0:00:00 A: I’ve been trying and you know, I’ve been tested. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemimah Ashley. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemimah, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 A: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.
0:00:43 Jemimah Ashley: Ben had an interesting moment with your four and a half year old.
0:00:48 Ben Wright: My four and a half year?
0:00:49 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah. This morning there was. Can I just say, this kid is definitely yours. The negotiation on this kid is very strong.
0:00:56 Ben Wright: The force is strong?
0:00:58 Jemimah Ashley: A 100%. Not going to do Star wars with you. You know, I’ve never seen it, but this is the conversation that happened. And I haven’t told you about this yet, but here’s what happened. We’re alone in the kitchen, and she says to me, hey, Jemimah. I said, yeah? She said, do you want to see how I turn the TV on? And I said, no, because I know you’re not allowed to watch TV in the morning. No, I think, probably. Let’s just eat our breakfast. Thoughts? And she goes, all right. Okay, fine. Would you like to see how I can draw on the windows? And I thought, Ben will kill me. No, I want to see it. But I knew that you probably didn’t want that to happen either. And then finally, your wife comes into the room and she says to your wife, you know, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think you should pick me up because the negotiation was brilliant. I think you should pick me up at Kindy after morning tea.
0:01:45 Ben Wright: Oh.
0:01:46 Jemimah Ashley: And your wife said, absolutely not. She goes, ah, yes. Okay. How about lunch? And I thought, that is Ben Wright’s child. And that is correct. That was the correct that she is right. And I wanted to go and get her at lunchtime. I’ve advocated for that. And I’ve been told no.
0:02:01 Ben Wright: And no doubt, when Mum said no to lunch, it was afternoon tea.
0:02:05 Jemimah Ashley: It was for sure. And it was like, it’s normal time.
0:02:09 Ben Wright: Yeah, dramatic. Look, you don’t like Star wars, but the Force is very strong in this one. But she’s seen Daddy do his thing around negotiating negotiation quite a number of times, so. Great. I’m actually not upset about that. And I’m pleased that she used that power on someone else, because the old. Would you like to see me turn the TV on is brilliant.
0:02:28 Jemimah Ashley: It wasn’t bad. Do you want to see how I can use the remote? And part of me went, I feel like you know how to do that also.
0:02:34 Ben Wright: Yeah. And that is actually negotiating without directly asking for what you want. And it’s a very common way to negotiate is to avoid some of the key things you want to talk about and just coming around the side to get that same result.
0:02:49 Jemimah Ashley: Seems very fitting. With today’s podcast episode of Negotiation, I had a giggle because I thought we were recording later today and we’re going to do negotiations. And I watched the most perfect Ben Wright example in front of me. I was like, I just want to have my coffee. This is brilliant to watch. This was. It was a bit of a coffee in a show this morning, which was great.
0:03:07 Ben Wright: Maybe we should submit and bring her in to do today’s podcast recording.
0:03:11 Jemimah Ashley: She tried to also negotiate that earlier. I was straight. It was crazy.
0:03:15 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah. It probably would involve needing treats.
0:03:18 Jemimah Ashley: Yes, easy.
0:03:19 Ben Wright: Treats, TV and a cuddle.
0:03:22 Jemimah Ashley: Easy.
0:03:22 Ben Wright: Great. All right, well, let’s do it. Negotiation.
0:03:25 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:03:25 Ben Wright: So negotiation is an art form.
0:03:29 Jemimah Ashley: It is.
0:03:30 Ben Wright: There’s absolutely no doubt about it. I do not believe you are born a negotiator, although the story about my 4 and a half year old may say different. I think it is absolutely a skill that’s developed as a sum of your growth, your personal involvement, how often you are exposed to negotiation and in what forms across your life. Because there’s no doubt in my mind that the more varied types of negotiations you have in your life, the better you are at negotiating.
0:04:00 Jemimah Ashley: I think one of the biggest fallacies that I’ve seen previously is people say, I don’t have to negotiate. I was like, you negotiate every day. You negotiate with your relationships, with your family, with your children. You know, I think that we have taken negotiation to mean a hostile. I want this. I want this across the table. Negotiation is happening every single day, no matter what we do, in a business perspective.
0:04:25 Ben Wright: And the best negotiations, I find actually aren’t hostile. And that’s when both parties generally get the best results. Because if you have a hostile negotiation and one party gets a significantly better result than the other party, what often happens is there’s not a future transaction. It becomes a once off. And if that’s what you want in your business, and if you are negotiating once off large deals and you need to go hard, then, yeah, you’re going to take a different approach. But for most people in business, the requirement for referrals, recommendations, repeat business is so high that we need to be making sure that it’s a balanced outcome that drives really good value for the customer and really good value for the business. And when we focus on driving really, really good value for our customer or outcomes, our price actually rises with that. When we focus on getting the best possible margin for our business rather than the value or the outcome for our customer, that’s when negotiations do tend to become a little bit more tense.
0:05:22 Jemimah Ashley: So we started talking about negotiations as a potential topic and both of us went, oh, I could talk about that. And then I realized I had made a fundamental mistake with this because I am very good negotiator. But I’m always going to come at this from a perspective of law enforcement negotiations and getting what I need from someone else. And one of the reasons I really was this is such an interesting topic for us to talk about because what you’re going to talk about today and you’re obviously going to be giving some. A couple of examples of what we need to know about negotiation is that my background in criminal intelligence negotiation was really quite manipulative on how we did things and how we did specific stuff. So I sort of laughed when we were putting this together and I said, oh, do you know what’s interesting? I can give you some really good Chris Foss examples of high end negotiations. Don’t split the difference. Great book. Recommend it, but it’s always around how to put someone in a room and how to sit them. And I was like, I don’t think I’m going to be. I think I would be the best for the manipulative one. I don’t think I’d be the best for the everyday day to day one.
0:06:23 Ben Wright: You mean you’ve never put someone on a seat where they’ve got the sun shining in their eyes and it cranked up the heating in the room and then not giving them water.
0:06:29 Jemimah Ashley: I have 100% done similar stuff to that.
0:06:31 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:06:32 Jemimah Ashley: Not that exact example. Wonky chair is the one that drives people crazy. Or like when you’re interviewing someone, putting them in a corner.
0:06:39 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:06:40 Jemimah Ashley: And then being very nice to them. I’m going to be your best friend. I’m going to give you everything you want. Also, I’m pretty sure you did this event, so.
0:06:47 Ben Wright: Okay, well, we’re not going to talk about that. But what I would like to go through is a few pieces of inspiration when it comes to negotiation. Because for me, the biggest advice I have is that it is deeply personal.
0:06:57 Jemimah Ashley: It is.
0:06:58 Ben Wright: And everyone will have different approaches to negotiations. And I have sat in negotiations when even though I am the most skilled at negotiation in that room, we have chosen to have me leave the room in a very unpleasant state of mind because I wouldn’t get the result at that moment because of that emotional state.
0:07:19 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah, right.
0:07:20 Ben Wright: We’ve also had times when I was the least qualified negotiating in the room, but I’ve taken the lead because not having a history with a customer is actually going to result in a better outcome. So it is deeply personal and it changes in every situation. But here’s a few things for those listening that will help you work through this. Where I will start is the biggest difference for me in negotiation came when I could put a framework around it and that all comes down to preparation. We’re actually going to talk about Herb Cohen’s model in a moment. But before I do that, I want to give a special point of merit to being prepared for negotiations. Failing to plan is planning to fail. When it comes to anything in a negotiation sense, I live off the 7ps prior proper preparation prevents piss poor performance. Bleep. We’ll have to do that somewhere in there. But when we prepare for a negotiation, we are generally going to do better. And that often means we are preparing multiple times. Too often I see people walk into a negotiation with the attitude that says, I’m more senior than you. I know my stuff.
0:08:25 Jemimah Ashley: Dangerous, isn’t it?
0:08:26 Ben Wright: We have the upper hand here. Right. As soon as you have that. It’s so true. Even in sport. Just recently we went through the Olympics this year and there were upsets everywhere.
0:08:37 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah, right.
0:08:37 Ben Wright: And I have no doubt that confidence. Right. Got in the way of it. So special.
0:08:42 Jemimah Ashley: There’s confidence and then there’s ego. And they’re a little bit different.
0:08:46 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. It happens in every sport, in every business, in every interaction.
0:08:49 Jemimah Ashley: If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, either you’re in the wrong room or you need to think if you are.
0:08:54 Ben Wright: Humility is important. So if you get to the end of this, I would highly recommend. Not now. At the end, you go and check out Herb Cohen’s book. You can negotiate anything. He works off three concepts that I’m going to talk loosely around. I will not frame them as he does in his book because with everything that I do, I take the perspectives of many.
0:09:13 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:09:13 Ben Wright: And I use a framework that most appropriately works for that. And in this instance, I like Herb Cohen’s also. He’s very experienced, so he spoke about three elements. Time, Information and Power.
0:09:27 Jemimah Ashley: Love it.
0:09:28 Ben Wright: Number one, being time. So time’s all about understanding when we need a sense of urgency, understanding when we need to be patient, understanding when we need to nibble at a result. But realizing or recognizing when the shifting sands of time are important. So when you’re dealing with a customer who has a need to do something quickly for their customer, for their stakeholders, for their board, whoever it may be, generally the balance of time power is going to sit against them. Right? Because they don’t have a long period of time to be able to go out and source all the information they need. Right. It’s going to reduce their power because they simply need to get the result done.
0:10:10 Jemimah Ashley: Timeliness is often on the side of the negotiation. For sure.
0:10:13 Ben Wright: That’s right. When we have a customer who is in no rush to do something or doesn’t feel the need to do it, then the time side of negotiating is going to be in their favor. And in that instance, that’s actually where we need to find a compelling reason to drive time into the equation. We can’t always do it. Sometimes we just have to be in the right place with the right offer at the right time. But other times we can find or draw out that need. That then raises the sense of urgency with the customer.
And an example I can give you here is I worked in, I had a renewables business for a very long period of time and we were working with a customer who had no sense of urgency at all. But then their electricity bill came in and we knew that contract was coming in, we knew the rates were going up. So we were patient until that electricity bill came in. It was a significant rise. I’m talking 30, 40, 50%. It was those years quite a few years ago. And this was impactful to their bottom line.
0:11:10 Jemimah Ashley: Absolutely.
0:11:11 Ben Wright: So all of a sudden offsetting some of their energy load became really important. We also had times where customers simply had mandates that would come in from their board where they had to do it and the time element changed. So understanding how time plays its role in your negotiation. Yes, number one.
0:11:26 Jemimah Ashley: So for me, if I was going to talk about negotiating with time, start the interrogation at 2am I’m really glad.
0:11:32 Ben Wright: You’re not running this one yet.
0:11:34 Jemimah Ashley: I was like, we can talk about negotiation. I think this is a week. And I was like, oh, this is a business negotiation thing.
0:11:39 Ben Wright: But you know what, there is something in what you say around time when we know that we want to get a result and we know that a meeting is being held to get a result. Don’t start it at 8:00am with an open ended timeline started at 3:00.
0:11:53 Jemimah Ashley: Am I going to 4:30? Am I done?
0:11:55 Ben Wright: That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Very common in mediation that nothing happens in the first few hours.
0:12:01 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:12:01 Ben Wright: And you get down to the last 30 minutes.
0:12:04 Jemimah Ashley: It’s weird there are solutions that gets there. I will say, while I’m making a joke of some of this stuff here, you’re absolutely right here. I would never go into a negotiation tired, hungry, or like having to leave at a specific time. We want to round it out here, but if you got to be getting your kid at 4:30 and it starts at 4, you’re not there. You’re going to accept whatever deal it is. So there is, while we talk about the time stuff here, that is really important that you think about it, the 2am I wouldn’t recommend. Unless you really want to throw someone.
0:12:31 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. So we’re not starting at 2am but we are setting some clear parameters around how we’re making decisions. Okay. So the next one from Herb is all around power. And I’m going to move a little bit off script here with what Herb recommends and talk at a more macro level. But power in a negotiation is often perceived, but it’s often real.
0:12:53 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:12:53 Ben Wright: And the ways we have power in a negotiation is when we have something that someone else doesn’t have, when we can deliver it quicker than someone else doesn’t have, when we can be doing it at a price. That’s what other people can’t do it. When we can be doing it with longer warranties, when we can be doing it with greater expertise. And the same goes in reverse when sometimes we don’t have that power, someone else is cheaper. Someone else can do it quicker. Power for me in a negotiation is understanding the levers you can pull that are important to the other side. And the way that you can successfully do that is by understanding what both parties need.
0:13:31 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:13:32 Ben Wright: So by going to a negotiation, being really clear on who needs what, that’s when you start to really grow in the power stakes. So an example for this is for me is really clear, is around knowing your competitors, knowing who you’re negotiating against, and also knowing your customer. We went into a negotiation once where we didn’t know that the customer is part of the process. We were following through. It was around lighting during, again, the renewables business. And what we didn’t know was that the quality of light at the floor level was really important for the shopping experience. Makes sense. We didn’t know at that point in time. We entered that negotiation with a product that was very price based and the customer wanted that price. But what became really clear was that their customers needed better quality of light. So for them to actually invest in a higher spec product was going to have a significant difference to their customers shopping experience.
0:14:29 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:14:30 Ben Wright: So the whole negotiating paddock that we were in moved to the one next door to a greener pasture. And what we ended up doing was actually custom designing a light for them which in that instance shifted the power back to us.
0:14:45 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:14:45 Ben Wright: Because we had something that we could produce quickly in large volume that was going to better meet their customers needs. So knowing what both parties need as a common goal. Right. We think about that in a very similar approach as needs analysis for your sales process, which was our last episode, episode 11. Very, very important.
0:15:04 Jemimah Ashley: One of the things I find interesting here, Ben, is that when you talk about knowing, you know, you have to know what both parties want here. I think it’s really important. And what’s so interesting in this is sometimes people walk in with that power and go, I know everything here. You know, a fraction of it actually.
0:15:20 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:15:20 Jemimah Ashley: You actually know part of. And this is where I think, especially from my law enforcement perspective on negotiation here is often you find. And it’s a wildly different example here, but one of the things you’ll often sit down is a place, sit down with someone and be like, so tell us what happened. And like they know if as soon as you’re in that room, like they know way more than they’re already learning. Or just tell us your experience straight away you think you have the cards, they’ve got them.
0:15:44 Ben Wright: Yeah. Assuming that you have the balance of power is dangerous.
0:15:47 Jemimah Ashley: Power is dangerous, fundamental mistake straight away. And not also. And not just creating. And I really don’t want this to be a divisional like us versus them because I think this is where we get to. It’s also about curiosity because sometimes even we don’t know what we don’t know.
0:16:01 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah.
0:16:02 Jemimah Ashley: And it might have been that conversation was just we didn’t know that the floor, the lighting wasn’t right until it’s like, oh, well, there’s actually real benefit for us to move away from that. Well, we can also help you with this.
0:16:11 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. Getting curious.
0:16:13 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:16:14 Ben Wright: Is a driver of power in a negotiation. Okay, let’s keep moving. Last one here. Information.
0:16:18 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:16:19 Ben Wright: So information is all around preparation, which I gave a special mention to at the start. But information is being able to walk into a negotiation with everything you need and often more. Because when the power balance shifts or when the time balance Shifts. If we are subject matter experts in what we are negotiating on, the more we know or the more of those experts we have with us, the quicker we can adapt to the shifting sounds of time. So when we walk into a negotiation and we know that a customer’s move from wanting a lower quality product to one that is custom made to generate a certain amount of light at a level, at a floor level like we spoke about, if we know what we can do within our business to change that design or how we can source something different, we can move that negotiation forward without needing to reconvene. That gives us power because the customer is seeing us as very knowledgeable. And generally you can have a customer that’s going to want to work with you.
So my biggest piece of advice around here is to walk in, obviously well versed in the topic you’re talking about and go wider than that, but have a negotiation plan. And the best plan I’ve ever worked around is one that has a walk in, a fallback and a walk away.
0:17:35 Jemimah Ashley: When are we knowing how to get out of here?
0:17:37 Ben Wright: That’s right.
0:17:38 Jemimah Ashley: When are we wasting each other’s time here?
0:17:40 Ben Wright: So what are your parameters around your walk in? This is the best deal you’re hoping to achieve on the day?
0:17:44 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:17:45 Ben Wright: What are your fallback options and what are the options that if you get to these, it’s this or you walk away. So some examples are going to be price, $10, $8, $6. Examples might be payment terms, cash upfront, 30 days, 30 days in a month. Examples might be maintenance contracts included there, but short term contract or not included at all. We can talk about delivery times, we can talk about reviews, referrals, we can talk about different types of features and benefits. And often we will find that our walk in and our fallback could be the same. So our walk in price might be the same as our fallback price, but we’re prepared to move from cash on delivery to 30 day payment terms. And they are big risks for business, right?
0:18:31 Jemimah Ashley: Absolutely. 30 days liquidation can happen. These real things that can occur in 30 days.
0:18:36 Ben Wright: Yeah. And once customers have the goods, it’s a lot harder to get. You can have T’s and C’s that appoint you as a Bailey. Doesn’t matter. Right. It’s really difficult to render premises. So having that map prepared gives you a negotiating quadrant when you can walk straight in and have some confidence around where you move the levers or you pull the levers. It’s by far been the most successful element for me in negotiations because it forces the discipline of knowing what I will and won’t accept, but it stops me getting ahead of myself.
0:19:06 Jemimah Ashley: I really just keep hearing Kenny Rogers the gambler playing Got to know when to hold him. Got to know when to hold him. I was like, wow, this is really. It’s just that I’m ready, I’m out. I’m not doing this. And I think there’s something really powerful with that of we know where we’re going with this. This is what’s going on. Because I think a lot of people, and you’re absolutely right, would get in there and it’s all fine, and the T’s and C’s and suddenly it’s like, got steady days at the end of the month. Oh, hang on a second. There is a lot of gray area here. I’m not actually sure if I’m going to agree to that, but if you don’t have that plan, it’s easy to make that deal in the beginning because you got the money you wanted. Or did you?
0:19:39 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And.
0:19:40 Jemimah Ashley: Or will you?
0:19:41 Ben Wright: Absolutely. And I think there’s a piece here around ego. Is that so? Often we’ll walk into a negotiation and we’ll have a plan, and the other side of the negotiation will change it to something where we feel like we’re being beaten.
0:19:54 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:19:55 Ben Wright: And ego gets in the way. Ego is the most dangerous element of a negotiation because if we stroke it too much, we can actually kill deals from what we later look back on as what was a pretty reasonable outcome. Right. Act in haste, repent in leisure. Saying that I have had from my family for a long period of time. I’ve got so many one liners. We have to do an episode on one liners.
0:20:18 Jemimah Ashley: I think we’ve seen a merch shop. It’s just bumper stickers. And we just put them on your car, though.
0:20:22 Ben Wright: No, we’ve already spoken about this. Your car. So for me, it’s just. Be really mindful around your ego in a negotiation.
0:20:28 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:20:29 Ben Wright: Is it that you don’t want to get beaten, or is it that the negotiated outcome isn’t what you want? Because if it’s just your ego and you don’t want to get beaten, you’re in the wrong business. Or you’re having a bad day. Right. You might just come back again.
0:20:42 Jemimah Ashley: We talk about ego a lot offside, off camera. And one of the things I find really interesting is like, you have to sometimes address your own ego and go, why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I say I want to do it as people climb Mount Everest. Do you want to do it? You want to say you’ve done it because they’re different things.
0:20:58 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that’s been pretty jam packed again today.
0:21:02 Jemimah Ashley: All right, give me the three things again. I’m going to pick myself a bullet.
0:21:05 Ben Wright: Yeah. Number one. Okay, time.
0:21:07 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:21:08 Ben Wright: Number two, power. And number three, information all through Herb Cohen’s book. I’m more than happy to reference it. Go and download it.
0:21:14 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah. Look, I think for me, power is so interesting because the thing that I’ve always found really interesting with negotiations is whoever thinks that the smartest person generally isn’t. And I’ve always really enjoyed watching that flip. And that’s my abnormal psychology degree. That’s my how do people make decisions? And that’s my constant ego check going on. One of the things I really like about this tip is going in. Curious.
0:21:37 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:21:38 Jemimah Ashley: Just going like, well, if we’re not this, this. And I also really like the blueprint. I like knowing this is the minimum, this is the maximum. This is what I’m not willing to accept. I think that will really change. If you have those, you’re having a radically different business.
0:21:52 Ben Wright: Yeah. And that’s my main takeaway from today is know your walk in, fall back, and walk away positions before you go to negotiations.
0:21:59 Jemimah Ashley: I couldn’t have got the language, but I knew where it was.
0:22:01 Ben Wright: That’s right. Well, you get them planned.
0:22:03 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:22:04 Ben Wright: And you’ll walk out of a negotiation hopefully happy.
0:22:08 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:22:08 Ben Wright: And ready to rock. Not necessarily with any new friends, but that’s our job, to be your friends in business. And I think I’m looking forward to next week.
0:22:17 Jemimah Ashley: I don’t know what to do. I will say your ability to get us to friends to the end of the podcast is second to none. And every week it just gets a little bit more spicy. And I just enjoy it so much finding out how you’re going to get there.
0:22:28 Ben Wright: Excellent. Well, a spicy end. Your Friends in Business, thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you next week.
0:22:33 A: I’ve been trying and, you know, I’ve been tested. Thank you for listening to the Friends in Business podcast. This episode was brought to you by your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemimah Ashley. Recorded in beautiful Noosa, Queensland. For more insights and resources, visit Ben at stronger sales teams.com and Jemimah Jemimahashley.com if today’s podcast has helped you, we’d be so grateful if you could leave a review and share with someone you know.
0:23:04 A: This will help more people in the world, benefit from the hard work we are putting in to bring you the best content we possibly can.
