Expert Tips for the World of Negotiation

Join Darren A. Smith, Dr. Anthony, and Andrew Stotts from the Weird Human podcast, as they tackle how to be a better negotiator.

You Can Read the Full 'Better Negotiator' Transcript Below

Andrew Stotts:

So guys, so first of all, welcome to another edition of the Weird Human Podcast. Our 25th actually. So we've got some fantastic guests again today. Huge. As usual. I'm joined by the brilliant Dr Anthony, but also today, which I'm joined by the Fantastic Darren Smith. I've known Darren for many, many, many, many years. And we've worked together in different organizations around the world, which has been fantastic. Today's question, just to remind you guys, is really how can I be a better negotiator?

Andrew Stotts:

And before we kind of tackle the question I'd like to just remind you upon the mission statement, really for the Weird Human Podcast. That mission statement is really about exploring the extraordinary about the human beings who are around us. And that's a very, very important point. So it's about making you and really kind of bringing out the extraordinary of being a human being. So, Darren, perhaps it'll be helpful for the people who are listening, just to have a brief introduction from yourself.

Darren Smith:

So we are MBM, we're also known as the Sticky Learning Guys. We are the guys who want to achieve behavioural change with you because we know that most people go on a one-day training course, come back and do nothing different. So we're the guys that ensure by prodding, poking, doing everything we can, you come back and be the very best version of yourselves. That's me, Anthony.

Learning that sticks

 

Andrew Stotts:

That's a great introduction. Dr. Anthony. I can't believe, we did a show last week. That show actually had had more than 11,000 views now. So again, massive thanks to Michelle. That was the one around kind of like wealth coaches and kind of like tips around kind of money. So if you want to go back and look at the catalogue that's an incredible episode. We also started to delve into the kind of relationships and kind of what made relationships. Then of course that kind of took us into the path around negotiating, particularly between couples. Dr Anthony's obviously married to Dr Michelle in the previous show.

Andrew Stotts:

The first time I met his beautiful wife. We obviously then started to explore kind of what made their relationship successful and that kind of brought us to our conversation today. So if I can go back. So Dr Anthony, love you, my friend.

Dr Anthony:

I hope that Darren can actually then teach me how to negotiate better because there's one thing for certain, every man is know how to negotiate better to be a good man. You start to seek love, that's for sure. Darren, how do you negotiate?

Andrew Stotts:

How do you?

Darren Smith:

Well, I'm starting to feel like I should have some awards on the wall like you've got because wow, they're very impressive. The first thing that we need to do in answering that question is understand the difference between haggling and negotiation. Now, there are eight ways to solve a conflict. Haggling is one, negotiation's another. So, Andrew, I know you do this. You've been to the bizarre market stores and you've haggled for the Ray-Bans, and you started at 40 Euros, didn't you?

Andrew Stotts:

That's just an obscene amount of money for those, the Ray. I'm kind of more in the two-euro range, to be fair.

Darren Smith:

So we've all been there, haven't we? We're trying to buy these Ray-Bans, we're on holiday and the guy behind the stool starts at 40 euros, we start at two, and you meet somewhere in the middle. A valid form of resolving a conflict. But don't kid yourself that it's negotiating. It is not. It is haggling. Now, if you get a chance, Andrew, look up on Google, a Monty Python sketch about haggling. It's really brilliant about how to do it. So I love that. But let's come back to negotiating. First thing is to know the difference between the two.

Andrew Stotts:

Yeah. It is fascinating because as soon as you talk about kind of the Friday market for me it was the Friday market. So we lived in Kuwait for a long time and brought my children up in Kuwait primarily. There was a fantastic location called the Friday market and there were lots of kind of Ray-Bans available and Oakley bonds and other kind of like sunglasses, let's put it that way. And other kind of curious merchandise, which is always quite fascinating. The challenge I always had was that my daughter was always too quick to kind of like share her position when she was negotiating. So she wanted to buy. She had in her mind a particular pair of Ray-Bans.

Andrew Stotts:

So she would kind of go into the market and she would find the Ray-Bans that she wanted and then obviously start to salivate around these Ray-Bans. And of course, my big concern around that was that as she was salivating, I was kind of watching the store owner who was also going, whoa. Now I've got dad by the short and curlies. Effectively I can charge my 40 kinds of euros as opposed to the two euros for the Ray-Bans. And it's a nightmare. So I would have to then come discreetly grab my daughter and sort of take her away and say, we're not going to have to find those Ray-Bans on another store.

Andrew Stotts:

Yeah, there were other stores, but it was often quite a pain finding them because she had a particular taste in Ray-Bans. So then we would eventually find them. But I would say when you go there, do not show your position. I think that's a really, really important point. So I'm kind of curious, Dr Anthony, to understand about kind of positional and why we shouldn't really be sort of showing our position when we're negotiating.

Dr Anthony:

Well, it's letting the cat out of the bag. I mean, no one actually goes in with a cat out of the bag up front. Negotiation is about getting to a point where both parties find an amicable agreement. And if you leave the cat out of the bag, then you have no back foot to actually reverse back onto. So it is a gift. It is a skill and it can be learned. That's why we're speaking to the master Darren himself. So Darren talking about negotiation, how do you negotiate with a five-year-old? They have their own way and they wanted their way. Is there any negotiation? You tell us.

Darren Smith:

Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you some great advice here. Dr. Anthony, I've been negotiating and teaching for 30 years and I used to run a billion-pound portfolio and I've learned one thing. You don't negotiate with kids, you won't win. I don't win. I've never won with my kids. It's just not worth it. So what I do is I put all my energies into winning at work.

Andrew Stotts:

That's a great question.

Dr Anthony:

Brilliant.

Andrew Stotts:

So how do we get better then? As human beings, how do we get better at negotiating? So what are your kind of top tips, Darren?

Darren Smith:

So the first thing is, let's understand the difference between haggling and negotiation. Yeah. So once we've got those, we're then negotiating. Okay. The next thing on negotiation is preparation. Now, Andrew, what you do or others do for preparing for a negotiation is they normally open PowerPoint and start typing.

Andrew Stotts:

Yeah.

Darren Smith:

They create their slide and their images and the ooh, ah, blah. But here's the thing. PowerPoint is not a negotiation preparation tool. There I said it.

Andrew Stotts:

I agree because what I tend to classically see when we are putting people through you know, real playoff simulations around negotiation, which I think is quite fascinating. Is people tend to when you give them a scenario to negotiate 100% of the time, particularly if they've had no real exposure to professional negotiating, they tend to come only from their position. Yep. So they prepared their position and they're kind of like fairly fixed on that. It normally takes me about a day to knock out the idea that they're going to give their position away because they're kind of walking with their position. This is my position, this is what is what my boss has agreed, this is how much I'm prepared to pay for whatever it is, bang on the table.

Andrew Stotts:

For me, it's the biggest kind of no-no. When we're negotiating. I think we need to be, I always say to people, we need to try to start to. It's back to one of my Coveys, which is, you know, seek to understand before you seek to be understood. So if you understand, if you can be lucky enough to get Darren's position or Dr Anthony's position early part of the conversation, actually that's really useful to you as a negotiator. Because you've got basically then a very nice set kind of framework. So I know you have a really cool framework, Darren. Perhaps you could share that framework with us.

Darren Smith:

It's very simple. So there's a template available online because we realized a long time ago that people needed a preparation tool. Something simple, easy to understand, easy to use. I'll just draw a part of it here, Andrew so you can see. It's a downloadable free template and we call it the square dance. We've never quite understood why we call it that. But do see do and all that seems to conjure up people.

The Squaredance Template

 

Andrew Stotts:

It kind of works for me, Darren. That kind of works for me.

Darren Smith:

Sort of does, doesn't it? I mean, you've done a band dance and so have I.

Andrew Stotts:

I'm not sure I like it. What are your thoughts on band dances, Dr Anthony? Any kind of thoughts on band dances? Have you ever been to a band dance in South Africa?

Darren Smith:

It took the wrong time to negotiate. Let Darren talk.

Darren Smith:

I'll do what the man said. So there's this A4 template we've created. Download it for free, it's all yours. And roughly it looks like this. What are you hoping for?