The E-commerce Leader

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[00:00:00] JM: The whole idea of mirroring as Chris explains it is you want to let the person. Unpack their thinking and you want them to know you’re listening. So, you do that by
[00:00:12] asking these follow on questions
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[00:01:14] MV: Negotiation is a word that strikes fear into many people’s hearts. In e commerce, like any other business, you have little choice but to get better at negotiation. I personally feel though that many people miss the trick because if they embrace negotiation, they could really, really improve their businesses by a huge amount in all sorts of ways.
[00:01:33] The go to book for this that I’ve recently rediscovered and fallen back in love with Is Chris Voss’s great book, never split the difference. Chris Voss was an FBI hostage negotiator. So what works for hostage negotiation works double in business. So that’s what we’re going to discuss today. Jason, are you up for this discussion?
[00:01:51] JM: Oh yeah, this is a great topic. when you first suggested we go over it, I haven’t read the book, but I did notice that Chris Voss has a masterclass course on the art of negotiation. And then he has one that’s also for like workplace employment related. Negotiation stuff. And so I I’ve watched both of those, watch the, the content of the negotiation masterclass several times.
[00:02:15] And actually just like you, I just really, really fell in love with the stories and the, the strategies and the topic in general. and so, yes, I’m very eager to jump into this and talk through some of it and hear your thoughts and ideas on it as well. So let’s, yeah, let’s jump into Chris Voss, master negotiator and his strategies and tactics.
[00:02:36] do our best to share our perspective on them.
[00:02:40] MV: Absolutely. Now, one of the things that makes the book really cool and it’s a great, lesson for anyone writing a book. And I think he did have ghostwriting help on this, but he has incredibly cool personal stories having negotiated with terrorists for years and years.
[00:02:51] most of us don’t have quite such cool stories, but we’ve got a couple of examples that I’ll chuck in there. So, let’s get going.
[00:02:57] So the first point is, strategic, or even more of an orientation to life idea, a mindset change, which is tactical empathy. Everyone likes the word tactical. The word empathy implies, and I think is right.
[00:03:09] It implies a lot of emotional work, but really what the big insight that they had In the FBI, really in the 90s and 2000s, maybe in the 90s, starting in 1980s is that aggression wasn’t working very well for them. They lost a lot of people in, in sieges and that sort of thing. And so you really need to build a trust based relationship built on mutual understanding, which by the way, if you’re dealing with a terrorist does not mean.
[00:03:35] That you sympathize with their viewpoint of the world, you understand it doesn’t mean you, endorse it in any way, which is one of those things that politicians anywhere in the world, always struggle with because you can’t be elected by saying we should empathize with terrorists. But that was, in fact, what Chris Voss had to do.
[00:03:49] So very, very important that the word empathy is not confused with sympathy as well. So that’s the first basic principle.
[00:03:57] JM: Yeah. when I heard him talking about this, it reminded me of training from Grant Cardone. Sales training and the sales training that Grant Cardone teaches his first rule. Like his first thing he talks about is never, ever be disagreeable.
[00:04:14] With your prospect, you want to have an empathy, of a rapport, you want to have a fun time with them. You want to make it fun. And his whole thing is like, if you’re confrontational, like you’re screwing up. And so always be agreeable, deferential, be kind. one of the things Grant Cardone says it fits into this idea is that, whatever the prospect says when you’re in a sales position, whatever that comment is.
[00:04:42] He always says, agree with it, which at first I was like, no, you can’t do that. But he said, you always can agree with it. Like they can say, you’re the biggest jerk I’ve ever dealt with. Your response can be, I know, I totally get that. And it’s been a long day. So let’s talk about the details of this product or whatever.
[00:05:01] Always be agreeable because if you’re not, you’re going to have a confrontational. Dynamic and that fits right in with what Chris Voss is expressing here with this tactical empathy stuff, which is you will not win if you’re. Being combative, vocally or, or stylistically, it’s gotta be fun. And, and if it is fun, I mean, if you can get to the point where it’s, there’s rapport there, and obviously in his case, when he’s negotiating with bank robbers or whatever, nobody would say it was fun, but he was doing it in a way that was not combative.
[00:05:36] there was this level of trust or that he could get to really fast with people. Yeah. It was very interesting.
[00:05:42] MV: I would, I would, I would also question the thing is for most of us, it probably wouldn’t feel fun to do hostage negotiation. I think for Chris Voss, the guy chose it. He, I think it was fun.
[00:05:51] I think in a crazy way, like people choose extreme sports, like rock climbing. I can relate to that. I mean, I haven’t done many extreme sports, but I’ve done things that are kind of, socially scary. like socially scary in front of hundreds of. Socially scary. If you like, it’s not as bad as hostage negotiation, but I kind of like things that get the heart rate going.
[00:06:08] So, not all people would want that, but I, I think they, anyway, coming back to Grant Cardone’s point, the disagree without being disagreeable is the way that a New York Times editor put it succinctly, which Chris Voss says is a nice way of putting it. so let’s move on to the next one. So. If somebody says something like, I think you’re a, real a hole or whatever weird thing they say to you, then you could be dealing with a very assertive type person.
[00:06:29] And that works particularly well with that person to mirror the last few words or not literally the last few words, but the point they’re making. So if somebody said to me something like, God, I can’t believe you damn internet on edited. I’m trying to speak without swearing and editing myself heavily here.
[00:06:44] you flipping. Internet marketers, can’t trust the word you say. And I say something like, can’t trust the word I say, question mark. And then they probably say, well, yeah, I mean, maybe exaggerating a little exaggerated. Well, okay. Yeah. Maybe. So it works really, really well at deconstructing sort of a very fixed positions and calmly getting on rapport with somebody, but actually in a wave of, it tends to deconstruct or deescalate highly emotional, times.
[00:07:08] Caviar. You must have tactical empathy if you do it in a way where you don’t have anything, don’t care about the other person that will communicate itself and you’ll just come across as very sarcastic and which is exceptionally bad. So you’ve got to do this stuff within the overall, sphere of rapport as it were.
[00:07:24] JM: What do you mean by fixed position? Other people have a fixed position.
[00:07:29] MV: Well, they say something like, all internet marketers lie or something like that. If they have a very rigid belief, then, that’s going to be something that completely gets in your way. If you’re an internet marketer, and I might say something like, well, we all lie, all internet marketers lie or something like that.
[00:07:43] And then just wait for them to start to respond to the implicit question is that, is that actually true?
[00:07:48] JM: Now, see what we just did there was Michael did mirroring and then I did deep mirroring. Which is a different angle where I chose a phrase that he had used in his comment and but he wasn’t done speaking, but then I asked him about it and that mirroring it.
[00:08:05] The whole idea of mirroring as Chris explains it is you want to let the person. Unpack their thinking and you want them to know you’re listening. So, you do that by asking these follow on questions and, and it can be as simple as repeating the last 3 words that they said with sort of an uptick in your voice.
[00:08:25] Like, really? Or like, whatever they said, and. Saying really uptick would be like confrontational in a way that’s sort of that sounds almost snarky. If you repeat what they say, you will elicit them continuing to speak, which is his whole thing is you want them to continue sharing.
[00:08:46] MV: I mean, so what’s interesting about this as well is that a lot of what Chris Voss, talks about is more sort of almost a mindset change or strategic level, but quite a lot of it is simple and tactical.
[00:08:56] And this is like. The biggest outcome in terms of rapport and changing relationship that you can have from a simple, simple tactical tool. which is quite amazing. And it really does work. I mean, you’ve got to do it the right way, but particularly [00:09:10] works with assertive types. We’ll talk about types later, but somebody who’s very, very hard driven, like the sort of negotiating cliche is probably suits or some TV series like that, where lawyers wandering around.
[00:09:19] we’re waving at each other and if you got somebody like that, just mirror all day and they just talk for an hour and that that’s a really fantastic way to deal with a personality like that. If you come across them
[00:09:28] JM: and so just to zoom out to 30, 000 feet for a second, like the whole idea of getting them to talk more and doing mirroring and trying to build that tactical empathy is because you, you’re on.
[00:09:40] Basically the opposite side of somebody who you’re honestly, if you’re trying to negotiate, like for a business deal, like literally for their business, or, you’re trying to sell them your business or something like that, you’re, what you’re trying to do is a discovery game to figure out what do they care about?
[00:09:57] What is the big deal to them? What’s the small deal to them? What’s the thing that you think is a big deal that maybe is no big deal at all? And the only way you’re going to get into that stuff is if you let them run the script out, just let them talk through the detail. And if they say one curt little statement to you and they’re being kind of, hold in America, I don’t know if this phrase makes sense in England, but the people will say you hold your cards close to your vest.
[00:10:24] you’re not showing, you’re not revealing very much. and we say mirroring the EK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The mirroring principle is you want people to unlock their thoughts and ideas. So you start to really build rapport with them and understand where they’re coming from, which is a huge part of, of, negotiation.
[00:10:43] I would just say this before we move on, that, I was trying to, work on buying a business that, I had made an offer. I had not heard back. It was in a long, long process of negotiation. And then there was a time where it was like, okay, we were going to have the conversation. And the whole mental script ahead of time, in my mind, was build rapport, Be agreeable, have, have empathy, do not be confrontational like this whole first step, like, this, this tactical empathy.
[00:11:16] That was the only mantra in my mind. Whatever happens. I’m cool. I’m happy. This is, this is great. not confrontational and that, that served me so well in the conversation. Honestly. and I’ll just leave it at that, but, that was a key thing that I was trying to camp on in my mind so that I didn’t get into confrontation mode.
[00:11:38] yeah, so there you have it. Yeah.
[00:11:39] MV: Yeah. Some of us find that easier than others. I mean, I’m, I’m a person that is very agreeable until I sort of get some hot bushing buttons pushed and then I flip into confrontational aggressive mode. You’re a person that’s very agreeable. A lot of the time, my experience and we all have that possibility, but yeah, if it’s not natural for you or if you have to work on it, I would just say what you just said that you just have to commit to it.
[00:11:58] And if you mess up, then you got some extra work to do and, that can happen in any relationship, but it’s a lot less work to get it right in the first place. Absolutely right.
[00:12:07] JM: Now, this tees up the third idea here that we’re talking about. So we talked about tactical empathy and mirroring. The third idea is like, okay, well, what if somebody goes off the rails?
[00:12:16] what if, you get into it and there’s like real animosity, anger. Contempt, where the person on the other side of the negotiation is like clearly triggered, like it’s not a happy time. What, like, what do you do? And this, this third tip, this third idea that Chris Voss talks about is,labeling is the phrase that he calls it.
[00:12:39] And it’s a very interesting technique that he talks about for hostage negotiators. And this is scientific. It’s really interesting. Basically said that what they learned was if you’re dealing with somebody who’s hostile. That if you simply point out the fact that. You’re aware that you’re perceiving them as is, whatever it is hostile that it diffuses them.
[00:13:06] So, for example, if they’re really mad, you could say something and he has a few just little coined phrases. He uses like, like, it seems like you’re really upset. About this issue or, or it, it, it seems like, or what I mean, he says not to use the phrase, what I’m hearing, because that’s overused, that’s cliche, but something to the effect of, it sounds like you’re really mad about whatever, and just letting that be a statement.
[00:13:33] We’ll not only diffuse them, they’ll walk back their anger edge or their, kind of harsh edge, but then they’ll also potentially unlock what’s going on, it’s very fascinating.
[00:14:32] MV: it is absolutely fascinating. A couple of little extra tips. Don’t use the word I, which sounds like a small thing, but that psychologically is quite more of a challenge.
[00:14:40] It makes more from confrontational. So if you say I’m hearing a lot of anger from you, that doesn’t sound good. Whereas it seems like. There’s some anger here. I’m going to try and make some things out. about the situation. You’re right. It’s, it’s really, really important to let it out and to be like a good, I mean, what reminds me of is, is those people that are much better at this than me naturally.
[00:14:58] they’re not trying to negotiate for a big business deal, but they are very patient. And that’s the people at the banks that I have to deal with. I kind of have things that push my buttons. One of them is banks wasting my time, putting one hold for 25 minutes. And then, it’s taken me through an extremely bureaucratic system.
[00:15:12] And I have to say, most of the employees out there are pretty impressive at doing this. They, they, they, they stay very calm. That is the thing you were saying. Also, sometimes they say, I can hear you’re a bit upset. one of the things that’s interesting is that this is not just about when it goes off the rail.
[00:15:26] At some point, I think there are two, two extra nuances I put there. One is at some point it will be emotional for people. Even if they’re both controlling emotions, if you’re dealing with a lot of money and you think, wow, I can get a 2 million business for 1 million, you’re excited and also nervous, and they feel like, is this guy ripping me off?
[00:15:43] I’m selling a million dollar business. Emotions bound to be there. So I think this labeling thing is really critical, even if it doesn’t seem like it’s going off the rails. the other thing I would say, and this is really important, I’d like to get your take on this and if you’ve experimented with this, but he talks about doing an accusation audit, which I think is really great for coming across as normal human being, not some kind of coaching robot or consulting or, salesperson robot.
[00:16:07] And, My favorite story of this is Chris Voss, he is in the, the FBI in America in whatever it is, the 90s. And he goes to Canada to do some, some work there and he didn’t get country clearance, which technically means that he could be kicked out of the country by the Canadian authorities.
[00:16:22] And his way of dealing with this is to just basically fess up the fact that he’s messed up. And he phoned up the. Head of the authorities and said, forgive me father for I have sinned. And he said, what? Forgive me father, for I have sinned. And there was a big pause because the guy on the other side knew exactly what he meant and Chris knew that he was in the wrong.
[00:16:41] And the, the guy on the other side knew that he knew he was in the wrong as well. And there was a big sign. He said, okay, Chris, you can’t country clearance. Well, I think it’s very cool is that it’s a rather human way of doing it. So as an instant marketer, the thing I would be doing, but first. early on in the conversation with somebody I was going to work with, say, look, I understand insect marketers, hard people to trust, right?
[00:17:02] I get it. we’ve all seen the adverts. We’ve all seen the YouTube clips. So I’m one of those guys. I’m sorry about that. But do you think we can break bread anyway? Well, something playful like that. And I think it’s really, really helpful to, to get that right.
[00:17:16] JM: Love it, man. Yeah, I totally agree.
[00:17:18] Let’s call that number four accusation audit. That was an interesting thing that he shared in the masterclass. because it’s a little counterintuitive, but I listened to that master class and I was in a business negotiation and via email, the person I was negotiating with negotiating with did this exact thing in the message.
[00:17:41] It was basically like, Jason, you probably think I’m just trying to rip you off. You probably think I’m a big jerk and not even somebody you should be working with. He lists like six or seven things and I was like, dude, he’s doing the accusation on it on me. Like I totally saw it. I was like, okay, yeah, I know what he’s doing, but he’s
[00:17:58] MV: read the same course.
[00:17:59] Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, it does work though, doesn’t it? Because the thing is what it is again about a tactical empathy, empathy, understanding what somebody else is feeling or thinking, right? So you probably are at some point in the negotiation with anybody else. You probably at some point think. This guy stars, girls, slash, whatever is trying to rip me off.
[00:18:15] There is probably that part of your brain that’s thinking that. And so to get ahead of that. [00:18:20] It’s very smart because it diffuses it, then they can’t say to you, I think you’re trying to rip me off and you say, look, yeah, I get how you saying that we’re going to market slash business buyers slash whatever business brokers, whatever your favorite bug barriers.
[00:18:32] I think it’s such a psychological, smart tactics. Yeah. In that situation, not saying you should do it all the time.
[00:18:38] JM: Yeah. In that situation, it was one of those deals where I was like, I was playing chess and I was like, okay, he just did a move on me now. He would do that because he wants to elicit. tactical empathy, which I didn’t not have empathy.
[00:18:54] It was just, we were just in the point of conversation where I was like, so, so what I did in response was I defused it by saying, no, honestly, didn’t think any of those things, but I went right back to the point. and so if you’re in negotiations and you see this stuff, you’re like, Oh, this person’s mirroring me, this is for this person’s doing,an audit, an accusation audit, or this person’s, labeling and trying to box in, what, what they’re perceiving my emotion as, then you, that you’re working with somebody who obviously it’s almost, they’ve been hardened, I guess you could say in negotiations, They’ve seen this stuff or, done this stuff before.
[00:19:28] And then you’re like, okay, well, then, you, you’ve got a toolkit and they’ve got a toolkit and you’ve got an opportunity to continue to work through, kind of the main issues at play. So it is very interesting. It’s very interesting.
[00:19:42] MV: It is. I mean, by the way, the fact that your opposite number is a sophisticated operator is not necessarily a bad thing.
[00:19:48] I mean, they’re less likely to throw their toys out of a pram about something that isn’t actually important to them, but that they’re, they’re just allowing their emotions to get caught up. So I think it’s actually a good thing, but as you say, you need to be aware of they’re playing a game. to try and control the situation at an unconscious level, then yeah, that’s when you need to step up, which really brings us to number five, really, which is giving this is so super smart.
[00:20:08] Again, everything about this is so smart because it’s come through decades of hard one experience. People died multiple, multiple times in order to get this, information to us, really. This is the crazy thing. So this is not some business theory, but this is. I love it. It’s so hard one. Number five, the illusion of control through questions.
[00:20:24] And that’s if somebody else is using this on you, to your point, really got to look out for that. so give us a couple of examples here, Jason, because I know you’ve been following this stuff for a while. You’ve been using this recently as well yourself.
[00:20:36] JM: Yeah, it’s very interesting because it gets back to the original comment I made, which is what you’re trying to do as a discovery game.
[00:20:43] when you’re in a negotiation, how much will they pay? How much, how long will they take to pay? Will you, will you buy? Will you not buy? it’s all it’s all a discovery game. And so part of the way you get at that is this framing of questions and this, this title that he calls this idea is the is offering people the illusion of control through questions.
[00:21:05] I’m not sure that’s the right exact label. maybe it should just be labeled smart questions. To help you, and, and the frame that he includes is, questions that are helpful to you are like, what questions and how questions not accusatory, none of it should ever be accusatory, but they should be framed and, and honestly, inquisitive, like a questions.
[00:21:29] For example, he uses example is a question. We like, well, if somebody says something, then you could be like, well, well, that’s, that sounds, that sounds doable. What would that look like? what, what would that look like? Or, how, how would that questions, how, how would how will, how would we know this would, was working or, Those kinds of questions, what questions, how questions, are basically framing things to elicit more information to unlock them speaking and sharing and getting at more of what they want or don’t want and if and framing the future deal, like the outcome in their mind.
[00:22:04] So you understand, oh, this is what they’re hoping for. This is their, this is their end game. he says not to do. One type of question, which is why question, which is because it sounds so accusatory, it sounds so judging. And so like, yeah, you can’t do a why question without it kind of sounding like you’re challenging the person’s.
[00:22:26] Logic or, statements. So what questions are great, but how questions are great and why questions are bad. Yeah, yeah,
[00:22:34] MV: a couple of nuances to that. I mean, one of the way reasons, one of the ways to use this is not just to gain information, although it’s critical and to regain or to build a rapport, but it’s also, saying no without sounding like you’re saying no.
[00:22:47] So have you said to me, Mike, I want to buy your business for 500, 000. I, I’m my absolute minimum is a million dollars. I might just say, how am I supposed to do that, Jason? And then just shut up and leave it there. And the other person’s going, huh? What? Because what you’re doing is forcing the other person to try and solve your problem.
[00:23:01] So my problem is I don’t want to give the business away for less than a million dollars. Now I made it your problem. And it’s also quite confusing. And this is where a bit of ninja tactics are going on because it’s not just about enlisting information. That’s more old school, 1980s, getting to yes. Kind of thinking.
[00:23:15] This is more about keeping your opponent on the back foot and slightly just as a Chris says, and you want to ever so gently shake your opponent when you start off, and this is part of it. It’s a bit confusing. If you say a million dollars and I say, how am I supposed to do that? But normally you’d expect no, or that’s too low or let me think about that.
[00:23:31] But how am I supposed to do that? It’s unexpected. And it makes you go, what? And then you lose your train of thought
[00:23:39] JM: because it’s not a binary, it’s not a yes. No. Right. It’s not like a, it’s a, it’s a complicated question, but it, but it, but you’re right. It puts the person in the seat of having to think for with you for you.
[00:23:52] As if they were on your side of the table,
[00:23:54] MV: I think it’s deeper than that. I think in NLP terms, I mean, I used to work with NLP practitioners. I, that was one of my first brushes with internet marketing. I did some work for a guy for a while as a salesman who was an NLP master trainer. And I believe that puts you into some kind of state where you’re searching for an answer, but you haven’t got it yet.
[00:24:10] And you’re more suggestible in that state. So actually I think there’s quite a lot of profound psychological stuff going on, but. You don’t need to know that because this stuff does work. I mean, I’ve tried this out and it literally does make people scared and then it stops in their tracks and they’re not asking for a million dollars anymore or whatever it is that you didn’t want.
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