211. A Field-Tested Approach to Negotiation with Chris Voss

Whether you're negotiating with a prospect, client, or potential partner, it can sometimes feel like your life depends on it. One wrong move and it's all over in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, most sales calls are not life or death situations. However, my guest for this episode number 211, has been on countless calls that were actual life or death situations. His name is Chris Voss and for 24 years he worked as an international hostage negotiator for the FBI. Now he teaches others the high powered negotiation techniques he honed, while literally saving people's lives. Chris is the founder of Black Swan Group and the author of the bestselling book on negotiation, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on it. He's been featured in TIME, Business Insider, Entrepreneur, Inc., Fast Company, Fortune, The Washington Post, CNN and more. And I have to tell you, this is one of my absolute favorite business books. I'm not kidding. This episode originally aired on my podcast, Get Yourself Optimized. If you're not already a listener or subscriber I should say, why aren't you? There are such incredible guests on that show. Folks like Dave Asprey, JJ Virgin, John Gray, Byron Katie, Phil Town, Harville Hendrix... these are heroes to me and they are incredible people with such knowledge bombs that will change your life. Think of this episode as a little teaser to get you hooked on my Get Yourself Optimized podcast. Chris's techniques involve zooming in on tiny pieces of information that can have a massive impact on the outcome of conversation or negotiation, along with other practices like mirroring and tactical empathy. Let me give you one quick example that I use constantly in my email follow-ups with SEO prospects. I asked them a question to elicit a "no" rather than a "yes" answer. For example, "did you decide to take the project in a different direction?" Or how about this one, "did SEO get sidelined for this year? Now people don't want to say yes because that's kind of cringeworthy or embarrassing. So conventional wisdom might tell you to try to elicit a yes from a prospect, but in this case, Chris's advice is to go for the opposite. And all I gotta say is, it works. Negotiation is an essential part of every job, not just sales and not just marketing. I promise you this episode will deliver massive value to not just your business, but also to your personal life. Enjoy!