Why No Is More Powerful Than Yes In Any Negotiation | Chris Voss

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0:30Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:42What would you say is the most important word to use in any negotiation? Not use, but come to grips with, no. The word no. No is a great word to hear. if you're trying to make the negotiation when I'm trying to make the negotiation because empathy is about what it is for the other side not what it is for you it's not about you so when you say no you feel safe I'm protecting myself I'm guarding my deal or whatever the side of that I have I'm not giving in to something I don't want right and as soon as you do that you're more willing to explore options Okay, no for this, but maybe what about this, this, or this?

1:31Right, right. Or I may say, look, does this look like a bad idea? And you might say, no, it doesn't look like a bad idea, but I need these things. Would you, having felt safe, well, now tell me honestly, because you don't feel obligated. If I'd have said, does this look like a good deal to you? You might say, yes, it looks like a good deal, but, the erasing word, I need these things. But you're afraid if you had said yes in the first place, you're now on the hook. So you're not going to be as honest with me about those things. So coming to grips with what yes and no really means is one of the major first turning points in anybody's negotiation journey as a great negotiator.

2:13Say that one more time. Coming to grips with what yes and no really mean is the first major turning point in anybody's negotiation journey. because you think yes is success and it's not. And you think no is failure and it's not. Why is yes not a success? Yes at best is aspiration only. You know, the phrase hope is not a strategy. Yes is hope alone. Hope is inadequate alone. And at best it's an aspiration. Most commonly it's counterfeit. It's fake. It's a fake yes. If someone says, hey, I want to do this deal with you, and you say, yeah, I'm open to that, or yeah, that works for me. You're saying it's not 100 % until the deal terms are laid out over paper and people are going back and forth, or what do you mean?

3:05Well, about 80 % of the time, I want to know what your deal terms are so I can shop them. Ooh. And if I've said yes, you're going to lay those terms out to me. Now I'm free to shop them and start playing you off somebody else. Interesting. And that is such a problem in the business world, recognizing a lot of salespeople are now taught to say, are we the vendor of choice? Well, you're going for yes there. Now, if you're being played, nobody's ever, if they're playing you, they're not going to tell you the truth. Yeah, yeah. They say, yeah. They're not going to say, well, thank God you asked, because as a matter of fact, you're not.

3:43We're just pumping you for information. Right. We want free consulting. Yeah. Like, nobody's ever going to say that. If they were already lying to you, they're going to lie to you about that question too. So this whole seduction of yes, because we love to hear it. Like, yes, the heavens part, the angels sing, the sun shines. And that is such a seduction that people exploit us regularly by telling us yes. Yeah, it's interesting. So when you hear a no, or when someone hears a no, what is the first thing they should think in a negotiation? Well, it depends upon how the no came up. Like, you know, in Never Split the Difference, we point out no could mean not yet.

4:27Or no is no to these circumstances, which doesn't eliminate other circumstances. Like, no could be I need time to think. Like, no is almost never rejection. if it's come up unexpectedly it's really it's a signal that there's another path versus I gotta quit and go home no it's failure I'm horrified with no that ain't that ain't the case so we intentionally try to get it all the time like if getting someone to say no as a result of a calibrated question is so powerful you intentionally try to get people to say no intentionally try to get people to say no, that that may be the only thing that some people learn.

5:16Because I get emails on LinkedIn all the time, like, hey, I use the phrase, have you given up on this project? And my close rate is so exceeding everybody else on my company that I should come work for you and teach this. And my thought is like, I'm glad you're making a lot more money right now, but you're just scratching the surface. And you think because you're comparing yourself to your peers who are in the middle of the bell curve, that if you just moved up the bell curve one notch, you now see all these people way behind you. You don't have any idea how much more upside you have. Right.

6:01I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

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7:33Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

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