The E-commerce Leader

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[00:00:00] JM: the third one is playful voice where you’re upbeat, you’re, you’re, you’re having a good time. It feels playful. Even if you have to say something hard, it’s feels playful. And he said camp on that one. He was at 80 percent of the time.
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[00:02:06] MV: Okay, let’s, let’s keep moving. So number six, discovering the black swan. This is actually pretty advanced stuff, but it is the name of Chris Ross’s company. So it’s very, very important to him. And that basically trying to dig and dig and dig until you uncover the. The one thing that changes everything and not always guaranteed to get this is kind of advanced, but an interesting, interesting thing to touch on nevertheless.
[00:02:30] JM: Yeah, no, I mean, I think it is interesting, isn’t it? Like in any negotiation, like we’ve bought businesses now, I think, not, I’ve never bought a fortune 500 company or anything big, but we’ve bought brands and assets and businesses from people. I think we’re up to, I don’t know, maybe 17 or something like that.
[00:02:48] and. You realize that everybody has different ideal outcomes for different reasons, and, it’s just not as plain as give me all the money. I possibly can get type thing. This is not always that straightforward. Many times there’s other things. Sometimes it’s about reputation. Sometimes it’s about the legacy of the thing.
[00:03:13] Like I don’t want my thing to go by the wayside and never be, I want my brand or my business or whatever to live on. sometimes it’s about, they, they’re just exhausted and it’s actually not about money. It’s about them not being able to continue to do it physically, mentally, emotionally.
[00:03:30] And you just don’t know, like these things, it’s easy to argue or negotiate over a price. Like how much do you want? Well, that’s not enough or whatever. Frequently, I think to Chris. Chris Voss’s point, there is a usually a super significant driver that is the person’s primary, thing, and discovering that is helpful to you in the conversation and then negotiation.
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[00:03:58] MV: yeah, absolutely. Now, I was just thinking while you were saying this of coming up with a couple of sort of standard things that people might well be looking for. But then that struck me is that, 1 brilliant thing that Chris Voss says is that professional negotiator. It goes into a conversation well prepared, but they don’t prepare to the extent where they believe they know what the other person’s thinking will stop.
[00:04:17] They have hypothesis or hypotheses of what they probably are thinking or what they may be thinking. And then you test those by going, well, I think this person just wants the most money there is. So listen, and is there evidence for that or is there evidence for perhaps a different hypothesis that they’re exhausted and they just want out of the business?
[00:04:34] Are those two hypotheses actually accurate? And you try to have that, that thing that a grownup has to have two different things in tension in your mind at the same time. One is some decent quality hypotheses. And the other one is the willingness to admit that you’re completely wrong based on the evidence.
[00:04:48] And that’s, so I think again, that open mindedness that you have to bring to it is really important, but that’s very, very interesting. And they get sort of overlap between those two, isn’t it?
[00:04:59] JM: Yeah, I don’t know. It totally, it totally is. It is so, it’s so fascinating. That’s why negotiation is just fun. It’s just like, it’s just fun to be in the conversation with people about meaningful things, whether you’re trying to sell them an expensive service.
[00:05:13] Or coaching, or you’re trying to buy a business from them or have them buy your business. there’s just so many elements to it that, are consequential. and, discovering what, it matters to people in that process is, is just, it’s intriguing. And it’s sort of a mind game that you’re in.
[00:05:32] I, I don’t know. I find it really interesting. And because you just, it’s
[00:05:35] MV: not obvious. We go to people that enjoy these things. Yeah, you’re right. I think that’s what’s fascinating about it is that there is structure, but it’s a lot more subtle than it appears on the surface. And what’s weird about psychological structures is we’re dealing with human beings and we should be familiar with that by now.
[00:05:49] And we should know how they work, but of course we all bumble along thinking we know how the world works. And then it’s kind of shocking how something so obvious as another human being talking. Yeah. on zoom or in person, which is an everyday experience is nevertheless so mysterious. And as you say, I think that’s quite amazing.
[00:06:06] let’s move on to another couple of substantive points. So number seven, managing your voice. This is really cool. Again, very, very important. Again, the delusion you’d get from the movies or, or, TV is that you have to be super assertive. Like what’s his name? Harvey, somebody on, in, suits. And the truth is that very assertive lawyers, there’s some.
[00:06:23] stats that Chris Voss had about lawyers in America and their negotiating styles and about 7 percent were assertive, 25 percent were accommodators. We’ll talk about that in a second, but the assertive way of speaking doesn’t generally work very well. So the direct assertive voice is generally best avoided.
[00:06:40] Contrary to movies everywhere. The two voices that Chris Voss suggests are the late night DJ FM DJ voices is exactly what you and I are using because we’ve got our microphones nice and close to our mouths and we’re not screaming at anyone that is really fantastic kind of basis. That’s good for difficult points as good as a sort of solid basis.
[00:06:57] And then a lot of the time, especially I think when you get better rapport with somebody, when you’re in a more of a rapport like relationship, a playful voice is really, really great as well. And I think those two. Other ones to play with and this set of voices, if in doubt, leave it out. I think,
[00:07:12] JM: yeah, I was fascinated by this part of the master class.
[00:07:14] it kind of was convicting because, I, it made me realize I speak very, very frequently in the assertive voice tone, just matter of fact, like just say stuff. And his comment in the master class, at least is that will hurt you. And the reality of it is it’s not appreciated. It’s like, it’s a tone. It’s like, somebody on the other side of that is not going to be like, in love with how you’re talking to them if you’re using assertive style.
[00:07:45] And so his commentary is avoid it basically. and the other 2 voices of the 3, he uses assertive voice,Yeah, late night DJ voice and then playful voice. He has a words for each of those. I can’t remember the other 2, but, but, yeah, the 2nd, 1 is slow, and, and calming and his commentary is about that voice. The slow late night DJ voices that maybe is 20 percent of the time tops and he says specifically to use it when you’re trying.
[00:08:15] To make a very specific point like I just did and what’s fascinating was when I heard that commentary from him, then I listened to another podcast from somebody you’ll like Alex Hermosi and Alex Hermosi said he’s learned over time. He’s trained his voice is a totally different topic, totally different training, but he, his commentary was, he said, I’ve learned over time to speed up my speed of talking when I want somebody to get excited and when I really want to drive up point home, I slow down.
[00:08:46] So. down. And I was like, Oh, that’s totally Chris Voss stuff. and then the third one is playful voice where you’re upbeat, you’re, you’re, you’re having a good time. It feels playful. Even if you have to say something hard, it’s feels playful. And he said camp on that one. He was at 80 percent of the time.
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[00:09:10] MV: Yeah, excellent. I, I like this stuff a lot and I think that, as a podcaster, I thought a lot about voices. I don’t, I, I generally as a podcaster tend to fall into assertive voicing. Why are you going to do this? And then that, and it’s a bit sort of disturbing to listen to. And really the way you and I talking is mostly kind of late night DJ voice.
[00:09:27] And that’s with a bit of playful thrown in. And, I guess that that’s about the right place to be playing in the mix might, change a bit, but it’s super important. And, I think in the world of video and, people being obsessed with visual, visual things that they forget about the power of the voice.
[00:09:42] It’s super important. Obviously a lot of what he did was on the phone. So it was even more important. so a couple of other things to talk about then. So first of all, recognizing your type, this is not quite the same as the voice types, although they can correlate a bit. This is the three types of negotiators.
[00:09:57] First of all, you’ve got your, analytical type. They want all the facts. They want time to gather the data. And they can come across as a bit cold or emotional, unemotional. Then you’ve got your assertive type, the sort of cliche negotiator that actually needs to be very, very careful not to get up the other person’s nose and blow the deal up.
[00:10:13] They value respect. They think of time as money. They think of silence. If you, if you stop talking when an assertive person’s on the other side, they’re generally You talk, I think both of us have a tendency to do that in the podcast. I’ve noticed that. And then the dangers of course, that you come across as unfriendly or even just like, a nasty person, even if you not really, and then the third type is an accommodator type who value relationships above all, they put time into relationship building, they see science as anger.
[00:10:38] So if you start communicating with an accommodator and I’m one of those people, so I can relate to that. They worry and then the danger is, and I’ve done this as well. You can waste a lot of time. You get great rapport and you get nothing done. So each of the types has some pros and cons, but recognizing where you’re at on that scale is, is really, really helpful.
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[00:11:43] MV: yeah, I
[00:11:43] JM: love it. So this is our topic. Number eight, by the way, our point number eight, yeah, it was recognize your, your style or your, your type, Personality wise. Yeah, this and to me, this is very similar to the way in which you’re presenting your voice. yeah, if you go into a deal and you’re all analytical and you’re asking for detailed questions or detailed information and the other person’s like, well, I’m not telling you any of that.
[00:12:05] it’s like, it can get very weird, really quick, with people. If you, if you play the wrong role in a negotiation. And so that playful voice and that accommodator style. Relational style, the agreeable style is in his expertise. The thing to camp on. And yeah, you’re right. He said that they, they learn this the hard way.
[00:12:27] They had people who are hard chargers and would be confrontational with people and people died. and so over years, they learned that that accommodator style, Yeah, it’s a relational style. That’s really, really valuable.
[00:12:42] MV: Well, I think the other thing he says is, I guess there are two sides to this. One is to recognize what style you are, and that’s more or less intrinsic.
[00:12:49] You can flex a bit, but I’m an accommodator who’s a bit assertive. Sometimes I’m somewhat analytical, but I sit around the accommodator. Now, what’s interesting is once you’ve identified the style of the other side, Then you’re going to figure this out. So for example, I was working with somebody recently who gathered all the financial data for a deal, and I was going to help him analyze this.
[00:13:06] And I thought, okay, he’s an analytical type. So if you’re an accommodator, it’s very easy to chit chat and talk about the weather and where are you in the world, Americans are obsessed with where you live or my aunt grew up in that state for some reason, and British people talk about anything like the weather, but the truth is.
[00:13:19] To an analytical person, this is not data. So it’s a waste of time. And to an assertive you’re talking, you’re not letting them talk about themselves and be show respect. So it’s a waste of time. So you need to be very careful. So I let this guy, I gave this guy an absolute metric ton of data and let him, mull on it and come back to it in his own rhythm.
[00:13:35] And that worked beautifully. the other thing is if you’re an accommodator, you need to. Careful not to annoy assertives by wasting their time. if you’re an assertive, you probably in the most danger, if you’re working with an accommodator, make sure you, actually chat about the weather before you plunge in things, let the other person speak, and if you’re speaking to an analytical type and you’re very assertive type, then you need to give the other person time to process things.
[00:13:56] So if they’re silenced, they may be just thinking, and the analytical types, you need to make sure they don’t come across as too cold, really.
[00:14:03] JM: This is just so fascinating, isn’t it? Because obviously if you’re in a business negotiation, when you want to. Buy a business. You’re going to be an analytical mode.
[00:14:13] Like,
[00:14:14] MV: well, this isn’t a load that this is personality type. And this is well,
[00:14:19] JM: well, let’s, let’s say this way, you’re going to have a tendency to lean into any behavioral style that you can bring to the party. That’s an Because you’re going to be looking at it with like, do I understand these numbers? Does this make sense?
[00:14:33] Is it a good deal that de facto will present itself as looking like super analytical stuff. Now I’ve done this a couple of times. one time I did this with a business deal where I was trying to buy the business. And, and it gets back to that about black Swan idea where you like, you have to understand what the person’s deal is.
[00:14:54] And, I was trying to value the business. And I wanted information and the guy was like, I’m not giving it. It was his tax. It was his prior year tax records was like, I’m not giving it. And I was so then we were on the horns of a dilemma. I wanted the information to soothe my analytical needs. He had a black swan in the back of his mind, which is I want to be done with this and I’m not giving anybody in my private information.
[00:15:21] I, that’s too much. So then, then it fell apart. And he sold the business to somebody else and I lost out and if in hindsight, I think if I would have approached that differently, more of an accommodator style, more of leaning into like, on in that I still had to have my needs met to some degree to value the business, but I think I didn’t realize that my analytical approach was just not of interest to him and he was the one in charge.
[00:15:49] It was his business to sell, so this stuff plays out in really interesting back and forth with people, in my view,
[00:15:58] MV: I think that what you’re mentioning that implies as well that you need to go into. And we’ll talk about preparing in a second. There’s a thing called negotiation one sheet, but what you were just saying, it implies it really reflecting on experience and thinking, how could I have done that better?
[00:16:12] Is there a way we could have done a deal? And sometimes the answer is no, but I think it’s, it’s not a question of trying to make every deal work. Not every deal is going to work. That’s what lead flow deal flow is for. But I do think that. You’re right. That there was, one of the CEOs that Chris Voss worked with said, like, I’ve got about one in 10 deals that I work with work and he was in a very assertive type.
[00:16:29] And so the chances are probably that he was dealing with people who were accommodators, he wanted to value relationship and he was brusque and, and, officious or, Analytical people. He wanted more data and he just didn’t give the chance to, to either gather the data or to reflect on it. And so, yeah, being willing to flex your style, to accommodate other people’s styles, again, that that’s about empathy 101, isn’t it?
[00:16:50] It’s really about being able to flex your brain bigger on emotional and intellectual level so that other people can stay in their comfort zone. You go well outside of yours. And actually the person who’s got more mental agility wins in a way, or at least has a bigger potential to
[00:17:03] JM: win. And also just not to camp on this for too long, but I’ll just say this, that if you have a seller who knows they have an asset that’s valuable and they’ve been a long time operator, don’t be surprised if they’re all assertive all the time.
[00:17:18] They’ll tell you what they want for the business and they’re in charge, and you might come in with a need for data, or you might trying to be, trying to operate with an accommodator style, but they know what they’ve got and they know what it’s valuable. Now, other times in business negotiations, you find people who are begging you to buy their business.
[00:17:35] They’re accommodator. 100%. They’re like, how can we make this work because you can just tell they just don’t have any other buyers they want to sell and they want you to buy it and they’re just ready to accommodate whatever you need from them. They’re going to give to you. And it’s just interesting to go into deals, not knowing, what that other party is going to behave like and what they’re really,
[00:17:59] Holding on their side of the situation until you start to unlock it with them. And sometimes you can do it gracefully and it works and other times you, you’re on the horns of a dilemma. You don’t know what to do. You realize, oh, I stepped in it. I was being this and they needed that or they’re being this and I’m not going to move them off that or.
[00:18:15] whatever.
[00:18:18] MV: Yeah, that’s, it’s all very interesting [00:18:20] game. All I would say is that, again, that sort of implies, I think with negotiation, one of the things that Chris Voss doesn’t discuss because he basically sticks to, I’ve got the situation. This is it. I need to negotiate. Whereas of course, if you’re trying to succeed as if you’re selling your business or buying a business, you want to have other options and you want to have plenty of deal flow or suitors for your business such that you have a plan B.
[00:18:40] And I think that’s the critical thing there. And that changes the situation. The other person knows that as well. And. You’re right that that can change the situation. All I would say is would be fascinating to go back to be a fly on the wall with you and this negotiation with this guy who didn’t want to give you any numbers and see how far you could have got with calibrated questions because they can really throw people off the game if you keep using them labeling, accusation audits, calibrated questions.
[00:19:05] Just when you bear in mind that Chris Foss used these things to talk terrorists who, were Not even having a rational negotiation. How do you negotiate with somebody who thinks they’re the Messiah? As he put it with David Koresh. That was one of the negotiations he was involved with.
[00:19:19] JM: Yeah, talk more about Calibrate.
[00:19:23] Yeah, talk more about Calibrate questions. What do you mean by that? Well,
[00:19:27] MV: the first, the Chris Voss book, the first, Example and story he gives is when he was, I think at Harvard or something like that. And he was negotiating with a bunch of people who had very, very high level training at that period and more rational getting to yes.
[00:19:39] They were lawyers, things like that, very, right brain left brains of analytical thinkers. And he basically, worked the floor with a lot of them by just using calibrated questions. Like when somebody would say, I’m going to give you 500 final offer. And he just said something like, how am I supposed to do that?
[00:19:54] And then they go. What am I supposed to do that? And so I think calibrated questions and mirroring and labeling done repeatedly and with deafness can have a more powerful effect than one might expect. Now, I don’t have enough experience in negotiating in the situation you were in to say that that would have been different.
[00:20:10] so I don’t know, but it’s interesting to consider how far I can go with this stuff. Totally. Okay, last one. Negotiating one sheet. Yeah. Sorry, that’s flexing your style to fit other styles, really. That’s number nine in our
[00:20:25] JM: list. Flex to fit other styles. Number nine. Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. You do have to adapt.
[00:20:33] Sorry.
[00:20:36] MV: Yeah, you do. And then number 10. I’m just conscious that you’ve got a, you’ve got a hard stop. So I want to get this in because it’s really important. A negotiation. One sheet. You can actually download this from blacks. One. ltd. com. And it’s absolutely fantastic. basically it gives you a way of, pulling all this together in a very practical preparation.
[00:20:53] So for example, negotiating with a client recently, and he got a goal, you got the summary, the lay of the land, the goal was, I’m going to get a consulting gig. worst case scenarios for me was I’ve wasted my time. Best case scenario, going to make X amount of dollars for Y time. It could be the same with buying a business, could be same with anything.
[00:21:11] Section two is a summary. Why are we here? What do I want? What do they want? Number three, and this is where preparation really helps. You can just label, you can put a few accusation audits really. ahead of time based on the sort of things that you’ve discovered about the person before you get on the call with it.
[00:21:25] For example, if you realize that somebody sent you 15 emails asking for a bunch of details, they’re clearly got an analytical band. You can say something like, seems like really detailed data is important to you. or it’s just like you, you value, prompt responses and things like that, cause I’d sent one email saying, just so I value emails that come back within 24 hours.
[00:21:42] So I said, yeah, it seems like you value your prompt, communication. I’m with you on that. I’m sorry. I had a problem with my server, which was true. Number four, you can prepare some calibrated questions. So what are we trying to accomplish here? trying to elicit things. what’s the core issue here?
[00:21:56] Always a good question, right? That’s just basically straight up. And then you can always have this sort of rather sort of ninja ones. Like, how am I supposed to do that in your back pocket? That’s a very valuable one. It’s a way of saying no. If they say, well, I’d like you to work for, 10 hours for half of your usual fee, say.
[00:22:10] How am I supposed to do that? X and one, how am I supposed to do that? And just leave it hanging. Honestly, it’s really powerful. That single question. It’s extraordinary how it works. So try it next time you’re in the negotiation is my, my, tip. And then the fifth one, he says, think about non cash offers, things that they could give you that you could then, be willing to do it for free because it just gives you another dimension to add.
[00:22:32] So that’s, it’s quite a detailed list. Really, really helpful thing to go in with.
[00:22:38] JM: Negotiation one sheet and you can get that on the black swan limited website. That’s super cool. I hadn’t heard of that.
[00:22:45] MV: So that’s really cool. Really, really cool. Yeah. So helpful and very, so go in and going and prepared having thought these things three.
[00:22:52] wow. So yeah, this is such an amazing book as you’re discovering, in your, your negotiations as well, that this stuff works in real life, right? I mean, it really does.
[00:23:02] JM: Well, I loved it, man. I, I haven’t read the book. I did a master class. I need to get the book and go through it. If you all are listening to this and enjoy the conversation, then we’d encourage both things.
[00:23:13] Get the book, never split the difference and watch the master class negotiation with Chris Voss and go deeper. and if you’re enjoying the podcast, of course, we’d love your highest and best review and, any sharing or, letting your communities know about it, share it with your Facebook group, whoever you hang out with online, that’s into e commerce.
[00:23:31] We’d really, really appreciate it. It’s an honor to be able to serve the community and, have great conversations. Michael, thank you. As always is a great conversation. Great topic, man. Really liked this one a lot. And, thanks everybody for tuning in with us.
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