Negotiation Skills You Use Every Day

0:00Anytime anybody says they want something, that's actually a negotiation. With us now to help break down the investigation, FBI Special Agent Hostage Negotiator, Christopher Voss. Yeah, I'm Chris Voss. I am the author of Never Split the Difference, negotiating as if your life depends on it. What is negotiation? Collaboration. Anytime anybody wants or says they want something, if the words I want or I need are crossing your lips or in the mind of somebody you're talking to, and that's the purpose of the conversation, then you're in a negotiation. It doesn't matter. Most people only think it's when money's at stake.

0:38So how do you challenge somebody without confronting them? It's going to sound harsh. You're not going to like what I have to say. And then I'd say the same thing as before, but instead of them getting offended, since I've inoculated them from the negative thoughts. So this whole idea of being able to inoculate against negative reactions, So I started out as a self-survival mechanism, and now it's actually one of the main cornerstones of strategies that we teach everybody in business and sales, inoculate it in advance. So let's say you were taking over from another hostage negotiator, and the person who'd been taking the hostages had been used to someone else.

1:21Is that the way you would introduce yourself as I've taken over, or is that a totally different tactic that'd be required? Well, something really close. I mean, calling out the negatives in advance, the empathy methodology that is, is something we call the accusation zone. Well, something that's really close to it is a summer. And so if I'm taking over and somebody else, the hostage taker or the customer on the other side, what's their first thought? How do I know that you even know what the hell's going on? like yeah i never heard of you i don't know if you have any idea so if you summarize the situation from the beginning then what happens is you let them know what you're up to speed on and one of two things happens uh they're like wow this guy does know what's going on or they correct you now the really counterintuitive thing about being corrected is the other side loves it.

2:21Like, as human beings, when we get corrected, we're embarrassed, we're horrified. We think we don't look like an expert. We think we look like idiots. That's very self-centered. The person on the other side, when they correct us, they're helping us. So if you're, as a salesperson, taking over from somebody else, and you sit down with a customer, client, however you refer to them, and you summarize for them. First of all, you're showing them that you're trying to get it right. You're actually indicating to them that you're really coachable and your number one priority is getting it right. And then suddenly, if you're wrong and they correct you, now they're no longer an adversary.

3:04They've effectively come around from across the table and they're sitting on your side of the table and they're helping you out. It's a great relationship to be in. So on the handoff, summarization is just an immensely powerful skill. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that we really love about your techniques when we're teaching new salespeople. A lot of them, there is no wrong. Getting it wrong is also getting it right because people will correct you. And if you get it right, then you get the that's right response.