On the 107th episode of The Richard Robbins Show, I sit down with a woman who was nicknamed The Negotiator by her father when she was just a little girl. Today, she is an instructor of MBA Negotiations at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto and has dedicated herself to empowering Fortune 500 clients and diverse audiences across the globe to become better communicators and negotiators.

Fotini Iconomopoulos, author of Say Less, Get More, is an expert in navigating high-stakes negotiations and has made a career teaching her clients, audiences and students how to become better negotiators.

“You can negotiate and not only protect relationships, but also build better ones, if you’re doing it effectively,” Fotini says. She continues by saying that curiosity can be your most powerful tool while sitting down with another party, “Who is sitting across from me right now and what is important to them? If you haven’t considered the person on the other side, then why should they engage with you?”

In this episode, Fotini and I talk about the evolution of negotiation and why a present-day approach is necessary to getting what you want. Fotini gives real estate professionals insight on how to approach conversations with their clients, pinpoints the importance of knowing your clients why and she explains that it can be just as powerful to listen as it is to talk.