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5 Lessons in Negotiation From an FBI Hostage Negotiator

My First Million

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  • Listen Through The Hijack Moment
    • Let the other side speak fully and resist the urge to interrupt during the hijack moment.
    • Listening without rebutting draws out hidden information and builds trust quickly. Transcript: Chris Voss Yeah, well, first thing is let the other side go first. And then there’s a difference. Actually listening is a challenge. Because when the other person’s talking, there’s times you want to jump in. It’s almost impossible to resist. It’s basically if there are five, six steps to becoming a better listener, the real challenge comes at step two. It’s a hijack point. If you’re listening at all, as opposed to completely focusing on your internal dialogue where you’re waiting to speak, most people get past that stage. But if you’re listening at all, you’re listening to rebut. Aha! Here’s where you’re wrong. The urge to correct is irresistible. I mean, like it’s insanely impossible to overcome. So you’ll jump in there to hijack the conversation to correct. The urge to correct is so irresistible that we actually use it as one of our negotiation skills. I’ll say something wrong on purpose, because you will not be able to resist the urge to correct me with the truth. And it’s a great way for me to trigger getting hidden information out of you that you won’t regret giving me because you won’t. The old saying, we don’t remember what was said. Remember how we felt in the moment. Dears to correct is so satisfying. That you’ll never regret telling me something you shouldn’t have told me because it felt so good in the moment. So that’s that’s the power of this hijack moment, hijack to correct. Now, the other thing that you’ll, you’ll do frequently is hijack to relate and it’s called story stealing and you won’t, you won’t mean to do it, but the other person will say something That triggers this incredible memory in you of a past experience, something that happened to you. It’s one of the fallacies of common ground. And you’ll completely be unable to resist that urge to jump in, to tell me your story. Oh my God, the same thing happened to me. And you’ll feel incredibly good in that moment, not realizing how squashed I feel. And it’s one of the people, one of the reasons why people refer to it as story stealing, because it feels so good to you. You can’t imagine that what I feel is like, how you had to have a better story than me. You had to one up me, get to do better than me. And you can’t imagine that that’s the case because the memory it triggered in you was so good. So actually listening through that hijack moment is one of the big challenges, probably the single biggest challenge of becoming a better negotiator because you got to listen to somebody All the way through. (Time 0:01:05)
  • Feelings Outlast Facts
    • People rarely remember facts but deeply remember how you made them feel.
    • Making someone feel understood creates bonding even if they forget the words you said. Transcript: Chris Voss Because just because, uh, you’ve been heard doesn’t mean you feel heard. Just because I do understand doesn’t mean that you feel understood. So I’m at a wedding a couple of weeks ago in Ireland and it’s my first substantive conversation with the bride the night after the wedding ceremony. And as you could imagine, she’s unconscious on her feet. She’s making the rounds through the wedding reception dinner. She’s obligated to speak to everybody because that’s what bride’s got to do. It’s a bride and groom. We’re supposed to walk around, hello to everybody, make them feel happy that they were there and thank them for showing up. And all I’m doing when I’m talking to her, my first real conversation with her is telling her what she went through that day. I’m telling her what she went through. I said, you know, this, this is, this is probably, it’s probably easier to run a small country in South America than it was to pull off this wedding. And you know, you’re here to celebrate the union of two families and your, your husband is here cause he’s gotta be, you know, so I’m laying all this out to her, all of, of what she’s going Through, showing her completely that I understood everything that she went through leading up to that point. She runs into me the next night at dinner and she walks up to me and she gives me this big hug. And she says, I have no memory of what you said to me last night. I just remember how good made me feel. And that’s the power of making somebody feel understood. She literally couldn’t remember work, but she felt bonded to me because I thoroughly understood her. (Time 0:04:05)
  • Bank Robbery Hand Off That Worked
    • In a bank robbery case Voss replaced the on-phone negotiator and used disruption to change dynamics.
    • He then switched to calming tactics and asked “Do you want to come out?” which led to surrender. Transcript: Chris Voss Uh, it was a very rare event that I was lucky enough to get involved in a bank robbery with hostages where we trapped them inside with the hostages. Shaan Puri And so what happened? You get the call that this is going down and I mean, just tell me, what was that like? Tell me, tell me about it. Chris Voss So we didn’t get the call. We, we became aware of it and we just went, which is a really, a philosophy that I live by, which is called run to trouble. It’s, it’s amazingly liberating if your philosophy is run to trouble. And so we ran to trouble. We showed up, uh, uh, since it’s a bank, FBI and NYPD are showing up. The negotiation teams on both sides knew each other really well. We had a great relationship. We had a bank robbery task force in New York at the time. So the PD and the bureau already aligned on the criminal prosecution. So the two negotiations teams blended. And the first hostage negotiator on the phone was a PD detective. I was his coach. The PD commander was in charge of the negotiation operations center on the inside. The Bureau’s lead negotiator, our coordinator at the time, went to the outside in the event any voice-to bullhorn stuff was needed. We negotiated for a number of hours. The commander decided to sort of disrupt the dynamic a little bit. It was stalemated at a very low threat level. And so he pulled the PD negotiator and he put me on the phone with the bad guys. And I had one of the bank robbers out about 90 minutes later. Shaan Puri What’d you start with when you got on the phone? We went disruptive to start with, which was not the usual protocol. Chris Voss The commander sensed Hugh McGowan, great instincts, great instincts. He listened long enough to realize that the secret to gaining the upper hand in the conversation was going to be how each conversation closed. Bad guy was constantly saying, hey, I got to go. They’re coming. They’re going to hear me. Or I got to put you on hold or I put you on speaker and then he’d just get off the phone. So he said, um, no matter what happens, you extend every call, you end every call. He tries to get off the phone. I don’t care what you got to do. You keep him on the phone five, seven, 10 seconds longer than you end the call. We’re going to take control of this by taking control of the end. And the other thing we normally, the normal handoff is, uh, Hannah, Hannah phone up to the next negotiator and the next negotiator does an elaborate summary of everything that’s been Set up to now. Because what you anticipate is a bad guy saying like, all right, Chris, who’s this Chris guy? Does he even know what the hell’s going on? Right. And so normally Chris going to say, Hey, I’ve been sitting here for a long time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I’m up to speed. You don’t have to. Why do you hand it off at all? It could be for a variety of reasons. Normally it’s to take a harder line. Okay. No negotiation team, whether it’s business or hostage, hands a negotiator off to another negotiator to be nicer. Ever. Business or hostage. If there’s a change in negotiators on the other side, it is always to take a harder line. Always. Shaan Puri And why is it better to hand it off to somebody else who’ll take the harder line versus you yourself escalating to a harder stance? Chris Voss It’s going to catch the other side off guard a little. It’s destabilizing without necessarily being threatening right away. And if I’ve been a pushover up to now and suddenly I’m demanding, you have reason to believe I’ve been inauthentic. You know, which guy is the real you, the other guy or this guy? So there’s an authenticity issue involved. Shaan Puri And so how did you get them out? You said 90 minutes later you got hostages out. What resolved it or what was the breakthrough point, the inflection point for that one? Chris Voss Well, I, you know, I threw the first guy was highly manipulative negotiator. In hindsight, I now refer to him as the great corporate CEO negotiator. Great corporate CEO. If you’re in negotiations with him, it’ll be like, oh my God, you know, my board’s going to fire me if I make a bad deal. You know, I mean, there’s, my board is going to kill me if I agree to that. You know, blaming people that are not in the room so that that guy doesn’t get cornered. Diminishing his influence at the table, because if he does that, that’s the dude that’s calling all the shots. He’s just smart enough to not get cornered at the table. He’s always going to blame somebody outside the room. So the first bank robber at Chase was telling us how dangerous his colleagues were. And he kept saying like, you know, these guys are crazy. Like, you know, I’m scared of them. When he was calling all the shots. So I took a harder line with him. I was taken away his comfort level and being more confrontational without being aggressive. He gets rattled. And while he’s trying to figure out what to do, hands the phone off to the other bank robber on the inside, who does not like how this is going down. It was not part of his plan to be stuck in a bank surrounded by snipers with.50 caliber guns that might, you know, put a gaping hole in his forehead, which he would no longer could wear his Favorite hat if that happened. Like he’s scared to death about getting out of there. And so I start in with them and I’ve still got the late night FM DJ voice, which is calming and soothing to him. And then the really critical issues were somebody else on the team heard what was really bothering him. And they handed me a note and I listened and I, and I adjusted my stance in a moment on the note and he felt so heard and understood that in very short order, I was meeting him out in front of The bank. He was surrendering to me. Wow. What was on the note? We were pressuring him to let a hostage go. They had three hostages on the inside. Shocking that the hostage negotiators would be trying to let the bad guy, get the bad guys to let a hostage go. And the note to me said, ask him if he wants to come out. And in a (Time 0:12:47)
  • Make Trust Your First Move
    • Start negotiations by building trust to uncover proprietary information the other side holds.
    • Gather information first and then redesign the deal based on newly revealed facts. Transcript: Chris Voss Um, there’s information they need that they can only get at the table. I remember a long time ago, somebody wrote a book. I don’t know if they call it a 10 commandments of negotiation. You know, I don’t, I remember what it was called, but I remember taking a look at it. And one of the, one of the commandments was, and which is, I completely disagree with, by the way, it is what it is. Which is your experience, you are not new, it’s not your first rodeo, you’ve dealt with these people before. It is what it is. So I’ll ask these CEOs, when are you ever in a negotiation where you don’t have closely held information you don’t want to reveal to the other side? Whether it’s your budget, whether it’s your pressures, deadlines on other deals, quarterly profits, demands from your board. When is there ever a negotiation where you don’t have proprietary information that if the other side had it, it would change everything. Right. You always have. Yeah. Like all the time. And I go, I go, okay. So that means the other side’s got that too, which means it isn’t what it, it’s not what it is. And the other side will tell you if they could trust you not to hurt them with it. So your first negotiation is trust. Because they got stuff if they could tell you, it would change everything. And that gets people out of the perspective is I got to make my case or I got to, what’s my leverage? What’s their leverage? What are our giveaways? What do our, what do our, um, a lot of executives say, you know, what are our must haves and what are our giveaways? Well, if they’ve got proprietary information that would change everything, then then your must haves and your giveaways could be completely wrong. Right. And you have, and then, so you’ve got imperfect information and what you want to do is you want to sit down and gather information and trust, and then rethink what the best deal looks like. (Time 0:22:05)
  • Label To Trigger Honesty
    • Use labels: observe an emotion or state and state it to the other person to trigger sharing.
    • Follow a label by sitting back and letting them respond to guide the conversation. Transcript: Chris Voss So the counterintuitive answer is the hostage negotiator’s tried and true tool called, in hostage negotiation, it was a motion label. In business negotiation, it’s just a label. And I can start triggering information out of you right away. If I sit down and I’ll take a sense of you. And I said this to a colleague recently, I hadn’t seen in months. I looked at him instead of saying, hi, how are you? How are you doing today? How can I help you? Any of the how nonsensical, how questions. I looked at this guy and I just, I just kind of soaked him in for about three seconds, maybe. It sounds short, but always feels like an eternity. And I said, you, you seem centered. And he sat there for a second. He said, you know, I just came off the mountain. And the mountain is where I go to meditate and I work out. And he’s into all this Asian philosophies and martial arts, which makes him feel phenomenal. He said, the last time you saw me, I hadn’t been on the mountain in months. And I was just wound really tight. And, you know, I just came off the mountain. I’ve been up there for about a month. Now, if I’m listening, he just told me a lot about himself. And he also told me where he’s at right now. If I just sat down and said, hey, Nick, how are you? He looked at me and went, yeah, fine, you? Shaan Puri Right. Right. And you did it with a observation, a label, but it was almost a compliment to it. It wasn’t like you said, oh, you seem stressed out or you get defensive, right? You said you seem centered. Is it important if it’s a positive or negative label in that way? Chris Voss It’s just got to be what it is. Like if he just seemed stressed, I’d have said you seem stressed. Or if he seems stressed, one I like when somebody seems stressed is it’s probably that day. And I’ll say, tough day. And you can watch them get their balance back when you say that. And so the observation has got to be, you have to observe what it is. Because if they look stressed and I go like, you seem centered, then I’m an idiot. Shaan Puri Okay, so you put the label to give some information. What happens next? What’s the next move to continue to build the trust? Chris Voss Yeah, well, I may feed it back to them. I’m going to sit back and I’m going to let the other person talk, and then I’m going to see if they got a next step. And then it’s a little bit like there’s going to be a little bit of a dance here. We may need to take a circuitous route to where we both need to be. But if you pick the route, we’ll get there faster. If I pick the route, I don’t know where you’re going through. I don’t know where the friction points are for you. I don’t know what’s going to make you leery. I’m going to let you pick the route because it’s going to be faster. So I’m going to sit back and wait to see if you pick a next step. I mean, try to trigger you to see if we can go. (Time 0:26:11)
  • Ask For ‘No’ To Create Safety
    • Ask calibrated, no-oriented questions to make people feel safe and say ‘no’.
    • Use no-questions like “Is it ridiculous to talk about what we’re here for?” to reduce friction. Transcript: Chris Voss I’m going to sit back and I’m going to let the other person talk, and then I’m going to see if they got a next step. And then it’s a little bit like there’s going to be a little bit of a dance here. We may need to take a circuitous route to where we both need to be. But if you pick the route, we’ll get there faster. If I pick the route, I don’t know where you’re going through. I don’t know where the friction points are for you. I don’t know what’s going to make you leery. I’m going to let you pick the route because it’s going to be faster. So I’m going to sit back and wait to see if you pick a next step. I mean, try to trigger you to see if we can go. Is it ridiculous to talk about what we’re here for? So you caught that question, didn’t you? Yeah. It was a no-oriented question. Yeah. Instead of, do you want to talk about what we’re here for? Which you drive for yes. Cause that going for yes creates friction, but going for no creates protection and safety. Shaan Puri No, no, it wouldn’t be ridiculous for us to do that. Chris Voss There you go. Exactly. Yeah. And so that’s how I want it. (Time 0:28:58)
  • Compromise Encourages Mediocrity
    • Compromise tends to create lose-lose outcomes and mediocrity.
    • Making the other side feel heard often yields immediate moves toward your position. Transcript: Chris Voss You think the United States Congress deserves an A-plus rating? No. But they compromise all the time, don’t they? So if you think politicians are awesome, then you think compromise is good. And that’s a crazy thing about it because everybody preaches compromise. How do you feel about compromising your principles? Not good. Yeah, it gives you an instantaneous, uneasy feeling inside, right? So compromise is to, by definition, make something lose-lose. And that is not compatible with a long-term relationship of trust and prosperity. It’s compatible with being a C player. Mediocrity. Compromise correlates very strongly to mediocrity. And you’ve got to decide whether or not you’re good with mediocrity. Shaan Puri And so what’s the replacement to compromise? Because I don’t think anybody goes in saying, I can’t wait to compromise. They sort of feel like it’s a necessary evil. I guess we’ll have to compromise in order for us to agree. And I think that’s where people land and settle for that. That’s the mediocrity part. So what’s the more effective, more powerful way of thinking besides expecting to and accepting that you need to compromise? Chris Voss Well, let me find out where you’re, let me make you feel heard first. If I can make you feel completely heard on your position, my guess is more than 30% of the deals we made in your, in my favor on the spot. And about half of the deals are made on the spot once the other side feels completely hurt. But let’s say, let’s say it’s only 25% and it’s, it’s well more than that. All right. So now you’ve knocked out, you’ve just accomplished, uh, you have to negotiate 25% less because you just made the deal by making the other person feel worried. Just knock 20% of your work off the table. Now what happens to the remaining 75% Their position’s going to move closer to yours, and they’re going to be more honest with you about what exactly that position is. They’re going to tell you what they perceive that must-haves to be. They’re going to move away from their throwaways right away. So I’m either going to make the deal on the spot or I’m going to find out what we really have to negotiate about immediately, which is also going to save me a massive amount of time. Now, there’s a difference between compromise and high value trades. (Time 0:30:32)
  • Don’t Lean On Leverage
    • Relying on leverage (ability to inflict harm) gets you middling results and destroys trust.
    • Use collaboration and information-sharing for better long-term outcomes. Transcript: Chris Voss I agree completely. I mean, for the longest time on my side, we’ve always said the adversary is a situation. And what you just did was explain what that model looks like through that example. And it becomes very real when you describe it that way. And yeah, that’s a very smart way to describe it. Shaan Puri And where does leverage come into this? Because when I’ve negotiated, I always think about leverage. Deals I feel I do, but I’m not 100% happy with, not too happy with. It’s typically because I felt like the other side had a lot more leverage in the situation, and this was my best option to go with. It was 98% their blend and 2% mine. And in other situations where I have leverage or create leverage or I apply leverage, you know, I tend to feel like I do better. But is that too simplistic? Like, how do you think about the word leverage? Because for me, that’s always been key in negotiation. Chris Voss It’s not simplistic. A step up from floundering entirely to, you know, and it’s going to sound harsh. I mean, you get yourself to B-level negotiator there. You’ll never get yourself to A, A-plus on leverage because leverage is the ability to inflict harm. And if you’re making deals based on the ability to inflict harm, these are not, those don’t go for stable long-term relationships. They don’t go for the other side, sharing information with you that’ll change everything because if you’ve got leverage, you’re a threat. And why would they give you important information if you’re a threat? And vice versa. How much leverage do they have on you? Holy shit. I can’t give them, I can’t tell them that they’ll have more leverage. Oh my God. (Time 0:34:59)
  • Trust Is Predictability
    • Trust equals predictability; predictable partners enable smoother implementation.
    • Deals fail in implementation when parties feel threatened or coerced during negotiation. Transcript: Chris Voss What you’re really negotiating, what people really don’t understand is how important trust is and trust is based on how predictable you are. Take out the word trust to put in the word predictability. You automatically become more trustworthy because you’re predictable. And so then the ability to collaborate as we deal with issues, because there’s always going to be issues. Making the deal is the beginning. You got to get into implementation. And if we don’t trust each other, then problems are going to crop up and we’re not going to tell the other side. If we’ve compromised, I’m going to resent that compromise. And when problems crop up, I’m going to keep my mouth shut because it’s going to hurt you. Because I didn’t like, I didn’t like the leverage you used on me. I didn’t like the way you forced me into this deal. Yeah. You know what? Threaten me? Fine. Fine, make me cooperate, make me tell you about problems in the early stages, as opposed to when they’re turning into delay in mind has gone off. It’s really an issue of, you know, how we’re going to do the implementation. And so the whole issue of, you know, do we start? And then, and then you’re even going to talk about how we’re going to cross a bridge, bridges when we get to them, because there are going to be problems. You know, I, I, I’m at a training a long time ago before the book came out and the CEO said, this is my CFO. And I want you to teach him how to put clauses in contracts that’ll penalize the other side for non-performance. And my thought was, if penalizing the other side for non-performance is your biggest problem, it started a lot sooner because you’re not making great deals. You’re telling me you can’t get your deals implemented. That’s what you’re telling me. So you need to back way up and find out what the problem was well before that because implementation is where it’s at. And if we don’t trust each other, if I can’t count on you to work through problems with me, it’s going to cost us a lot of money. (Time 0:37:36)
  • Oprah’s ‘Limo Out’ Rule
    • Oprah negotiates clear terms and leaves people feeling respected so relationships endure after deals.
    • She prioritizes a positive final impression: in and a limo out, always respectful at the end. Transcript: Chris Voss Think Oprah is a great deal maker. And visible examples of that. She gets Lance Armstrong to come on TV and answer yes or no questions. Straightforward. As to whether or not he doped and whether or not he did things. Now, I’m not acquainted with Oprah. I am acquainted with Lance, and I like Lance a lot. And when you look at the totality of the circumstances, you get quite a different picture as opposed to somebody giving you a very narrow view. But anyway, the Lance Armstrong interview, he wasn’t caught off guard by those questions. That was the negotiation between him and her in advance as to whether or not he was going to get on camera and what she was going to ask him. You don’t see anything in the media about Lance Armstrong being upset with Oprah Winfrey, which means they negotiated a great deal up front that they were both good with, and then they Executed it. And it was no bad blood after the fact. That, to me, that’s a great deal. And that’s an example and a reason why, and also, if you look at the totality of Oprah, think about the fact that she’s dealt with some of the most difficult to handle people on earth, celebrities, Who are used to getting their way at all times. And she doesn’t have any dust-ups, any arguments with any of them. Now, how is that possible? When in today’s day and age, celebrities love to have feuds with each other all the time as a way to gather attention. But that’s not her method of operation. And her success is extraordinary. Especially thinking about where she started. And I’d take a very small percentage of her network and be quite happy. Do you have a sense of what she does or how, how she accomplishes that? You know, the interesting thing is it’s very similar to what we did in the Chase Manhattan Bank, because I was talking about a woman, talking with a woman in Los Angeles several years Ago to work for Oprah and I’m laying all this out. And I said, the last impression is the lasting impression. Uh, we did it. Uh, the Lieutenant did a buy instinct at the Chase bank. I found out later on from, uh, I was at a Gallup poll conference on human nature, you know, the Gallup poll, the long time collectors of polling data, of course, they’re sitting on decades Of human performance information. And this one speaker stands up and says, people don’t remember things, how they happened. They remember, and they don’t remember how it started. They remember the most intense moment and how it ended. The last impression is the lasting impression. So I’m laying this on my colleague who worked for Oprah. And she says, oh yeah, Oprah’s lived by that all of her whole life. She says in, in the entertainment business, the joke is in and a limo out in a taxi. As soon as they get what they want from you, you know, you’re out hitching out front, finding your own way out. But at Oprah, it was in and a limo out in a limo. And the philosophy was no matter what happened on any interaction, no matter what, you had to make sure they felt respected, heard, appreciated, and loved at the very end. And I’ve had several conversations related to me when Oprah didn’t see something eye to eye with somebody else. And her last words are, well, always, no matter what, I will always love you and I will always be supportive of you. And the last impression is the lasting impression. (Time 0:40:55)
  • Prep By Denying Negatives First
    • Prep by naming negatives the other side might assume about you to disarm them upfront.
    • Then offer genuine appreciation to show respect and build tactical empathy. Transcript: Chris Voss It’s going to be a combination of two things. First of all, I’m going to think about what negatives you’re going to harbor about me in advance. And I’m not going to, and everybody’s got that. Actually, interestingly enough, everybody could do this right away, even if it’s a first interaction. What are the things you want to deny? I don’t want you to think that I’m going to be greedy. I don’t want you to think I’m another slimy salesperson. I don’t want you to think that I’m here to maximize my opportunity. I don’t want you to think I’m wasting your time. I always tell people, what would you want to deny walking in? That’s your gut instinct telling you a negative is there. And you make the shift from a denial to the straight observation, look, I’m probably going to seem greedy. I’m probably just going to seem like another slimy salesperson. I’m probably going to seem like somebody that’s wasting your time. That then instantly makes me the straight shooter, the honest person. And so I’m going to think about what negatives you’re going to, you are likely harboring because the brain is 75% negative. And that’s the fastest way for me to build a relationship, deactivate the negatives and make me look like a straight shirt, which increases your trust in me. And then there’s going to be some stuff that you’re going to be thinking about that you’re going to be offended if I don’t appreciate. And you’re going to be offended if I don’t appreciate how hard you work. The fact that I’m talking to you at all means you have value. And that you have legitimate reasons in your own right to be respected and admired. And it’s taking what a lot of people would refer to as flattery, but then articulating that it’s not vacuous flattery, it’s genuine appreciation from where you’re coming from. And I might say something like, you worked very hard to get to where you are today. You have been in this business for a very long time and you know what you’re doing. Otherwise, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here in front of me at all. And you have things that are valuable and worthy of my attention and of my respect. And you put those two things together and you kind of got empathy. Shaan Puri That’s what you were calling tactical empathy earlier? Chris Voss Right, yeah. (Time 0:45:10)
  • Hearing Releases Bonding Chemicals
    • Making someone feel heard triggers oxytocin and serotonin, increasing honesty and lowering demands.
    • Emotional bonding reduces negotiation resistance and improves deal outcomes. Transcript: Chris Voss I will trigger the release in you of your neurochemicals, oxytocin and serotonin. If you get ahead of oxytocin in interacting with me, you’re going to bond with me and you’re going to be far more honest with me. Oxytocin, it’s bonding and truth. Serotonin is a drug of satisfaction, which means you’re going to be less demanding. So if I can make you feel heard, you bond with me, you’re more honest with me, and you’re less demanding. (Time 0:49:02)
  • Make Their Case Then Negotiate Price
    • When buying, make the seller’s case first to leave them nothing persuasive to use against you.
    • Then press price until you reach their bottom line, but avoid burning future relationships if you need them. Transcript: Chris Voss Why what they are selling is worth what they’re asking. You know, I make their case. Cause that’s what they’re going to say to me. So what I’ve done is I’ve just now left them with nothing to say. And then like, see, I can, I can, I can, I can pound you down on price. I mean, I, I, and I still, if I choose be, I can be, I can really pound you down, but I better never need to come back to you for anything. And there are a few deals that are complete one-offs. So if I’m buying a car, depend upon who I’m buying it from, I will tell you, I do not have great regard for car dealerships across the board. I no longer ever get any vehicle I own serviced at a car dealership. I don’t care what the warranty says because I don’t trust them. So I don’t mind pounding down a car dealer. Right. I got no problem with that. And I, and I will do that to them. I will, I will make their case and then I will become very passive aggressive. And you know, my favorite is how am I supposed to, how am I supposed to pay that? Well, you would have said all the things that I just got done saying if i hadn’t said it first but now if i said all if i if i took away all the wind out of your sails took all the bullets out of Your gun then when i give you the opportunity to point the gun at me you got empty you got empty chambers you got nothing to say and i know and you’re dealing on a margin and in real short order, I’m going to get you down to your bottom line. Uh, and then if I like it, we’ll make a deal. If I don’t, I’m walking out, but I better not, I better, I better not ever need to come back to you because once I’ve killed you on price, you are not going to forget that. And you are not going to lift a finger to help me ever again. (Time 0:50:00)
  • Repeat Back To Accelerate Deals
    • Use paraphrases, labels, and mirrors to repeat back what someone said and accelerate rapport.
    • Practicing these techniques is the fastest way to improve negotiation results. Transcript: Chris Voss It’s really going to be the different ways to repeat back to somebody what they just said. Um, you know, label your, your focusing on their emotions or affect mirrors and paraphrases focuses specifically on what they said. It seems like it’s a waste of time and it ends up being a relationship accelerator, which then is a deal-making accelerator. So however you do it, um, the more you can make somebody feel heard, the less you can be a threat. And yeah, sometimes charm is involved. Charm and empathy are very close. Yeah. But who’s the most interesting at the table? If I make you think I’m the most interesting person, okay, cool. We had a great conversation, but are we ever going to make great deals? Now, if I made you think you’re the most interesting person, our likelihood for collaboration is very high. (Time 0:54:49)
  • Be Curious, But Timebox Meetings
    • Be curious, but manage meeting time and set finite meeting durations to ensure progress.
    • If a meeting won’t finish, schedule a follow-up instead of overrunning people’s time. Transcript: Chris Voss And if you get too curious, then we have a finite amount of time. We got an hour together. If we got an hour together and we get nothing accomplished, what are you going to remember? You really enjoyed the conversation, but we didn’t get anything done. So you might feel like it was a waste of your time. You have to be aware of the progress that has to be made. And my team, what we always do is we set finite periods of time for meetings, period. And we never go over. It doesn’t matter where we are. We’ll set another meeting before we’ll go over a meeting. Because time is this commodity that is so limited that (Time 0:57:26)