thing is to not make it the most important discussion because it is.

17:24It's just, it's about people. Ultimately, we're negotiating with humans, right? It's so true. And Walker, I've got a quote for you. Feel free to use it. It's a Seth Godin quote, which I love. So I always give him credit for it. But it's, the problem with the race to the bottom is that you just might win. And so if you really think about that, when it's always about diminishing your price and going to the lowest dollar amount, the problem is you might win that race. and even winning that race is actually losing because you're taking away all profits, all reason for actually doing that thing. So I've always loved that quote.

17:59It's always meant a lot to me. That's perfect. And I want to talk about turning ideas into greatness because this is something that you've been doing for a long time. This is something that you've been helping people do. I mean, ideas are everywhere, but ownership, that's the multiplier. So how do entrepreneurs, like those listening, Fire Nation, how do they take a good idea, let others truly own it, and watch it explode into a great idea that creates massive impact? Yeah. First, I would say maybe a distinction point here. I'm not a consultant. My day job is real estate development and I love it.

18:36So I'm not out trying to figure out how to give bullet points on this particular subject. I just love negotiation. And I think it's supposed to be an enjoyable back and forth. But as you talk about good ideas and great ideas, this is, this is one of my favorite discussions. So one thing is stop thinking you're different than everybody else, right? We're human and we're self-interested. That's not a negative. If you want to pretend like it's only you that's self-interested, that's a mistake, right? There's nothing wrong with that. That is just human nature. We all have egos. And if you want to simplify it, you can have a good idea.

19:19You can. I mean, you go back to talented people, have good ideas. That's part of the discussion. Or you can gift that idea to someone else. And by that, you know, I don't want to stay too high level on that. By that, I mean like, ask for help. What do you think about this? How would you tweak this idea, John? Right? That's a way to gift an idea to someone else and let it be something that they're thinking about. Let's use an example that's more straightforward. I say, hey, John, you should paint your studio pink, right? That's my idea. Or I could say, hey, if you had to use a pink paint color in your studio, John, how would you do that?

20:10Now, you might hate both of those ideas, right? But I promise you, you're going to hate whatever idea you come up with a lot less than mine. And maybe you like it because you put some thought into it, right? It's your idea. It's not mine anymore. I just kind of like seeded that one to you, maybe led you to water a little bit, but that's not manipulation. That's really trying to draw out your ideas. And, you know, And I said that earlier, but this is not like a tricks and gambits kind of deal. You genuinely want to be in the room with people. I'd want to hear your opinion on that if this is something we're actually going after.

20:49But you could take it, let's take it to just business, right? Painting your studio pinks may be a different example. I could say, here's my numbers, John. I need an extra$500 ,000 to make this deal work. or I could say, hey, can you take a look at my numbers? Like I've got a$500 ,000 gap. How would you solve this? Now, you want to be valued. You know, people like to be smart. They like to offer their ideas. We're all kids, man. I mean, that's what I firmly believe. At some point, raw kids just got kicked out of our house. We're trying to get high fives. We're, you know, we want to be celebrated, pretending like other people don't want the same thing.

21:33is just a mistake. You know, let them have ideas. You know, now if we do it and that's the dialogue, now in some ways you're kind of working on my behalf trying to come up with this idea. Walker, you could have written the traditional nonfiction, quote unquote, how-to, but you instead went bold. You went with a business novel. Tell us more about that idea and about the novel itself. And of course, where the heck can Fire Nation pick this up? No, I appreciate the plug. The book is The Dealmaker's Will, and it is truly a novel. It's a business novel. It's very much steeped in negotiation and dealmaking.

22:18And ultimately, there's seven rules kind of feathered through the book that are very obvious as you read through it. But I really didn't want to write. Look, man, I love nonfiction. I have read every self-help book like on the shelf and they're great you know from negotiation to leadership you know my kids make fun of me I do and I read them all but I love like I I'm just a storyteller I love good stories right and I I personally learn through stories because when you identify with characters you kind of see yourself a little bit in them it helps to make you know maybe a two-dimensional idea, a little more three-dimensional, a little more real.

23:01And then, you know, I think the book as a story and as a novel allows to be just a simplistic discussion about negotiation deal-making as a whole. And hopefully someone reads the novel, they can really look at it and say, okay, look, I'm going to simplify my approach. which this is ultimately, I mean, deals are stories. Rooms full of people end up as stories and anecdotes. I'm just going to have a conversation. I'm going to be armed with a handful of rules, and I'm going to simplify my approach. That's what I hope people take from the book if they read it. And where do we go to potentially read this book to pick it up?

23:42So it actually comes out November 3rd, just released. So Amazon, anywhere you can pick up a book, you should be able to find it. And maybe the links would be in the show notes. I mean, Fire Nation, if you got value from Walker today, I know that you know the book is going to give you 10x that value throughout its entirety. So definitely support Walker for all the value that he's given today. Check the book out. See if you like it. You know, download the sample. If he doesn't hook you in the first 10 % of the book, then, you know, maybe you move on. But I think he will. And if you do get massive value from the book, As a fellow author, I can really ask you and tell you and share with you how important reviews are.

24:25So definitely make that happen as well to show your appreciation. And Walker, I just want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute your brother and we'll catch you on the flip side. Man, I'm honored. I really do appreciate it, John. This has been fun. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Walker for sponsoring today's episode. and Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for entrepreneurs on fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest and I'll catch you there.

25:02We're on the flip side. Fire Nation, if you love stories that entertain and educate, you've got to grab the book, The Dealmaker's Will by Walker Thrash. It reads like a novel, but teaches like a masterclass packed with timeless lessons on power, leverage and negotiation. Whether you're raising capital or closing deals, this book will change how you play the game. Get it now on Amazon. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.

25:46Thank you.