The #1 Negotiation Tactic

Posted by John Livesay in blog0 comments

Marketing’s #1 Secret Weapon
Sales Is a Team Sport

Should you split the difference in a negotiation? Should you get the other person to give a salary first? Should you make the other person feel like they won?

The number one tactic in negotiation is EMPATHY. In fact, the FBI uses empathy when they negotiate with criminals who have hostages. When I had former FBI special agent Chris Massey on my podcast, here is what he told me that will give you some new tools for negotiation.

Everybody starts out as a special agent. That’s your title. Anything else you do is a collateral duty. We had people that were on SWAT Teams, that’s a collateral duty. We had people that are Evidence Response Team, that’s a collateral. It goes on and on, but your main focus is still investigations of crime. The way the Bureau is set up is that there are two houses. There’s the National Security side of it and then there’s the Criminal side of it. You will be selected to participate in one of those programs and in general, you stay within that lane. There is
movement. I started out in National Security and moved eventually to Criminal. It took some time. You have to establish yourself, establish a reputation that you’re a hard worker, that you’re able to perform and you know how to have success. That’s how it works.

You’ve been featured as one of the people at the Carnegie New Leaders program at the US Military Academy at West Point. You have multiple places that are having you come and speak on these techniques to corporate leaders about how to build professional relationships quickly and profitably, which allows them to grow their business. Let’s double-click on how we create instant rapport as opposed to people checking their phone or just walk out of there going around, “That didn’t go well.” What clues are there that we can do to prevent that from happening?

The first thing that we would say in terms of a hostage negotiation skill set, what we want to do is we want to establish a connection as quickly as possible. The same is true in the business world. The stakes are different, certainly. One person that is holding somebody for ransom and on the other hand, you’re trying to make a connection to somebody who is in and out of a conversation with you, not engaged with you. The first thing that we would do and I advise my business leaders to do is to find that thing that is going to pull them out of that phone, that text and that email.

What kind of connection can you build with empathy?

To get more negotiation tips click here https://johnlivesay.com/negotiation-keynote-speaker/

Marketing’s #1 Secret Weapon
Sales Is a Team Sport