BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 260: The Ultimate Guide to Negotiating (for the Negotiation-Averse) With Former FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss

Episode Date: January 4, 2018

Bank robbers. Terrorists. Motivated sellers. No matter who you’re dealing with, negotiation is vital. As a real estate investor, the question is not if you’ll negotiate but how well will you negotiate—and after this episode, you’ll never negotiate the same again. Today, we’re excited to sit down with Chris Voss,former head of the FBI’s Hostage Negotiation Team and author of Never Split the Difference, to learn the stories, strategies, and tactics gleaned from decades of negotiating with the world’s most dangerous criminals. Then, we delve into how these lessons can help you in your own business and life. This show is a ton of fun and full of actionable tips that will instantly make you a better negotiator—whether sparring with your child, a buyer or seller, or a terrorist holding your family for ransom! In This Episode We Cover: A look at Chris’s background The story of the bank robbery in Brooklyn What the strategy of mirroring is What it means when a person doesn’t give his name How to use listening as an advanced skill Tips for applying negotiation to business settings The role negotiating plays in real estate The thing more important than the deal in negotiation The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation Tips for negotiating in a real estate deal The power of deference What you should know about anchoring How to take advantage of rounds of bargaining Why you should consider odd number pricing Why no is more powerful than yes The learning curve for this skill And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Podcast 259: Old-School Investing Wisdom from 60+ Years with Mike Anderson Eric Barker’s Blog BiggerPockets Podcast 256: The Surprising (Scientific) Truth Behind What Makes You Successful with Eric Barker Books Mentioned in this Show Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler U2 by U2 by U2 & Neil McCormick Tweetable Topics: “If you want big stakes results, you need to practice in low stakes negotiation.” (Tweet This!) “The last impression is a lasting impression.” (Tweet This!) “There’s always something in a negotiation for everybody that is more important than actually making a deal.” (Tweet This!) “You get what you want by hearing the other side out.” (Tweet This!) “The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Chris Chris’s Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a Bigger Pockets podcast, show 260. There's always something in a negotiation for everybody that's more important than actually making a deal. For somewhere between one to two thirds of the people we run across, they just want to know that they were heard. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody?

This is Scott Trench, your host of the Bigger Pockets podcast, here with my co-host, Mr. Brandon Turner. How's it going, Brandon? Man, things are so good right now. It's the new year. It just turned the new year, and we're recording this ahead of time, so it isn't really. But, you know, we're going to pretend it is a new year. How are you doing? I'm doing great.

Is that a new painting I see behind? Is that Chewbacca with a surfboard? It is, it is not new, but it is Chewbacca in a surfboard. I just rearranged my office. So now I have a cool little background. I got a plant because you have to have a plant in an office. Where's your plant? There's probably one somewhere here.

Exactly. You're lame. You don't happen. You got a blue wall behind you. Just kidding. Hold on. Here it is. Here is my plant.

All right. Let's see it. Let's see it. All right. Wait, where is it? Where is it? Oh, that is. That's the most pitiful plant I've ever seen in my entire life.

That's really bad. Come on, Scott. Come on, you're letting me down. You're letting everyone down. I'm sorry. I could see that. I can just picture you on a surfboard, hitting a wave and going, Oh, that's exactly how I do it. That's exactly it.

All right. So that was a weird beginning of a podcast, but we're going to go with it. So today's show is one that I've been excited about for a while now. In fact, Josh actually read this guy's book before I did. And then he's like, Brennan, you. You need to read this book. And then I, I think you read the book and you're like, Brandon. The same thing for me.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome book, by the way. Fantastic. So we are fortunate today to have Chris Voss, the author of Never Split the Difference. A fantastic book on negotiating from a top FBI hostage negotiator.

So that's going to, you know, anyway, today's show is fantastic. We just got done recording it. It is unbelievably good. Yeah, take out your notebooks for this one because this guy does three things really, really well. One, he explains the philosophy behind what he does so clearly. Two, he has incredible stories from the real world, real hostage negotiation situations, real business settings where he's applied these philosophies. And then three, he's got very practical tips that you can apply immediately in practicing

kind of the approach that he advocates. Just awesome, awesome stuff. Yeah, even if you don't, like me, like, I don't like to negotiate. I've said that a million times. I'm not good at it. Like, he makes me a believer that, like, I can do this. Like this is like simple techniques, like mirroring, which we'll talk a lot about in the show, but listen for that.

It's so funny. Mearing. Thank you. All right. So with that, let's get to today's quick tip. All right. Today's quick tip is practice mirroring in three conversations today. And mirroring is the idea of repeating the last two or three words that someone says in an effort

to get them to continue talking or get excited about it. And you'll see some magical results from this, especially if you listen through and apply it consistent with the philosophy that is discussed in the podcast. In the podcast? Yes, granted, in the podcast. That's an example of mirroring. All right. So we do that a lot into this show. Also, make sure you guys listen at the end.

We changed around the fire round today. Normally, the fire round comes from the forums. Today, we actually decided to have some fun with, I mean, it's not often you get to negotiate with the FBI top FBI negotiator. So we actually do a mock. What do you call it? negotiation. Okay, we'll call that. A sale of a rental property.

Yeah. And Brandon and Chris go at it. Yeah, and he's going to buy my property. I don't know, man. I don't know. It was entertaining and super, super helpful for me. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?

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This is Chris Voss. You guys are going to love him. Again, one of the top hostage negotiators in the world. Super, super smart guy on top of his games. So you guys are going to love this. Let's bring him in. All right, Chris, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Super excited to have you here.

Thanks, guys. It's an absolute pleasure. I'm happy to be here. Sweet. So, yeah, both Scott and I love this book. Never split the difference. And we're going to talk about that today. But primarily, you know, negotiation is such an important.

part of the real estate world, like, you know, in any world, I mean, any business we're in, but especially, like, I feel like I'm dealing with it on a day-to-day basis working in real estate. And if there's, like, one thing I could get better at in life, it would be negotiation. I think that would make more of a difference than almost anything. So this is a totally selfish show today. I'm just going to learn from you. So. All right. And I'll tell you what, if I may, you know, with a little bit of effort, it's not that hard to get

better at negotiation, you know, if I may, with the way we put it forward. So cool. It's not rocket science. Well, good. Yeah. You know, that's the thing, right? I've always looked at it. I've said, I'm bad at negotiation, period. Therefore, I'm not going to try to learn to get any better. I'm like, why I work on my weaknesses. I'm just, you know, but actually your book, I think the first chapter that kind of called me out on that. It was like, like, you can get, you need to get good. In a good way. Yes, in a good way. You know, I just, I felt a little motivated to, uh, to get better at it. In fact, already this, like this morning, I sent an email to somebody and I was using the, uh, what was

it is is is does that sound fair you know using fair and we'll talk about that i'm sure later yeah i've already found myself using the effort the i'll try me here what are the things you would you you kind of pick up after reading the book is all of life is really involving these these negotiation principles i haven't done a real estate deal since reading the book yet but i will absolutely use some of the principles that you talk about chris but i've known i've been able to use some of the things that you've talked about in your book and my day-to-day life and my work here at bigger pockets just from things I picked up there. It's really good for a lot of different areas of business and life.

And the other thing we like to say is, you know, if you want big stakes results, you need to practice in low stakes negotiations. So you should be doing it in the everyday interaction so that when you get into the middle of that big deal, you know, you got a high stakes result from a low stakes practice. Yeah, that's a really good point. So can you tell us a little bit about your background? What did you do anything interesting for a living prior to writing the book? You know, I was a janitor.

Yeah, I used to mop up. Yeah, it was an FBI hostage negotiator. It was the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator. I couldn't think of a better way to get frequent flyer miles without paying for them. Wow, that's legit. Yeah, I had a 24-year career with the FBI. I had a great career with the FBI. It was a lot of fun.

Work with some phenomenal people did some, we did some crazy things. So tell, I mean, What does that mean to be a lead hostage negotiator? I mean, when I think of the movies, you know, like of what that was like, I mean, is that what it's like? Are you out there on the phone with some bad guy in the bank? I mean, is that how it is? Well, ultimately, to get to that position, I mean, and at any given time, there's only

one of us in the entire FBI, you know, I'm running a program. But it was pretty cool. I had to be prepared to go anywhere in a world within four hours of hearing about it. Now, in point of fact, what that really meant was any kid, any, any, any American got kidnapped anywhere in the world, I'd probably hear about it fairly quickly. And I need to start mobilizing response to it. Whether or not I would actually go, it would depend upon, you know, how I expected a time frame, how long I thought it was going to go down. And in the age of cell phones, which was when I first took over that role, you know, you can make a call anywhere in the

world. I'd start working a kidnapping in the Philippines. As soon as I knew about it, I could work it from Washington, D.C. And frequently did. So we'd mobilize response immediately. And, you know, try to get an American who was drinking in a wrong bar at the wrong time out of trouble. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into that position in the first place? Just a little bit of background about how you, what piqued your interest in this line of work and then how you were able to get a position with the FBI and the negotiation unit? Originally, I was a cop, and then I found out about federal law enforcement and then talk to guys who traveled all over the world.

First was a Secret Service guy I met. And, you know, I grew up in Iowa. I'm a small town boy from Iowa. And the idea of traveling all over the world, I was like, ooh, that sounds interesting. I could try that. And I was originally a SWAT guy. I was on a SWAT team, FBI Pittsburgh, and actually as a result of a recurring knee injury, and I tore my knee up in college in martial arts.

And I had to put it back together a couple of times and realized that there was only so many more times that that could be done. So I decided I wanted to stay in crisis response. and I wanted to become a hostage negotiator. Now, this is an additional duty. It doesn't start out as a full-time job, a full-time FBI investigator working terrorism in New York City at the time, joint terrorist task force, work terrorist cases. I mean, a lot of crazy stuff. If it's crazy, it probably happens in New York or L.A.

But I was in New York. And but I was on a hostage, I made the hostage negotiation team in New York. and there's an additional duty and ended up being in charge of the team in New York because by sheer initiative and being in the right place, right time negotiated a bank robbery. Now, bank robberies with hostages, Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson, talking somebody out of a building or a bank happens in the movies all the time. In real life, an actual negotiation in a bank happens in the entire country about once every 20 years. Wow. So I was lucky enough to stumble into one of those in New York City, which gave me an additional unique set of experiences with my terrorism

experience. Then I got promoted to the full-time position of Haasas negotiator, a small core group of guys working out of headquarters. And one of those duties is to run all the international kidnapping response because of my terrorism experience. And I like to travel. You know, give me those frequent fly-a-mile. So can you tell- I still working? Can you tell us about the bank robbery thing? I think that's fascinating. I think you tell the story in the book, but I was, let me just say this real quick before we're going to be further. When I read the book, like, what blew my mind was like the stories you told in there. So again, like if, I mean, I'm assuming a lot of people are going to read it, but like it kept me like intharled because of your story. So can you tell

that story a little bit? And you know, I don't know, quickly, I guess of like what that bank robbery that first one was like. Well, and before I do that, let me do a little commercial for my co-writer, Tall Ross. And because the book is, because of tall, the book is incredibly readable. Now, and how the reason I ended up with Tall was, tall is also the writer, co-author of another one of the best books ever written, never read alone. And it's the ultimate book on networking.

And I had read that book and I really enjoyed reading the book. And finally, I got to get this guy. I got to get this guy. And we made the deal and he structured the book. It's not like reading an encyclopedia. I'm really happy to hear you say you enjoy reading it because that was why I brought Tall on board. I mean, if you're looking for a business greeting card, Antal wrote it, read it. He is the best business book or writer on the planet.

And that's why you partnered up in a book. I think it's a very readable book. And it's also readable because of the great stories that are in the book. There's some really cool things that you've done that, you know, that are described really eloquently, yes. Yeah, so all right, so the bank robbery in Brooklyn, and he was one of the guys that really ended up letting me know that negotiation is negotiation is negotiation.

This guy used several tactics that great CEOs use. And one of the things that he did, like, if you're in a business negotiation, and the guy or guy or gal on the other side of the table, they act like they're powerless. Like, they're like, I don't know, I got a committee, I got to respond to, you know, these other people and these other guys, you know, I don't know what the other people in my company are going to do. That's the guy.

The person who explicitly avoids singular plural, singular pronouns, you can't get an I, me, my out of that person's mouth no matter what. You were talking to the guy. This guy in a bank robbery was the ringleader and organized everything, was pulling all the strings. down the scenes. We had him on a phone, and he kept saying, like, you know, these other guys, they're crazy. Like, I'm scared of them. I don't know what they're going to do. And initially, we thought, you know, why are we talking to this guy? He's got no influence with his, his coworkers, if you will. And he was, when we got everybody out, he was the guy. And that was, and I've seen that in business deal after business deal. It doesn't matter what it is.

You got somebody at the table who's disguised and who seems powerless and they're almost embarrassingly admitted that's the guy. That's funny. And the reason why they don't want to be cornered. They know they have the influence. They know they're at the table. They don't want you to corner them into a decision if they're the main decision maker. And that was one of the things that let me know that, you know, negotiation is negotiation,

whether you were the bank robber or a prison ride or at the Monday morning staff meeting. Well, and I've noticed I've done that. Like in my own real estate stuff, like I tend to blame, you know, well, I got to talk to my wife. She really is the one that, you know, makes a decision or, you know, I got to, I got to talk to with my partners or, you know, there's always another party that I always refer to. It's for that reason because I almost don't want them to know that I'm the guy.

Like, I want them. I want to have that, whatever. So I think when I read that, I thought that was interesting insight because it totally, it's totally true. Like when I was the guy, but I don't want to be the guy. Yeah, it's actually, it's a very smart move because you're also buying yourself time. You need a little cushion to think every now and then. You realize in the moment you may not have had all the right information or maybe you're just having a bad day.

And you're, you know, you've got to double check your decision. So it's a smart. It's a smart moment. Well, thank you. Good. Can you tell us a little bit about how you wrapped up that situation with the bank hostage? Well, in the midst of talking to the guy who couldn't have been more guarded, couldn't have been more shrewd, couldn't have been more calculated. I mirrored him a couple of times. And Amir is just repeating the last few words of what someone has just said. The last few words that somebody said? Nice job. Very good. You know, see, I bite on that even when people do that to me. When they do it to you? When they do it each and every time. Now, you're going to keep that up. We're going to be on the phone for like four hours. It's going to be four-hour interview.

Four hours? Okay. I want. Yeah. And the critical part of that is what you need is what we, you know, we refer to as vomiting of information. We need, you need the other side to talk before they've thought about it a couple of times. And Amir has a tendency to really get people to bring information out. And what he did was his response to that he told us about his getaway car driver that we didn't even know it was there. I mean, he literally said to me, my guy cut and run when he saw the place. And I'm like, you know, at the time, I'm like, what is he talking about? Well, by the end of the day, we'd found the getaway driver and we had him in handcuffs. And he ended up, we had no evidence of him at all other than the spontaneous admissions of our manipulative guy in the midst of the bank robbery. You know, what good does that do to you? In a given negotiation, you got to talk to somebody where they've got the guard down a little bit so you can get those spontaneous admissions and they give you information because they feel like they're in control. A lot of that

has to do with your tone of voice, your late night FM DJ voice, which kept his guard from going up and we got spontaneous admissions out of him. Then I ended up confronting him later on because he wouldn't tell us his name. Everybody understands the importance of a first name and a communication when the other side's not giving you their first name to trying to block you from establishing rapport with them. And, you know, there's a rule in business. Like you're not going to, you're not going to make a deal that sticks outside of rapport. It's just not going to happen. So the other guys block and rapport, but I'm using my voice to keep his guard down. Finally, he can't take it anymore after the confrontation. He just hands the phone off to somebody else. Now, the other guy on the phone,

he didn't plan for this to go this way. The second guy that gets on the phone, he is literally in crisis. He's trapped in a bank. He thought they were going to burglarize the bank. He thought they were just going to break into the cash machine and take the money. The next thing he knows, people are waving guns around. The seventh largest standing army in a world is surrounded him and they got 50 Caligris pointed at his head. For him, this is not what he had in mind when he got up in the morning. Now, I'm working a late-night FM DJ voice on this guy again, and in 90 seconds, he tells me, I trust you. And 90 minutes later, when I suggest we meet each other out front, he comes out of the bank. And then he comes out and he says, look, and man, this is

what's going on. This was happening with the guy inside. And now at this point in time, We know that as long as we relax, if we relax into this, the speed of the negotiation will pick up dramatically, which is a very counterintuitive thing. We like to call it the delay to save time. You want to go faster. You relax into it. Take your time. And we had the guy out just a couple hours later. That's awesome.

And what I love about this is, and let me know if I have a bit stated thing here, because I've read the book once and I'm still kind of absorbing a lot of the information. but it seems like a huge fundamental part of this was willingly listening and maybe empathizing with the folks in the other end of the line, mirroring them using the tactic of mirroring to get them, what you just said is vomiting information. And you're just patiently collecting as much information and building as much rapport as you can throughout the course of this in order to bring about the best solution for you and for the rest of the people involved. Yeah, in every negotiation, there's information you're only going to get at

the table. Like, you might know all the variables, but you don't know how the other side weighs variables. And they've got stuff that's eating at them that they're hiding. You can only get that at the table. So if you relax into it and listen, which actually is an advanced skill. A lot of people don't realize they think listening, ah, you know, because I could hear, I could listen. I got my ears on all day, so I must be good at it. Well, this thing is actually an advanced skill. And, you know, what I laugh about all the time, I ask people, you know, what's the difference between a typical business negotiation and a hostage negotiation? They say, I don't know, the people you're dealing with are crazy. And I say, well, interesting, we get yelled at a lot less than you do. Our negotiations

are calmer. We don't have people slamming their hands down on the table and storming out or refusing to come to the table at all. Because it's amazing when you dial into somebody out, you know, this advanced skill of tactical empathy, how quickly you progress and how calm things get. Like, terrorists don't yell at us the way they yell at you guys in business negotiations. And that's just a crazy idea. That's interesting. Every person I've ever spoken to in business has five stories of the person on the other side of the table screaming at them. Yep.

Hustings negotiators maybe have one. That's fascinating. So this isn't just a theory that you're espousing here. You actually took your experience with hostage negotiation into the business world, if I recall, in a classroom environment with other top young professionals that were getting their MBAs. Can you maybe tell that story about how that went when you started translating these into business settings?

Yeah, the first time I got a chance to really test it out more in the private sector, if you will, was, yeah, I negotiated my way into Harvard Law School's negotiation course. You know, I'm the only on-duty FBI agent to come in and do that ever. And I didn't, I acted as a student, but I was a student. And they don't let people go to the class that aren't a student in one of the universities up there. And I just used my hostage stuff. And I was killing him. I mean, I was killing him.

And so I thought, wow, this is pretty interesting. You know, somehow I thought there were rules to business negotiations that was just, that I just didn't understand. And so, you know, I brought my stuff. And so then when I got out, I got, ultimately I got a chance to teach in the MBA program at Georgetown University in a part-time program. And the important thing about it being a part-time program meant that everybody that was in a class, they're going to get their MBA at night. They get day jobs. And they need help in their deals in the day jobs right now. And I, and my teaching style was like, okay, good, because you have to take these skills that I'm teaching you, put it into your day.

day a job and make it work. And they started doing phenomenal things. I mean, one of the students of Georgetown was in the middle of a billion dollar Wall Street transaction where he had his notebook next to him. And he's leafing through the pages while he's doing a deal on a phone. And I mean, the entire range of negotiations. And so we proved it over and over again. And the book is full of stories from people put the skills into real life deals. They either they were MBA students of Georgetown, NBA students at USC here in Los Angeles. And so we just, you know, the idea was not like, try this and see what happens, which is what some books are.

It was like, no, people tried this and made it work. And here's how they made it work. Yeah, I love that. So let's shift a little bit and go into the real estate stuff. Obviously, a lot of people here are trying to get into the real estate. There's a lot of negotiation in a couple aspects. One, you know, if I'm going to talk to a, let's say a private seller, I want to buy their house. I'm typically going to go and negotiate with them on a price or I'm going to sell a property.

I'm going to negotiate them or with them or if I'm going to work with a partner, how am I going to negotiate the split with the partner? I mean, there's a negotiation every aspect of real estate. But let's start at a very basic thing that is something I deal with and your book kind of called me out on it in a nice way. But like, I don't like negotiating. It makes me scared, nervous. I just, I don't like doing it.

And so I just don't. I typically just look for ways to not negotiate. And I say, oh, I'm a bad negotiator. But there's this line in your book that, I think it was the first chapter, it said the first step to achieving a mastery of dealing negotiation is to get over your adversion to negotiating. So you can talk on that to people like me who just hate negotiating and just don't want to do it. Yeah, sure. Well, let's rethink it to start with. I mean, and, you know, my company, we're really on a mission to rethink negotiation around the world.

And I'm not joking around about that because the book is in 20 countries and 16 languages. That's awesome. And because negotiation is a universal human nature problem. And everybody, whether you're Asian, whether you're Latino, whether you're African, had those exact same set of fears. So what am I saying when I want to rethink it? I don't want it to be, let's take it out of the win, lose. You're afraid of negotiation because you don't want conflict.

You don't want to beat the other side. Are you worried about what you're going to lose? And this hostage negotiation approach is an emotional, intelligent approach to really transform it into much more of a collaborative thing. Together we're going to find out what's on the table and maybe come up and there's going to be some cool stuff that's going to surprise us. We're going to have some cool ideas about this. And then when we're done, we're going to have enjoyed the experience. So we'd actually want to do it again. I did a talk with CNBC and Inc. Magazine did this series of talks called the iconic tour.

Kevin O'Leary was at the last one. And Kevin spoke shortly after I did. And my take on negotiation is not his because he said, and I wish I'd have known he was going to say this. You know, most negotiations I'm happy with is in all sides are done or unhappy. That's a good negotiation. And I'm thinking like, no wonder you're trying to get everybody to call you, Mr. Wonderful. Nobody likes you.

But that's actually bad for business long term because the last impression is a lasting impression. So if the last impression you leave in every negotiation is that you left people unhappy, who wants to deal with you again? And that's how you get into this vicious circle of I don't like negotiating because I always felt like I got beat, I got hurt. Well, actually, we don't like hurt. A lot of us don't like hurting other people. I mean, I had to hurt him to get what I want. So this is a rethink approach where like, you know, we're faced with a mutual problem, otherwise we wouldn't be talking. There's an external problem. The adversary is a situation. Well, the accomplishment, the potential accomplishment is a situation.

We've got to collaborate on this. And this approach is to build rapport simultaneously while negotiating. Instead of, let me build rapport because when we negotiate, I'm going to kick your butt and you're not going to like it. So I've got to build up enough rapport so you'll tolerate it. And then when you almost start to get mad and I can tell you're mad and angry with me, not going to go back to rapport building because it made you mad. I mean, that's, that's, that's unpleasant. That would be like saying in, in my marriage, yeah, we got to make each other unhappy.

Or in my business partnerships, in order to make it work, we got to make each other unhappy. That's crazy. Let's not do it like that. What's the alternative? How does one go into a negotiation create a situation where everyone wins, where you get what you want, where the other side gets what they want, and everyone walks away from the table happy? What are some of the tactics that we can use going into that negotiation to make that outcome? more likely for us? Well, to start with, let's get back to this listening idea. There's always something

in a negotiation for everybody that's more important than actually making a deal. For somewhere between one to two-thirds of the people we run across, they just want to know that they were heard. Like, imagine a boss that you had that always heard you out. Now, he or she might not have did what you wanted them to do, but they heard you out. There's something ridiculously satisfying about feeling like you were heard. So let me eliminate all my compromises by just hearing you out. Because more than likely if I hear you out, you're going to happily give me some stuff. You just don't want to begrudgingly give it to me. You're going to want to feel like you were respected and appreciate it. It's a Stephen Covey advice. And we all look at Stephen Covey,

the seven habits of highly successful people. And a lot of people say, well, I have Covey, He's his soft, harder guy. He just wants to give people hugs. Let's think of Covey as a mercenary. Seek first to understand, then be understood. Hear the other side out. Let's say Covey was a mercenary. Let's say Stephen Covey, which is not true.

But let's say he was a sociopath that only wanted to get what he wanted. You get what you want by hearing the other side out. It's stupidly insane. It's why that's what I was talking about before, how it accelerates a negotiation. you'll stop pushing back on me on a lot of issues that you would have given in on as soon as you felt respected, heard, and appreciated. Then you're going to give in. So I'm like, all I've got to get you to do is feel good about this, and then you'll give in.

Okay. Let me short, let me hack this. Let me hack a third of the negotiation just by hearing you out. And that's the first thing. The second thing is you're going to speculate on what your must-haves and your giveaways are. and you're going to be wrong on a lot of them, which means my counterpart is going to speculate on his must-have and his giveaways, and he's going to accidentally give me some stuff that he thinks is not valuable to me, but actually is enormously valuable if I give them the chance.

You know, negotiations the art of letting the other side have your way. Well, I start mirroring, I start listening, you're going to say, hey, you know, maybe we'll give you this and it'll throw it out on the table, and it'll be enormously valuable to me. And I'll have to go like, okay. But I, you know, I got to, again, I use this tactical listeners judo approach to get you to do that in the deal. And then the best thing that I could possibly say to make a deal, which you're going to implement is I want to say, okay, we'll do it your way. Because you're going to implement if it's your way. Yep.

I like that. One of the things I loved in your book that you kind of, you talk about along the lines of the subject is getting the other party, you know, going along with, okay, we'll do it your way. How are we going to do that, right? That gets them along a certain line of thinking about executing that problem. Can you talk about why you suggest asking the question, how are we supposed to do that and what that kind of provides to the negotiation table or how that gives you an advantage? Yeah, well, the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation,

is given the other side the illusion of control. Now, people love to tell you how to do things. They love it. And then also, if it comes out of their mouth, it's got to be a good idea. So how am I supposed to do that or how are we going to do that? You know, you can phrase, how am I supposed to do that? Is the magical phrase for either saying no or building implementation or building great deals or forcing context?

And it's actually a go-to way to say no. And people, when they're told to say that, well, what if the other side says, well, because you have to? And I'll say, perfect. It's exactly what you want. And there was a real estate deal here in Los Angeles. Somebody's negotiating on behalf of a high net worth client, and they want to rent a house on a Hollywood Hills, and a rent is $25,000 a month. And so they're going back and forth on the price. any agent says to the person on the other side says, you know, how is my client supposed to pay that?

And the person on the other side says, well, you know, yeah, yeah, you're right, it is a lot. Now, I understand that's not what they did. They responded as if they said to them, that's too much. But it also triggers a response from the other side and says, yeah, you know, you're right, it is a lot. And then they talk about some other terms and they dropped the lease price, the monthly rate. And so they talk a little bit of more and it triggers a lot of other conversation. And then they circle back around to, how's my client supposed to do that? And the second time, the person on the other side of the table says, if your client wants

a house, he'll do it. Perfect. They just pushed them as far as they could have. They didn't break rapport. The person didn't yell at him, slam their hands down on the table, hang up the phone, walk away. Your job as a negotiator is to find out how much there is on the table without making the other side so mad that they walk away.

Because when the other side looks at you and says, if you want the deal, you'll do it, you now know that they want to make the deal. And it's actually a very counterintuitive way to get everything on the table. Yeah. You know what I like about that, I'm trying to translating it to like what I'm dealing with on a day-to-day basis of real estate. Let's say I'm sitting across a table from a seller, somebody who called me up and they want to sell their house.

Maybe they found my website or whatever. They want to sell their house to me or at least they want to sell their house. period, that's their problem. And they tell me, you know, I want $200,000 from my house. That's what I want for it. But I know, like, there's no way I could pay even close to that. If I'm going to, let's say I'm to go flip it, right? I'm going to go fix it up and make it look beautiful and sell it. But I know that the most I can even sell it if it was all fixed up is like 200. So the way I'm kind of translating that is instead of saying no, that won't work or, you know, there's no good deals in walking out and storming out. I can just ask, well, how am I supposed to pay 200 when this is my

business model? I'm a house flipper. I have to make a profit. And I've got to do all these repairs. So tell me How am I supposed to do that? Is that what you're saying? Like, I can ask that question. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I use a tone of voice. I love deference. There's great power and deference. You know, the late night FM DJ voice with, you know, some deference thrown in because it works on everybody. What do you mean by deference? How am I supposed to do that is a very deferential thing to say to, again, to make the other side feel powerful and in control. if they feel powerful and in control, you know, you're a home seller. He doesn't really know what the price is.

He's feeling you out. It's the exact same thing with kidnapper. Translation, you know, we used to say kidnappers, when are they going to release a hostage? When they feel they've gotten everything they can. Not when they did get everything they could, when they feel they've gotten everything they can. Your home seller is going to sell you that home when he feels like he got everything. everything he can. So he's going to want to feel like he made you work. He's going to want to, he's got, he's got a amount of time in his head it's going to take. And let's say, let's say you

could pay the 200 grand. And that is, and that was actually ridiculously low price. If you look at that seller and go deal on the spot, he's going to feel like he could have got more. Yep. So he's going to find a way to back out of that. So even when you got your price, the worst thing you can do is agree because ignore human nature at your peril. He's going to go sideways on you. And then once you understand it's a process when they feel like they got the best deal, now what can I do to speed that feeling up to actually shorten the process? And that's when you kind of got to go, you know, I had a colleague,

one of the best negotiators I ever worked with in the FBI. You could ask him for anything. You could ask him for something he was getting ready to get. give you. And he'd go like, oh, my God, oh, that's impossible. I can do that. Because he understood that this feel like I got the best deal possible is extremely important for implementation to keep people from backing out of deals or killing the deal over an inspection clause. You know, I had, I've heard of real estate transactions where the clause was approval of inspections and had it passed the inspection and had the other side say, well, the clause doesn't say that it passed. The clause says,

I approve and I disapprove. Well, they're going to do that for emotional reasons because they feel like they could have got a better deal and they're mad about it. Yeah, I specifically for that reason, I negotiate. And again, I'm not a great negotiator, but I will, I mean, the other day I got an offer. It was a full price. I mean, it was over-asking price offer on a property I was selling. And I specifically didn't respond until the next day because I wanted to make it feel like, you know, if I would have jumped out of that day, I mean, yeah, I'm risking that I could lose that they could go run to somebody else. It didn't happen. And I feel like it made them feel like, oh, good, we got it. They weren't sure for a day. Maybe there was another full price

offer. So by just waiting that day and then saying, you know, okay, or I'll say, yeah, okay, but can we move? I think actually, that's exactly what I did. I said, okay, but can we shorten the 10-day inspection to seven-day. So, I mean, an arbitrary thing that they don't, I mean, they're going to get the inspection done in seven days, and it didn't really matter to them. So now it felt like we were negotiating. Do you agree with, did I do a good job there? I need approval for them.

Well, yeah, there are two things that were going on. First of all, you're, your second, you're rethinking it too. Like, you're like, oh, my God, I could have got more for this if this offer came to this quick. You know, an advisor on the outside would have said, think of the time value of money. Make this feel quicker. You know, the money came to you faster. You shouldn't think that way.

But it doesn't matter. because you did think that way. So there's a combination of two things. And to me it sounds like you were self-aware enough to know like our, so if I have second thoughts, if we come to an agreement too quickly, the other side's going to have second thoughts too. So again, we've got to get back to this whole feel thing to make sure it happens. Because, you know, in real estate, you guys know, sign an agreement is only the beginning

of the journey. Yes. Open and escrow is only the beginning of the journey. the number of deals that go sideways for emotional reasons after escrow has been opened is insane. Anybody that's experienced in real estate knows do not count this deal being over until all the papers have been signed and I've physically taken possession. And it all goes sideways for emotional reasons and emotional issues that are in your seller or buyer's life that have nothing to do with the transaction. manifest themselves in the transaction. Yeah, that's very true.

Yeah, I can think of multiple deals that I've done where, I mean, I would probably guess actually a good third of my deals that I put under contract, whether I'm selling or buying, fall through, at least a third. I would say even probably half the deals that I sell end up falling through for some reason. So, yeah, definitely it's not over until I have that either check in my hand or the key in my hand, you know, then it's over. Yeah, this is, you know, like, it, it, it, it, it, If you don't read my book, you know, every person in real estate, they should either read

my book or volunteer on a suicide hotline, whichever you have time, more time for. Which you did that, right? I mean, I read that in the book that you actually volunteered. And that's kind of how you got the got in at the FBI, right? Yeah, that was the difference maker. That was a game changer. That took me from being a completely unqualified candidate for hostage negotiation to being the most qualified.

Crazy. That's awesome. So going back to the kind of, I mean, the fundamental thing here is obviously empathizing, understanding, getting to understand what these external factors are in a business or real estate negotiation. But then I think you also have some tactics that you can throw in there, you know, as far as, hey, I'm going to offer a specific amount of money. I'm going to offer a percentage of what I'm going to buy, what I'm willing to pay at first

and work up to my number. Could you talk about that strategy? a little bit. Well, we've got this system that we refer to as the Ackerman system, and it was named because as much research as I could do was systematic approach to bargaining that was invented by this guy named Mike Ackerman, who actually ran a kidnap response company. And, you know, I started using a business negotiation. And then I finally met Mike and I said, you know, number one, did you invent this? And he was like, yeah, as far as I know I did. And I said, number two, you ever use it in business? And he said, interesting. You know, I had some

friends at Harvard Business School, Howard Rafa, who's like a negotiation guide. He's, he's, he, if there was a Rushmore of negotiation, Howard Rafa's face would be on it. And he said, yeah, I know, I happen to know Howard Rafa and I ran it by him. And he's a psychologist and business and numbers. And he said he, he worked all his analysis on it says, this would work perfectly under any circumstances. So it's, it, it counteracts high anchoring. And it resets the game. And it typically will come in it. Could you talk about anchoring real quick, for people who may not know what that term is? Anchoring is an extreme outside of the expected range.

Whether you're buying or you're selling, you offer a price, or you ask for price it's outside the expected range. It's a real common practice because then a shark will offer outside the expected range and then say, you know what, let's compromise. Let's meet in the middle. And you hit up on the number the shark wanted all along. You know, it's the old phrase, beware the guy who offers to meet you in the middle because he's often a poor judge of distance.

So it's a common, it's an extremely common practice because it works. It's also a test. You know, I'll, I'll high anchor on you because I want to punch you in the nose. I want to see what you're going to do. All the sharks do it in shark tank. And Mark Cuban does it not because he's trying to whoop your butt. He's actually testing you. Mark Cuban will come at you with a really tough offer.

And his high anchor will also be a term in that he'll say, take it or leave it. Yes or no right now. You can't talk to anybody else. to talk to me. He's testing you. He doesn't want to bully you. He wants to see if you can be bullied. Because if you can't be bullied, then you're a great business partner. So a high anchor is often a test. I mean, Mike Tyson said, you know, everybody has a plan until they get hit. You know, take the punch and respond with the acumen system. You know, respond with a little bit of emotional intelligence. How am I supposed to do that? Or you can say, come on. That's

That's ridiculous. Stop joking around. That's just crazy. But the last thing you want to do is get mad. So now you're going to come in with your number. Typically, you want to come in at 65% of where you want to end up. Most negotiations go through three rounds of bargaining. We've seen a shakeout time after time after time.

Three solid rounds. The other side has to feel like that they've made progress. Now, you've calculated in advance how you're going to go to 65% to 100% of what you want to offer. the real key is each one of your increases has to be decreasing increments. So you're going to, the next raise, if you make it, you're going to come up 20%. The next raise, you're going to come up 10% to last raise, you're going to come up 5%. Either side feels a slowdown.

You're going to throw in another psychological technique. You're going to use odd-numbered pricing. I used odd-numbered pricing with kidnappers. You know, Target gives you odd-numbered pricing. Why does it work? Because you're buying a target? No, it works because you're dealing with human beings. It worked with kidnappers.

I'd come up with an odd-numbered ransom, and then we'd offer some ridiculous throwaway that they didn't want. In real estate, come on with an odd number, and then offer them something you know that they don't want, that's a non-price term. In between each one of these rounds, there's other two critical issues. It's got to be sequential.

You can't bid against yourself. And then you've got to put in a massive amount of tactical empathy between each offer. Because you've got to get back to the other side. It's to feel like that they're working. They have to feel like they've gotten the best deal that they could have possibly gotten. They have to feel like they're in control.

All of this is a very specific application of hostage negotiation techniques because then when you get to a price, then that price sticks. And it doesn't change. Yeah, that's cool. I think that's just so fascinating and so smart a way to go about this because when you price anchor like that, I think you've mentioned

this in the book, but maybe you go through this whole process of getting this negotiation, you put in that effort and you make those incremental strides and you arrive at that deal and everyone's satisfied. Or maybe you are above where the other side wants you to be and you're going to make a deal right there on your first offer. So if you just offered your full amount the first time, you know, you could be losing big time. Yeah, you lose in a lot of ways, which is another thing that's very different about our approach is, contrary to almost every academic out there, they will tell you to name price first because it sets the range. That's true if you're a B player. If you're an average negotiator, then that's good advice. If you're not interested

in being a true A player. The top negotiators on a planet, they do not go first. Carl Icon, none of these people. Warren Buffett, he wants to hear your assessment because he wants that information. They know that they probably got a pretty good idea of the expected range, but they know they're not infallible, and they know that you might come up with something that's phenomenally ridiculous, and they're going to blow it if they don't let you go first. So, again, understand, if you can take that punch in the nose, and if you want to be an A player, take that punch in her nose.

Be willing, practice how you're going to laugh off a high anchor. practice how you're going to come back and say, you know, how am I supposed to do that? But the great deal where the other side spontaneously throws something on the table beyond what you expected, which happens enough that the top players won't go first, then you just have to game that out in your head and you can handle it. So this happens to me a lot where I'm chatting with a motivated seller of some kind. And I say, you know, so how much you're looking for? I want to know, like, where am I going wrong in this?

But, you know, they say, well, how much are you looking to get for your house? And they'll say, well, I don't really know. That's why I called you. And I'm like, well, you know, like, I mean, at that point, I'm already stuck. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, like, so usually what I'll do is I'll do a range. I'll say like, okay, well, you know, like typical houses are in the range of, you know, 50 to 100 or, you know, whatever. And that at least gets the ball moving.

But I always get stuck there. Any suggestions? Yeah. Well, that's a game of who's going to name Price first. Exactly. Yeah. And I, it happens all the time. You know, what do you want to spend?

Well, what do you want to pay? Well, what do you want to spend? Well, we get out of that. Every question you should have a corresponding label that gets it out of the person. Like I would say if somebody says, well, I don't know. That's why I'm asking you. I'd probably say to him, seems like you got something in mind. Seems like you put some thought into this.

seem you know each one of those actually it's what we call a label it's specifically designed to bypass a part of the brain what you may not have noticed i didn't use the word i when i said either any of those labels every word that you use has an emotional impact on the brain if you don't know the emotional impact it has on the brain what you're doing is you're firing a weapon you don't know what targets you're hitting i is a self-centereding word i do you don't know what you're doing i is a self-centereding word i jolts the brain in a different way, it takes someone out of contemplation and suddenly brings their attention to you, which will stop them from giving you information. So if I say, seems like it bypasses a part of the brain, it triggers an inquiry, it triggers contemplation

inside someone's head without it raising their guard. It actually is the most powerful negotiation skill we have in the entire arsenal. We got nine skills. It is one of the FBI eight skills. In the FBI, we called it a motion labeling. Actually, when I came out of hostage negotiation, I didn't think it was that important. We came to find out that labels are the single most flexible, the single most powerful tool and a single most universal appeal. Now, when you got a guy who says, well, I don't know, I hired you, you're a professional. I want you to tell me. He or she is in analyst mode. They're in guarded mode. They've already thought this through extensively. And they actually are dying to show off how smart they are and they're thinking they're smarter than you,

which is exactly why they said to you, well, you're the expert. That's why I'm talking to you. I love it when somebody says to me, well, you're the expert. Because that's, that's, that's, a flattering statement that's designed to trigger me giving them information when they actually think they're smarter than I am. And as soon as somebody starts calling me an expert, I know in the back of their mind, this person is going like, you're the stated expert, but I can't wait to show you that I'm smarter than you are. So I'm like, all right, well, you're going to tell me how smart you are as soon as I feel, as soon as you feel like that you could be unguarded.

And so I'm going to take some emotional intelligence approaches, which is I'm going to get out of the questions. Questions raise people's guard, even good opening of questions. An analyst is going to want to think through all the possibilities and about a third of the planet are analysts before they answer. We found analysts to be enormously vulnerable to answering labels. There's something about the label design and the way that it hits the brain that bypasses the guards and the defenses and trigger the unguarded responses. So when the guy says, you know, we're the expert. That's why I'm talking to you. I immediately know that I need to shift

to labels. It might take three to get it out of them, but I'm going to get it out of them. So can I flip this on you real quick? Let's say that you label me and I'm an analyst. I think I perceive myself as definitely that analyst type. How can I respond to a label in a way that doesn't put me at a disadvantage in a negotiation if I'm with someone who has read your book or is using these tactics? Well, at this point in time, the real issue is do I need to be afraid of the other side? And am I going to take myself hostage? Now, what do I mean by am I going to take myself hostage? If I tell myself that you can't make me say yes, then I should be able to tell you all the information I want because you can't make me say yes. Like if I have an aspiration price, I should be able to give it to you because I'm smart enough to know that price is not the only term.

And also, if I, just because I've given a price, it doesn't mean I've agreed to that price. You know, I want information from you. Are you trying to hurt me or are you trying to help? You know, my weaknesses can actually be my strengths. I could say, well, this is the price that I want, but there's some other things I've got to have in order to make this work. And I may think, look, I got a sale company. Like, I may be under tremendous financial pressure. And I may, let's say I needed a quarter of a million dollars for the piece of property, but I got, I'm in foreclosure on something else.

I'm scared to tell you that I'm in foreclosure because you think you can cut my throat and offer me 150. Instead, I'll say, like, look, if I don't get 250 for this, I can't sell it because I'm, because I'm in foreclosure. I need every last time to make these other deals. And if you can't do that deal for me, I've got to move on from you right now. So it's all a matter of your interpretation of what your strengths and weaknesses are. And are you going to take yourself hostage by saying, if I give this to you, you can make me make the deal? Like, no, it's a free country. I can move on.

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That's all right. I got a couple more things I want to kind of. I think I'm confusing you guys too. I'm rambling so much. No, no, I like this is good. It's fun too because I just read the book, right? So now I'm like, I don't know. I love this.

So I'm curious about the idea of saying no. You know, I found that one of probably the most fascinating chapter to me in the book. The idea, you know, there's that famous book, getting to yes. And the idea we want to get to yes, get to yes. And even from a sales position, get the other person saying yes, get them saying yes, all the time, makes me feel good. You kind of like counter, counter contradict that. Can you talk about that?

Like, why is no more powerful than yes? Okay. So first of all, you get them saying yes. They don't feel good. You feel good. Okay. And in reality, every time somebody says, yes, it triggers anxiety. What do I let myself in for?

You know, what am I not seeing? How have I lost control? I mean, the actual saying of the word, yes, creates anxiety on the other side. Take a look at yourself. Somebody calls you on a phone and says, have you got a few minutes to talk? You don't go like, yeah, oh, my God, thank God you called. What do you got? He got?

I want to hear it. Somebody calls you on a phone and says, have you got a few minutes to talk? You're like, oh, my God, what am I letting myself in for if I say, yes, where's this going? I mean, how do I stop this? The act of saying yes actually creates tremendous anxiety. So, first of all, get out of that. Get out of that. You like to hear yes.

That doesn't mean the other side likes to say it. It's tremendously satisfying to hear. You know, we love it. We feel angels, we feel the angelic choir saying when we hear the word yes. But it's not the way on the other side. So the crazy thing is, no creates protection. When I say, no, I feel protected. You know, I think a good, solid, strategic no is worth five yeses.

And when we intentionally get somebody to say no, they typically say, no, you know, that's not a problem. As a matter of fact, we can do this, this, and this. Well, that was four follow-on yeses to other things that you were going to want to negotiate. We've seen it happen time and time again. I'll say, look, are you against this? Is this a bad idea? Is this ridiculous?

And I'll go, no. No, but we'll need to do this. We'll need to bring these people in. We'll need to accomplish this goal. And then we'll finally have to do this. And I'm like, bang, that just unraveled my next five, what would have otherwise been five yes questions and five opening the questions. Because once they said yes, then you have to say, how are we going to do it? So it's probably the single greatest hack in the world in general terms.

It triggers the decision. It creates protection on the other side. they feel safe and secure and protected. And so when they say no, they can give you the following information that you would otherwise have to ask for. It's insane. I feel like this concept is related to another concept that blew my mind just as much as this yes or no thing, which is the difference between your right and that's right. Can you talk about that for a minute?

Your right is the greatest killer of relationships, deals, progress, collaboration. It is a thing, again, we love to hear it. it's the worst thing to possibly hear. When someone that you're working with is nagging you, gnawing it, you won't let up on you, what do you get them to do to happily shut up and go away? You look at them and you say, you're right. And they get that big smile on their face and they leave it alone. You know who the world's greatest practitioners of this tactic are?

Husbands. This is so true. And why? Because it's a relationship that they care about. They want to preserve and they don't want to call. don't want to cooperate. It ain't husbands that are only ones that are doing this. It's our colleagues. It's people all around us. If anybody who listens to this has done this to three people this week, they got them to shut up and go away without making them mad by looking at them and saying,

you're right. Now, the two millimeter shift is what you want to hear from somebody else, you want to hear them say, that's right. Like whichever side of the presidential, the last presidential election you were on, If you watch the debate whether you're Republican, whether you're Democrat, when your candidate said something that you loved and you embraced and you were a thousand percent behind, you pointed at the TV and you went, that's right. That's what people say when they're a thousand percent behind what's just been said. And it is, I talked earlier about, you know, we talked about Stephen Covey, seek first to understand, then be understood. What's our indicator that the other side is now ready to listen? see for when they look at you and say that's right there's there's a subtle epiphany that takes place there's neuroscience behind it out it's establishment of immediate rapport they're telling you it

when somebody says that's right to you they're among the great things they're telling you is they feel empathy from you and they will never be in a more persuadable place than at that moment And that's when you make your deals. So I'm talking, let's say, with a motive seller, go back to the guy who wants $200,000 for his house. He says he wants that. By using, you know, what's the listening, active, active listening? I want to hear.

I want to use mirroring to, you know, to really get to the bottom of what he wants. Like, for example, it seems as if you're just looking to unload this headache and the, your stupid cousin who's living in the property, it seems like you just want to get him out. And then you want him, I mean, is that the idea that he's like, that. that's right. Well, you know, that's probably three or four responses on your part. I mean, my first one would be like, seems like you put a lot of thought into this. He's going to give you a lot of information, which you're going to want to mirror as much as you can on your way through.

You're going to want to find out what the real issues are. You know, a home represents a variety of things simultaneously, represents hopes and dreams, represents cherished memories of the past, may represent some current disappointments. If he's got a stupid cousin living in a house, not paying rent, tearing it up, you know, there's some soul-crushing disappointments in there. Because at one point in time, that home represented a vision of the future, hopes and dreams of the future, church memories of the past. You want to feel that out and then let the other guy know how much of an appreciation you have for that. Simultaneously, this also begins to lay the groundwork of the deal, the feel aspects of the deal. and it draws the other person so much closer to you that we've seen on a consistent and regular basis

people sticking to deals for less money because of the empathy bond that they felt with the person that made the deal with them, not against them, but with them. And in hot real estate markets, you have to have that advantage or they'll pay to a higher bidder, they'll back out, or in a slow real estate market, you have to have that advantage, or they'll just get fed up and back out anyway. So if I were to summarize this, the goal here is you actively listen, you mirror as much as possible, and then once you feel like you have enough information, you attempt to precisely as possible label exactly the situation as it is in the seller's mind or the other party's mind. And the goal is you continue to go down that path,

you know, rinse and repeat until you hear that's right with enthusiasm or, you know, in a way that convinces you that, yes, I've got it. This is how the other side sees things. I'm going to make one small tweak in that. And this is one of the differences I think, because we've gone from active listening to tactical listening. I mean, we know specifically what you should be listening for. You're going to be listening for hopes and dreams. You're going to be listening for disappointments. Let's call out some categories in advance that you're looking for, some of which you're going to amplify others, you're going to diffuse. And once you have an understanding, it's like taking a beam of light and running it through a prism. A white light

has actually has about seven components in it. Let's lay out what those components are. They're deal-making components. And then you're going to get to a that's right. And that's right. it's more of an epiphany feeling from the other side, as opposed to enthusiasm, what you're really going to get is just really they're going to feel understood. You're actually going to, there's going to be chemical changes. There's an actual bonding feeling that both of you are going to feel. And once you're bonded, that's when people can start getting honest about what's it

going to take to make this deal. And why am I going to make it with you? I don't know, but there's something about the way you dealt with me that I appreciate more than anybody else. Yeah. This has been fantastic, mind-blowing in a lot of ways. Do you have any last things to add before we move on to our fire round segment of the podcast? I probably made this sound more complicated than it is.

I don't think so. I think it's... Well, let's talk about the learning curve. If you're new to this, and it seems like a lot to begin with, the learning curve is the bell curve. It's only steep at the beginning. the bell curve halfway through, you crest the hill and you take off down the other side with less results, you get greater return.

That's the other side of the bell curve. So if you want to try this and you discourage by it at the beginning because it feels like a lot, actually the good news is however well you're doing, your upside is tremendous. You've got a tremendous upside. So don't be discouraged if some of this seems like a lot. on that note, is there something that you could share for somebody as like, what's the most tangible they could do it today in their day-to-day, you know, interactions? Like, what's one thing that they should just do that would make them feel like they're a better negotiator?

All right. So today, today is a free day. Today's a warm-up day. Today's a test day. Mirror, all day. All day. All day. Mirror is repeat all day, all day. And you guys, you're getting a great example of mirroring right now. You just, just repeat the last wonderful three words of what somebody has said. Now, do it a couple times. The first time it's going to scare you. But people are, at the end of the day, people are going to love you. People are, we were at a conference and this guy that we ran into, I nicknamed him Johnny Mears. He was there with his wife. And all he did all day long was mirror people. I mean, I was talking to it for 20 minutes before I realized he was mirror at me. And he was running around all day. It was a big

smile on his face, mirroring everybody. And it was driving his wife, crazy because everybody was coming up to his wife going like, your husband is so much fun to talk. He's a best guy at this whole conference. And she would just glare at him and he'd sit there with this big gin on his face because he was having the best time mirroring people. That's awesome. So give yourself a free day.

Today, today's a free day. Today's your cheat day. Like if you're on a diet, today's your cheat day. And just mirror all day long. And you're going to have, so many people are going to love talking to. you're going to have so much fun. You're so right about that. I was going to say, too, like, when I've done that,

because when I read that, I was like, oh, I'm going to totally do this. I said I'm doing it on everybody I knew. And nobody notices that I'm doing it. Like, I felt like they were all going to know that I'm doing it because I'm being obnoxious. Nobody noticed it. They just get really involved in what I'm saying, like what they're saying. Yeah, they have the best time. And you have the best time.

And quick clarification to this. I think in the book you mentioned, it's not necessarily the last three words someone says, but it's the critical three words in the last bit of what they said, right? Once you get your feel, And the last one to three words, you know, it doesn't take any practice. You don't got to listen for anything special. So you get your fuel from mirroring up, and then that frees up your brain to then, now you start looking for critical words.

Critical words? You look for critical words. Absolutely right. I was going to keep doing this. And a friend of mine here in Los Angeles, Ned Colletti is a former GM of the Dodgers. Ned's a superstar. He's got a great book out now called The Big Chair. You want to know what's like to be the GM of a,

Los Angeles Dodgers, read Ned's book. But Ned used to always say, in every two-hour conversation, there's 90 seconds a solid gold. That's what you would mirror. Ned's got an ear for what's really important. Classic great practitioner, he didn't really know what he was doing. He just was doing it. And so there's always going to be the critical things in a conversation, and that's exactly what you want to mirror when you get good, and you get good from practicing on the last one to three words.

I love it. I love it. All right. Well, I want to encourage everyone. And those people listen to this show right now, do it. And then let us know in the comment section below this podcast over on the show notes page, which is BiggerPockets.com, that show 260, 260. Let us know how it turned out for you. I kind of want to read those stories.

And so check it out. Again, biggerpockets.com slash show 260. But with that, I actually want to shift gears to the next segment of the show, which we lovingly refer to as our Fire Round. It's time for the Fire Round. All right, let's get today's fire round. Now, normally the fire round is a collection of questions that come direct out of our forums. However, being that this isn't specifically a real estate show, you know, I'm not going to ask you,

how do you find deals and all that stuff. I thought we would actually change this up a little bit. If you're up for a little bit of fun here, I'm sure people ask you this occasionally. I thought it'd be fun to kind of do a mock negotiation on a piece of real estate. Does that sound good to you? Yeah, let's go for it. All right. So in this situation, Scott, do you want to be the negotiation?

I mean, do you want to be involved? Do you want me to do it together? How do you want to do this? I'll leave it to you. Okay. All right. So I'm, I'll say that I am trying to, I called you because I saw, I don't know, a big, you have a banner out on the highway that says that you buy properties.

And I've got a nasty property. And I want to sell it, you know, and I just got this problem. I get a little backstory. I just got a, you know, I got a property. I kept it as a rental for a while. I don't like being a landlord. I just want to get rid of it. So I call you up and I say, you know, hi, I heard you, you buy properties.

and I'm looking to sell. Yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah, excellent. I mean, what have you got in mind? What are you thinking? What are you up against here? Yeah, well, I got this three-bedroom house over, it's a, you know, a marginal area.

And I'm just, you know, kind of feeling out the idea of whether or I want to sell it or not. Marginal area? Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, there's that Starbucks down the street, but it's starting to get into that neighborhood, which gets a little bit sketchy down there by the railroad tracks. Sounds like you've been dealing with this for a while. Yeah, yeah, I've had it for three or four years now. That'd be like you had some real aspirations for this when you first got it.

Yeah, I mean, at the time, I had read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I wanted to be a, you know, real estate investor. But, man, it's just, it's a lot harder work than I thought it would be. So you really have put a lot into this? Yeah, tons. I mean, I've probably been there every week for the past four years, working on something that's breaking or dealing with an eviction or a tenant and driving me crazy. You know, people have no idea how hard this stuff is. They don't. I mean, everybody in the outside, they think this stuff looks easy.

You've been knocking yourself out for years. Yeah, I mean, everybody, everybody talks about how easy it is. But, man, it's, man, it's, they just don't know. They don't know. So I'm just thinking, maybe I'll, maybe I'll sell it. And, you know, I'm wondering what you can pay me for it. Well, it sounds like you put a lot of thought into this. A little bit.

I mean, you know, I'm not exactly sure. you know, how much to sell it for. I mean, some real estate agent told me it was worth around, you know, $300,000. Some real estate agent? Yeah, yeah. A buddy in mine, his brother is a real estate agent. And so we were, you know, thinking about, uh, maybe listening to him, but, you know, agents just, they're annoying.

They want me to clean the house all up and they take their big commission checks. I thought maybe I'd, you know, save, save the, the buyer a little bit of money and, and, uh, just go direct. Yeah. Oh, interesting. I mean, um, but, you know, you, you get people, you can. could talk to. You've done a lot of research. I mean, why me? I mean, you know, what could I do for you? Why would you call me? Well, I mean, you know, I saw your sign on the, on the, on the highway, and it just, it looks like this is what you do. And I like working with professionals. And if this is what you do, it just would make it easier, I think.

But you wouldn't have called me just based on seeing a sign. I mean, that's crazy. I mean, you know, I, how, how can I? help you. I mean, hey, if you want to buy the property, that would help me a lot. So, you know, I just, I'd like to sell it. All right. Well, it sounds to me like you, this has been a frustration with you for a long time. Yeah, definitely. You know, you had, you had some, aspirations for this at the past, but, and, but you, you know, it, you kind of fed up with it, like, like to, like to take as much as you could get. Yeah, that's right. But just kind of put it behind you. Yeah, definitely. I would love to put it behind me. So how much?

Well, for me, I mean, I got some constraints. I mean, it would be hard for me to know what I'm getting into without actually seeing a place. I'd love to do this with you if I could. We'd have to do it in a way that, you know, it would work for me. I mean, and for it to work for me, you know, you're not going to like this. And I don't blame me for walking away. But for me to make it work for me, I'm going to have to come in at a price is probably less than what you might get if you waited longer.

Because I got a lot of the same problems. You know, I'm going to have to turn this thing over. Now, I can help you solve this relatively quickly. But it might not be worth it to you to do that. Well, you know, I want to do it. I mean, I think it's worth moving forward. I mean, I know the agents had 300, but I think that's, you know, that's crazy. That's pretty high.

I know that it's not worth that. So, you know, do you have a number that would work? for me? Well, yeah, I got a number, but I got to tell you something, it's low. My number is low. You're going to hate it. It's going to be, it's going to be lower than you expected. It's going to be less than what you thought you were going to get. Low, I mean, how low are we talking? $5,000. $5,000. Let me ask you something over here. Let's talk about what I just did. Yeah, please. I want to. I like, I like the, yeah, the, you're not going to like it. I really, when I read your book,

I really like that part. Yeah. All right. So human wiring, caveman wiring. Yep. It doesn't matter what your gender is. It doesn't matter what your ethnicity is. In order to keep us alive, the human wiring had to have a negativity to positivity ratio of about three to one. You know, we predict 17 of the two actual calamities that are going to happen. Because in the caveman days, the two actual calamities were going to kill us. There would be a saber-toothed tiger or a grizzly bear in that cage.

that we're thinking about going and sleeping it. But in today's survival, that completely works against us. So if I'm going to throw a number out that I need you to think of a number that's worse than what I've thrown out, so that my number is actually going to be relief. I'm going to say you're not going to like this. It's going to be low. And then I'm going to let your caveman wiring kick into gear, the three to one negativity ratio. I'm going to have a feel for I'm already going to know in advance what I can do to make this work.

And I know you're not going to like it, so I'm going to make you imagine worse. So, you know, on a basic given market, if your aspiration is 300 grand, that's probably 300 grand for the best house for the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the best neighborhood. But this is not a best house, and it ain't in that neighborhood. Or it might actually be the best house in that neighborhood. Maybe you've gone, maybe you try to be a little bit more reasonable, and you're look at the top in in your neighborhood. So if the house was not a fixer-upper, when it's all

finished and done, this might be the top price. But you're also going to have seen the low prices. And then you're going to say yourself, oh, my God, you know, if it's 300 grand, maybe, you know, you found out about a foreclosure that was sold for $75,000. You know, you're going to have that information. I'm probably not going to come in at the 75K number, but I don't want you to be disappointed when I come in at 100. Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm kicking in your case. man wiring to get you to imagine worse. So if I finally do throw a number, and I may actually throw my low-end number, we're finding to be a lot more effective to throw in a low-end range. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I might say, you know, I don't know, you know, houses like that. I mean,

75 to 100. And you're going to hear that 75 and be happy with 100. Because I've done two or three things there to then stimulate, put you in an emotional place where you want to say, yeah, I'll take the hundred because I've thrown the stuff out there. There's human reactions that are going to, if I throw my low number naked, if you will, number one, you're going to think you can get more. And I will not have triggered that negative reaction with you to begin with. You know, if I want to buy the house for 150, I might throw 100 looking to settle for 150. When you might have gone for 100, if I'd have thrown it at you and dressed it up differently

emotionally. So there's some reactions here that are going to take place. And what's going to take place is if I threw a number, for lack of a better term, naked, then you're going to want more. You're not going to be satisfied. Let's say I was really honest with you, and I gave you my deep down honest price of 100. You'll never be happy with that number. You'll always think you could have got more, which means we're going to have problems at escrow.

We're going to have problems with inspections. all every every opportunity you have to back out because you had second thoughts because you agreed to my number you're going to you're going to stick me back you're going to try to get me back yeah well let me let me tell like what from my side what what I felt there you know as the person who wants to sell my house you know like I love the fact that you you came out with you're not going to like this I mean first of all I love because like like like you said initially I mean my thought was he's going to offer me 12 grand I'm going to hang up this phone you know like like So if you did then come back to me with, okay, well, 75 to 100, you know, like, you know, that's where we stopped the negotiation thing.

But like also that you came at that your line about people just don't realize how hard this is. Like, I mean, even like, even though I was like faking this negotiation, I was like, that's right. They don't. Like, in real life, I was like, they don't get it. And I instantly was like, this Chris guy. I don't know if you're a landlord at all, but you get this. Like, you know this stuff. Like, it's hard.

And the fact. that you said that you empathize with me. This is hard. It's not my fault that, you know, I'm getting rid of this property. I didn't lose it. I didn't mess up. It's a hard business and I don't want to be in it anymore. So I really like those two things.

That's what I felt when you were negotiating with me. Yeah, yeah. And so what all that does, again, of course, first of all, I'm not faking. I mean, I'm listening to you. I'm dialing in. I'm appreciating you. I'm respecting you. That's the missionary side of me.

The mercenary side of me, though, also is I know we got to go through escrow. Yeah. and you're going to have all sorts of, you're going to have all sorts opportunities to go sideways. And one of the most critical factors in whether or not you're going to go sideways is how you were treated in the process, how you felt about the process, whether or not you felt respected, appreciated,

whether or not you got the best deal you could have, or whether or not you felt like you got beat into it. Yeah. Because this is, the mercenary in me is doing this for a reason. And I know what the process looks like. Awesome. Scott, anything you want to add in there about like the dialogue we just had?

No, it was just fascinating to see these tactics in practice, I think, and just kind of watch how you guys, you know, if anybody can, I would encourage you to watch the YouTube version of this as well because you can actually see how Chris and Brandon are reacting to these statements they're doing, the body language. And I think that really impacted some of, you know, part of the negotiation here. You could see, hey, it was really, hey, I see that this must be difficult for you. You know, there's a, I think that was an important component of this whole thing. Body language and tone of voice tell you exactly what's going on behind the guy's eyes while the conversation is taking place. And their reaction to it also, I will run a script in my head while I'm talking to somebody because it'll make all the difference in the world and my tone of voice and how they react to it. Like if I'm looking at you and I'm thinking, you're the dumbest person I ever heard, that's going to come out of my voice and you're, and you're,

emotional intelligence is going to pick that up. It's going to kill my rapport. But if while I'm talking you, I'm like, yeah, wow. In the back of my head, it's like, you worked really hard on this. You really have been through a lot. I mean, you know, it's been really hard on you. That's going to come out in my voice, and you're also going to pick that up. And we're going to shorten the distance between us as well. That's fantastic. One other thing I noticed real quick is, Chris, you, you basically forced Brandon to do all, to give away all the information in the negotiation. You didn't give them anything about your position at all from that. And, you know, I'm wondering if that might be a big challenge for me or for maybe some other newbies in practicing this because, you know,

we're going to want to, some of the times when Brandon would say things, you know, he wanted you to give away some information, to name a price, to give, reveal something about yourself and you just politely, you know, obviously professionally refuse to do so. Well, yeah, it's a great thing about this approach is like you gather tons of information without giving in. any of yourself. Now, there's another issue here, too, also, which we, you know, what we call proof of life of the deal. Maybe Brand is calling me, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, he has no intention of making this deal with me. He just wants to pump me for information. That happens a lot. Now, and, and if they're out there pumping people for information, it's also your opportunity,

is this guy a legitimate prospect or is my dealing with him going to change him into a legitimate prospect? And so the, the feeling of being appreciated and understood, I don't give him a up any information. I'm not invested in this deal. And I might just flip him from an unqualified by an unqualified prospect to a qualified prospect. And actually, you know, we don't believe in always be closing. And for lack of a better term, we believe in always be gathering information, always be qualifying. If you're gathering information qualified, a close will come. But if you're, if your desire is always be closing, probably the trap I'll fall into. Brandon knows that he can call me and pump me for information because I'm going to be so in lusting for closing that I'm

going to just going to give tons of all the information that he wants. He's going to confirm. I'm going to say, well, I got experience in that area and really the actual range would be this, this, this and this, or I've got experience in that area. And the one thing that's holding sellers back is this particular type of repair or I'm going to show off how smart I am. And I'm like, you know, it's amazing how much paint the house makes a difference in its value. And he's trying to decide really not to paint the house before he puts it on the market. Yeah, yeah. You know, I may give him all, I may try to demonstrate all this expertise to think I'm getting the deal when, in fact, he's just pumping me for information. So there's a real danger of that.

And I think it's got to be fully 50% of the interaction that we're in where they're just pumping us for information. And if they get that information out of us, they're going to move on. Yeah, that actually does happen quite a bit when I like, if I send out direct mail letters to be able, I get a lot of phone calls of people who just, they just want to, they want me to tell them what they should go and do to their house to fix it up or what, you know, what they should go listed at or, you know, even figuring out what I'm doing. So, yeah, very, very common. So, yeah. Cool. All right, well, let's shift one more last time to the last segment of our show, which we lovingly referred to as our famous four. Let's get today's famous four. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every week here on the podcast. I'm going to tweet the first one a little bit, being that, you know, this isn't a real estate investor interview.

The first one's usually what's your favorite real estate book? But I want to, and the second one's what's your favorite business book? But I want to tweak the first question from real estate book to just what resources do you enjoy and do you read like blogs newspapers like what do you what do you enjoy reading uh a blog that i'm a regular reader of is eric barker's blog we just had him on the show i i love i love eric's stuff he is he's actually turned me on to a lot of resources that actually works in in negotiation and in communication across the board so i love eric's book and i know eric personally I love his book and his blog, and he's a great guy, smart guy. That's awesome.

Yeah, he was episode. I think it was 259 of the podcast. It might have been 258 or seven. But yeah, if you want guys want to listen to that, go to BiggerPockets. That Compsych podcast. It was a fantastic interview. So check it out. All right.

Question number two. You've mentioned a couple books on the show already, including Eric's. Do you have a favorite business book in general that you'd recommend for real estate investors? I can tell you, I do, forgive me, this is going to seem completely shameless. We get so many people that are that are using my book in real estate. I didn't, and actually, it's probably the largest growing segment of the people that were specifically servicing now. We're putting much more effort into people involved in real estate of all kinds. And it was originally intended as a negotiation book for everybody and we're diving deep into real estate these

days. That's cool. You know, I saw, I'll tweet the question a little bit. You know, this is something that Tim Ferriss asked a lot. Is there a book that you give as a gift other than your own that you've ever gifted the most or, you know, what book would you give to somebody as a gift if it wasn't your own? Right. There's several there that I'm into a lot. I mean, I read, I think it's the psychology of flow. I'm reading stuff about flow these days.

Fascinating. And Stephen Kotler is the author. It tells a lot of stories about phenomenal ex-games athletes. And this whole idea, I think it's the next generation of business performance will come from understanding the psychology of flow. I will also tell you that a book. that I'm probably going to be given a little way a little bit more, but it's not thought of as a business book,

is U2 by U2. and it is a brilliant book. Like, think of you two as a business that has lasted ridiculously successfully for 30 plus years. How many business enterprises of a team of four individuals together in the entertainment business,

have held together for as long a period of time as those guys have. And they talk a lot of, you get to know the dynamics of how they trusted each other, the mistakes that they've made and not trusting each other at different times, their determination to have a mixed bag of personalities and how they blend those personalities together to work as a team. And there's an old saying you want to go far, you want to go fast, go alone, and you want to go far go as a team. I mean, I think these guys are kind of like the ultimate team,

the ultimate team players. in a ridiculously successful enterprise that happened to be in the entertainment business. And I have found that to be fascinating. And I happen to love their music. And I love the themes behind their music. And these guys were four average guys. I mean, there was, you saw nothing special in these guys other than Bono as a teenager got in a lot of dangerous fights.

I mean, he was a brawler. and almost a gang member. But they're four very diverse guys. So to me, it's a great book on team concept, and I really enjoy that book a lot. That's awesome. That's a unique way of looking at it. And just to chime in here, I googled it real quick.

I think that the other book may be The Rise of Superman, Dakota, the Science. Yeah, there you go. The Rise of Superman. By Stephen Kotler. Yeah. That is, that, that's a fascinating and fun and really thought-provoking read. and it gives you insight.

Like if you can get into flow and it's all about triggering psychologically your own brain's production of different chemicals. Like one of the things that I remember reading, like cocaine is this ridiculously addicting drug because you get great energy. Your pattern recognition is very high. Your creativity is very high. Cocaine is a drug. All it does to you is it triggers your body's releases of dopamine.

It's you on your own brain chemicals. It increases your own internal releases of dopamine and decreases your reabsorption of it. You don't need cocaine to do that. You can learn to trigger that at will yourself. That's awesome. Yeah. So what do you do for fun? What are some of your hobbies?

You know, if I can, I love spontaneous travel. So, you know, I got a Harley. If I can jump on my Harley and just find out where the bike is going to take me. I mean, I dig that. I used to live on a boat. Let me untie and see where the boat's going to go. So one of the things that I enjoy the most is just I love spontaneous travel. That is anything that's adventurous and discovering places and people that I haven't seen before.

Awesome. I love that too. It sounds like a lot of fun. I don't have a Harley though, but you know, I'll get there. Number four. Last question from me the day. What do you believe sets apart successful, we'll say real estate investors or just anybody from those who give up, they fail or they need?

never get started with what they're what they're trying to do. Yeah, you know, it's optimism and optimism and resilience. And, you know, that has a tendency, you know, what's your mindset? Like, as a hostage negotiator, I think I really raise a level of my game when I realized, like, we're not, we're not guaranteed to succeed, but we're guaranteed the best chance of success. Like, we're going to fail. You know, you're going to make mistakes. They say perfection is the enemy of profit. I mean, being willing to fail and make mistakes, you know, you're not, not kill yourself over it, which is actually a lot of what flow is about. Flow is, you know, there's, there are a number of people that their natural state is flow. Adolescence, they walk around in nearly a state of flow almost all the time because they, you know, they fall down, they don't care.

You know, now as an adult, we don't want to fall down. We don't want to be reckless financially or we don't want to be reckless physically because we hurt ourselves and we don't heal. But then playing it safe physically then goes across the board. We start playing it too safe across the board. And we're afraid to embarrass ourselves. We're afraid to make a mistake. And that causes us to see 19 of the two actual calamities that are going to happen. So getting back into, you know, if I fail, okay, who cares?

I mean, you know, who really cares if I fail? Let me take a chance and find out what's going to happen. That's where great discovery comes from. That's fantastic. Yeah. Well, cool. Scott, take us out. Where can people find out more about you and where can people buy your book?

All right. Amazon is consistently the best price. Never split the difference on Amazon. And if you have any reservations about it, go in there and read some of the reviews. They'll tell you it's readable and it's game changing. And then people start to make it, your five pages into the book, you've got some stuff that you could use. So Amazon, I don't work for Amazon. That's just hands down the best price. Cool.

If you want to take a deeper dive, I'm in a really deep dive and get the gateway. to all the training that we offer, subscribe to our newsletter, which is The Edge. It comes out once a week. It's free. I got a friend that used to like to say, if it's free, I'll take three. And a lot of people that read the book also love The Edge because it's a great supplement, and it's short, digestible bites, operational stuff. It takes you three minutes to read through it. Where do they go to get that? Quick and easy way to subscribe is to send a text to the number 228-28, and send FBI empathy, all one word, don't let your spell check, put a space between FBI and empathy,

but make sure you override that FBI empathy, all one word, to 228, 28, and you get a text box back and sign up for the newsletter. And it's a gateway, everything we do. I'm going to do it right now. That's awesome. Me too. Yeah, thank you, Chris. This was fantastic, like really, really, like good stuff.

I can't, like, this is one of those books that I feel like I need to, like, put on my list to, like, read every, like, quarter because I'm going to, like, you know, need to re-pick up new, polish my skills, getting better. I just appreciate you putting them together. My pleasure, guys. Thank you for having me on. It's just a lot of fun. Awesome.

Thanks. All righty. And that's an interview with Chris Voss. That was fun. That was a lot of fun. What do you think, Scott? I thought it was great. I have a big fan of this guy.

I just love his story. And he obviously is one of the most distinguished careers. I can really imagine someone having, you know, saving lives, you know, rescuing hostages, decades of experience dealing with terrorists and robbers and criminals. and just applying that now to the business world in a way that we can understand and use. Yeah. Awesome.

Awesome. That's fantastic. Like already like today, like ever since reading this book, like I've been just putting these little things that I've learned, like these little tips like mirroring in the things that I do. And it's been awesome. So yeah, go out and try it.

Again, like podcasts, like this stuff is great, but like the real goal of a podcast is learn something and go apply to your life. So you guys go out and do this in your life. Don't be afraid to negotiate a little bit. And one little quick tip here. I tried signing up. for his newsletter and had a little trouble with his thing about texting 228-28-28-FBI empathy.

I had a little trouble with that. So if you struggle with that, you can also just Google Chris Voss newsletter, and the first result there will help you sign up if you're interested in that. There you go. All right. Good deal. So with that, you know, we got to get out of here. Real quick, can I have your shirt?

I like that shirt a lot. This blue quarter-quarters-it? Yeah. I want to buy it. Yeah, how much for that shirt? Give me two or three signed copies of your books and you can have it. I can have it? Yeah.

Sounds like you've thought a lot about this, Scott. Are you negotiating with me or for my shirt off my back? I've tried to negotiate the shirt off your back. All right, guys. I'm going to take everything. I don't split the difference. All right, let's get out of here. For Bigger Pockets Icom, my name is Brandon, and this is Scott Trench.

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