Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Chris Voss and Steve Shull: Charge What You're Worth, Lessons on Sales and Negotiation From the Field | Sales E223

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

When an injury forced former Miami Dolphins linebacker Steve Shull to change his game, he pivoted into finance and real estate. After he read the book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, Steve completely transformed his coaching company and redesigned his programs from scratch. Since then, Steve and Chris have been working together to help real estate agents save their time and energy. In this episode, Chris and Steve will cover some of their favorite sales hacks and negotiation principles in their new book The Full Fee Agent. In this episode, Hala, Chris, and Steve will discuss:  - Steve’s career pivot from football player to real estate agent - How Chris and Steve started working together - How emotions influence our decision-making - The 7 essential truths of human behavior - How to be “the favorite” or “the fool” - Possibility vs. Probability  - Why free consulting is a fool’s tactic  - Why compromise is never equal - And other topics… Chris Voss is a Former FBI Hostage Negotiator and the CEO of The Black Swan Group Ltd. Before becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City division of the FBI. During Chris’s 24-year tenure with the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI, but also Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Steve Shull grew up outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and graduated with a BS Degree in 1980. He then played four years in the NFL as a linebacker with the Miami Dolphins and was one of the tri-captains in the 1982 Super Bowl. A knee injury ended his career in 1983. He then went to graduate school at The University of Miami and received his MBA.  He worked on Wall Street as an institutional fixed-income salesperson for five years. From 1991 through 1993 he sold residential real estate in Fullerton, CA. In his first year with his partner, they closed 53 transactions. In his second year, they were on pace to sell 100 homes when he came up with the idea to create a coaching program, which marked the beginning of his real estate coaching career in 1993. In 2007, he was one of the founding partners of Teles Properties.  Resources Mentioned: Steve’s Website: https://performance-coaching.mykajabi.com/ Steve’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smscoach/ Steve’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smscoach1/ Chris’s Website: https://www.blackswanltd.com/our-team/chris-voss Chris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophervoss/ Chris’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefbinegotiator/ Chris’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChrisVossNegotiation/ Chris and Steve’s book The Full Fee Agent: https://www.amazon.com/Full-Fee-Agent-Estate-Professional/dp/1544536631 LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass, Have Job Security For Life: Sign up at yapmedia.io/course. Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset.

That's one of the first realities that I learned as a hostage negotiator. You see this picked up all the time. How you do something is how you do everything. People are going to stick to their habits. They're going to make the decisions and evaluate the way they did in the past. They're going to continue to act under pressure, the way they acted under pressure in the past. What they say is not a great predictor of what they're going to do. So what they've done in the past is the most effective predictor of what they're going to do in the future.

There's an abundance of people who want to work with you. I don't want to spend my time trying to convince somebody to work with me because the first thing that goes wrong, they're going to be jumping down my throat. They didn't choose me. And so it just sets up the wrong dynamic. And life is just too short to work with people who don't want to work with you. What is up Young and Profiters? You're listening to Yap Young and Profiting podcast where we interview the brightest minds in the world

and unpack their wisdom into actionable advice that you're going to be. you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Halitaha. Thanks for tuning in and get ready to listen, learn, and profit. Chris and Steve, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you. Hala, it's awesome to be here. I love having you guys on the show.

Young and Profiters, it's a unique day because today we have not just one, but two fabulous guests to interview on Young and Profiting Podcast. So many of you are familiar with Chris of all. He's a regular on yap. Between my one-on-one interviews and our clubhouse episodes, this is going to be the fifth time that Chris is making an appearance on Young and Profiting Podcasts. I think that makes his most interviewed guest ever.

I think he's the most interviewed guest ever on Young and Profiting Podcasts. And believe me, it's worth it every single time because we always learn something new. And today's going to be no different. Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator. He's the CEO and founder of the Black Swan Group, which provides negotiation training

to both individuals and individuals, businesses. He's also the best-selling author of the classic business and negotiation book never split the difference. Chris recently co-authored the book, The Full Fee Agent with Steve Schull, who's our second guest on today's episode. And Steve Schull is a retired American football player. He used to play on the Miami Dolphins as a linebacker when an injury forced him to change his game quite literally, and he pivoted into finance, then real estate, and then found his calling when he started coaching other agents. So together he and Chris put together an eight-week negotiation course for real estate professionals, and they've been working together ever since. Now they have

this new book, the full fee agent. And in this episode, we're going to be covering some of my favorite sales hacks and negotiation principles from the new book. It will include some classic negotiation material that we've learned from Chris in the past, as well as some brand new material, which I'm super excited to dive into, like the difference between the favorite and the full, the Oprah rule, and the seven essential truths of human behavior. And while some of this conversation is especially relevant to real estate agents, these tactics are going to apply to. to anyone, no matter your industry. Okay, so let's get started.

We've got a lot of ground to cover, and I'm going to get right into it. As I mentioned, Chris is a regular on Yap. We've covered his story before, so we're going to focus on Steve in the beginning of this interview. And I want to begin with Steve's come-up journey. So you started your career in the NFL, like I mentioned.

You spent some time in football, but it got cut short. You ended up pivoting to business. So can you share more about that transformation story, the journey that led you into real estate, and how you first came across, Chris's work. Great. Well, as you mentioned, I played four years in the NFL and the knee injury, ended my career

like it does with so many guys in the NFL. I went back to University of Miami, got my MBA. From there, I went to Wall Street, worked on the government desk at Solomon Brothers, and then decided to make a big pivot my life and moved out to California and started selling residential real estate. This was in 1991, a long, long time ago. Partnered up with an existing agent in our first year together. We sold 53 homes, which is a lot.

The average real estate agent sells four homes a year. And in our second year, we were on track to sell 100 homes. And I came up with the idea of creating a real estate coaching program. At that point in time, there was no such thing. as real estate coaching that started in 1993, and then 2016, 2017. I forget what year it was seven years ago. One of my clients went to a book signing in Malibu that Chris was doing for the book, never split the difference.

They bought me a copy. And I started reading it. And as I was reading the book, it became very obvious to me that everything that Chris was talking about applied to real estate 100%. And I had a big lightning bold moment. I'd been the guy in real estate who'd been trying to take out emotion and boil everything down to fact, logic, and reason. And in reading the book, I realized you cannot overcome emotion with fact, logic, and reason.

And emotion, specifically, fear of loss, is what drives the decision-making process. So I reached out. I got a hold of Chris's son, Brandon, and we had a conversation. And then Brandon said, let's get Chris on the phone. And we set up another call, got Chris on the phone. And that's when we decided to do a eight-week negotiation course. And then we did more courses. And then ultimately, we ended up collaborating for over two years and wrote the book,

The Full Fee Agent. It's amazing. And I'm always curious to know, from the other perspective in terms of Chris, what made you feel like you should work with somebody like Stephen? You're already a well-accomplished author. You co-wrote a whole book with him, so there's some value there that you saw.

I'd love to hear about it. Yeah, it's actually one of the underlying principles of the Fulfi agent. One of the titles that we experimented with for that was the trusted advisor. Like you follow the guidance of the people that you trust, whose core values you line up with and you trust. I mean, you go ahead and jump in. Trusted advisor for me in this case with my son, Brandon. He's always been a trusted advisor, trusted collaborator,

since he was old enough to correct me about something I was doing wrong. And he said, look, this guy, Steve's show you got to talk to him. I mean, he's our kind of human being, hard work and high integrity, get stuff done. And I'm like, all right, that's all I need to know. Talk to Steve the first time with the intention of collaborating. He hit all those core values, and he's always been an extremely easy guy to work with. very focused, listens well, thinks well, great critical thinker, and been just a pleasure to work with ever since. So trusted advisor recommended me to them. I was ready to go. Yeah, and I have to say,

I read the book and I really enjoyed it. And I found a lot of value, even though I'm not in the real estate industry, I was finding myself thinking about all the ways that I could use these different tips and tricks in my own sales negotiations outside of just real estate. So really great work and I can't wait to really dive into it. So speaking of the book, in the beginning of the book, one of the first things you write in there is how you do business is more important than how much business that you do. So let's start off with Chris. What does that statement mean to you? Well, it's really about orienting yourself for long-term success. You can get a lot done in a day if you gorge yourself on dopamine producing substances, legal or illegal, you know, caffeine,

cocaine, you know, you can get a lot done. And it's going to completely burn you out and it's going to destroy you. What's a better approach that's sustainable, which will make you wealthy over the long run. And that's what this, how you do business is more important than how much business you do because you will do a lot of business once you get into sustainable habits, keep you alive, keep you healthy, keep you happy. And then your life is a pleasure as opposed to being miserable. Totally. And I really can't wait to talk about the fool and the favorite and the differentiation between that and how we can save so much time and focus knowing that trick. I'm so excited to talk about that. But before we do that, Steve, you alluded to the fact that you didn't really

bring emotion into your conversations prior to learning Chris's work. You felt like you just needed to talk with facts, logic, reason to close a deal. And then you realized that you actually had to embrace emotion after Chris's work, there needs to be an emotional component to your negotiations. So let's talk about why that was such an important lesson for you and how you were negotiating prior to Chris's work and then how that changed once you learned how to use tactical empathy and things like that. Well, as a coach, I see my job as positioning people to succeed. And prior to Chris, I thought I was doing that. And I was having a lot of success.

My clients did extremely well. However, again, what I was doing is analyzing everything and figuring out, okay, let's make it factual. Let's make it logical. Let's use reason to get to whatever outcome we need to get to. And then in reading Chris's book, the realization, the truth. was that's not how people make decisions. They don't make decisions based on fact, logic, and reason.

They make decisions based on their emotions. And again, specifically, the fear of loss. Most salespeople have been trained to pitch opportunity, gain, benefit their whole life. That's not what really moves people. What moves people is fear of loss. And so that, again, in reading, never split the difference, That truth kicked in. I made a 180 shift, and it's definitely transformed my business,

and it's transforming the lives of the people that we coach. I want to double tap on that for a second. So, Chris, I know you're an expert on this. How do emotions drive our decision-making as humans? Well, Hala, first of all, double-tap. I mean, that's a firearm special forces term. Like, if you want to really hit the target, you've got to put two browns in it at the same time.

I like that you want to double tap this. You're an assassin in disguise. I didn't realize that, but it makes sense to me. You make your decisions based on what you care about. And there's been some interesting studies. There was a book that came out probably a good solid 20 years ago, but it's relevant, Descartes-air, which basically said that people, when they lose their ability

for their emotions that are play with their logical side of their brain, they can't make good decisions. Now, they can follow directions. It's really easy to follow directions. And this came up because people would have brain surgery and it would interfere with different points of their brain if they were moving tumors from specific areas of the brain. Then they were pronounced by then the standards of time of cognitive abilities to be cured and go back to work. And they would go back to work unable to make good decisions and they'd be debilitated. And the insurance companies were not paying them to be debilitated when in fact they were.

They were disabled because they had lost their ability to make good decisions. So your emotions are how you evaluate and make decisions. The reasons why they continue to put these people back to work initially was because they could follow directions. Like if they would say organize the boxes in a room from biggest to smallest, perfect. Do it quick, easy, no problem. Do this follow a set of directions. But how should we organize the room?

They would be like, I don't know, size, color, I don't know. People couldn't make decisions because decisions are triggered by what we can. care most about across the board. And that's really the unavoidable reality of emotions and decision making. No matter how many people try to articulate, I've seen something called compassionate reason or some people that are determined to be dispassionate. And I'll call them out and I'll say, it looks like you're very passionate about being dispassionate. The passions are there regardless. We use emotions to make our evaluations. What do we care about? And the facts, logic and reason flow from where we've already made the decision.

I can't wait to dig deeper on that. But first, Steve, I'm curious to understand in real estate, how do emotions drive decisions? Can you give us some examples? Well, every seller, they want more money for their home than their home is actually worth. And they believe their home is better than every other home. And they don't care what the facts say. live in their home, they love their home, and they have feelings about their home, saying, you know, buyers, they want what they want for half the price. And they're completely justified based on

their feelings. And so every buyer is operating off of emotion, every seller is operating off of emotion. And the thing that Chris's book, the thing that he's teaching, tactical empathy, the skill of making people feel understood. It's the missing piece in all of sales. Stephen Covey got very close when he said, seek first to understand before being understood. However, making people feel understood, that's the game changer.

Because no one can really hear what you're saying until they feel understood. And if I could jump back, because I'm thinking of examples, when Steve and I have coached people. Like emotion is driving a seller's decision. What's probably the biggest factor on what a seller wants for his house?

What his brother-in-law got for a house that has one more bedroom or one more bathroom? The brother-in-law's got a house with more amenities. It's actually worth more. But the seller's going to go down in flames if he doesn't get a price. It's at least as good as what his brother-in-law got.

And I have to imagine that since buying a home is like maybe you do it, one, two, three times in your life. It's a really important decision. So your emotions are also running really high because it's going to be as a buyer, especially one of the most important decisions of your life. One of the things, one of Chris's great lines, hopes and dreams are on the line. And that's what every real estate salesperson needs to understand.

The sellers, hopes and dreams are on the line. And the buyer's hopes and dreams are on the line. And most importantly, their hopes and dreams are not based in reality. So you as a salesperson, you've got to sell reality to someone whose hopes and dreams are not based in reality. That's the challenge. And that's what the book is all about. How do you do that?

How do you sell people on reality when their hopes and dreams are not based in reality? Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world.

And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky because when it comes to hiring, indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post noticed. Indeed, sponsor jobs help you stand out and hire fast by boosting your post to the top relevant candidate. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored ones, according to IndyD data worldwide. I'm so glad I found Indeed when I did because hiring is so much easier now. In fact, in the minute we've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. Plus, there's no subscriptions or long-term contracts.

You literally just pay for your results. You pay for the people that you hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility. at Indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the seven essential truths of human behavior. You guys may not know this, but I love human behavior. We talk about it all the time on the podcast. It's one of the reasons why Chris has been on five times

because he's one of the most notable experts in the world when it comes to influence negotiation human behavior. And so I was really excited to see these seven essential human truths in the book laid out so clearly. And the reason is because we're going to have an easier time understanding and predicting the behaviors of people in our negotiations knowing these truths. And so I actually organized the interview around this. And so I'm going to rattle off one of these seven essential human truths.

Chris, I'm going to let you do the honors in terms of telling us what this essential truth means. And then I'm going to ask some follow-up questions related to sales and business for each one that I think will be relevant to my audience. So essential truth number one, the best predictor of the future behavior is past behavior. Chris, what does that mean? Yeah, you know, that's one of the first realities that I learned as a hostage negotiator predicting anybody's behavior. And you see this picked up all the time. How you do something is how you do everything. People are going to stick to their habits. They're going to make the decisions and

evaluate the way they did in the past. They're going to continue to act under pressure, the way they acted under pressure in the past or the way they act under pressure is going to be the same as they react normally only it's going to just be more intense and more obvious. And psychologists hate that. The first time I looked it up, every psychologist said, we hate this and it's true. And there's a difference between what people say and what they do. And this is really focused on what people are doing. You know, you've heard the phrase, how you act, speak, shout so loudly in my ears. I can't hear what you're saying. What people say in what they do don't always align.

What they say is not a great predictor of what they're going to do. So what they've done in the past is the most effective predictor of what they're going to do in a future. If they relied on a trusted advisor on how to make up their decision in the past, then in the future, if you're not the trusted advisor, they're not going to rely on you. They're going to gather information from you, but they rely on their trusted advisors because that's how they did it in the past. So basically what you're saying is that it's unlikely that someone is going to do a different behavior in a sales transaction or conversation than something they did in the past. So if we can find out how they acted in the past, what they did in the past, it's a good predictor of what they're going to do this time around. So Steve, in a real estate conversation, how would you use this to your advantage?

What would you do? You mentioned it, but we haven't gotten into it yet, the whole idea of being the favorite or the fool. And this has been a real game changer in real estate. Most agents think that they win or lose business based on their presentation and to a lesser degree based on the commission that they charge. However, in reality, when a potential seller picks up the phone and calls an agent and says, we're thinking about selling our home, they already know who they're going to work with, where they're leaning strongly in a direction.

It's not about presenting and convincing them to work with me. It's figuring out am I the favorite or am I the fool. And one of the ways you do that is find out in the past how have they chosen a real estate agent. Did they work with someone they knew? Did they work with someone who was referred to them? Did they work with a total stranger? Did they work with the number one agent in the area? So one of the things you're going to do in that initial conversation, I'm curious.

In the past, how did you figure out who to work with in terms of who was your real estate agent? And that'll be a real clue as to how they're going to pick their next agent. That's one small example of how that comes into play. Chris, any other ideas there? No, that's completely on, especially when their hopes and dreams are on the line, to expect them to make a decision differently this time on one of the five most stressful moments in their entire life, different. differently than they did last time, no, they're going to engage in the same behavior.

Okay, essential truth number two, there is no such thing as a fully open mind. That's the harsh reality of human nature. And you decide you're going to buy something. Do you go to the person that sells it first? Like, you want to buy a car. Do you go straight to the car salesman say, which one should I buy? And then go with what that car salesman says? Or do you start doing your own research? You start narrowing down the issue. do you start gathering information? And when you go to the car salesman or the software salesman or the computer salesman,

your mind is no less than 50% made up, anywhere from 50% to 100% made up. Usually about 70% made up, which means you've gathered enough data you no longer have an open mind. If your mind is 70% made up, the harsh reality of that is you no longer have an open mind. You're 70% of the way through your decision-making process.

And that's really harsh. for everyone who likes to think of themselves as fair and open-minded. I think of myself as fair and open-minded. But by the time I start talking with the vendor, the seller, the salesperson, of whoever it is that I'm after, my mind is all but made up because I'm a human being. There's no getting around it. Yeah. And some people might think this sounds like a bad thing, but especially on the sales side,

it's actually a really good thing because it helps ensure that we're not wasting our precious time if we're able to evaluate if somebody is actually already making up their mind to, for example, not work with us. Or if we know that they are going to work with us, that we do focus our time on closing that deal because there's a high probability that they're going to become our client. So it is really important to understand. And it brings us to you that fool in the favorite that we've been teasing the whole episode. And it's something that I've never heard before and I really loved hearing about it. And as an entrepreneur, I realize that this is so true. and made me realize a lot of things that I went through.

I never really had like a name or anything to call it. And so you guys, right, the key to building a great business is learning to tell the difference between possibility and probability. So, Steve, can you help us understand the fool and the favorite? Well, let's go back to the example of you get a phone call from a potential seller. Most real estate agents, they think, well, that person has an open mind. It's going to be a level competition. and if I can go in and give a better presentation than the other agents they call, I can get the listing.

So they're going to put an hour of prep time in or two hours or more. Then they're going to go out to the listing appointment, and it's going to be another two-plus hours. And then they're going to come back and they're going to have follow-up, and they're going to have 24 hours or 48 or 72 hours being on pins and needle waiting to find out what the answer is. Well, we've short-circuited that to a 15-minute, what we call a pre-listing Zoom call, where we get on the phone with that potential seller. And in 15 minutes or less, we can find out whether we're the favorite or the full. And what we're coaching our agents to do is focus on high-probability activity, meaning we live in a Las Vegas world. We live in a world of probabilities. And what we want to do is we want to focus on those opportunities where our chance of getting the business is 80% or more, the favorite.

And we want to stay away from those opportunities where our chance is 20% or less. We're coaching our agents to sit at the 80% table, not the 20% table. If I go on 10 appointments, I want to get 8, 9, or 10, rather than go on 10 to get 2, 1, or 0.000, or 0.000. zero. And most agents aren't thinking in these terms. They think the playing field is always level. It's never level. No one ever has an open mind. Everyone has personal preferences, meaning, even if I'm interviewing three complete strangers, I come to the party with my own personal preferences. I'm going to like one over the other before they even open their mouth. And so, again, rather than spending all this time chasing after business we're never going to get,

in 15 minutes, we can figure out who we are. And how if you allow me, because I want to hit this possibility versus probability thing again from a different illustration. I heard Sam Harris talk about this the other day, different contexts, but it's the same thing. Possibility versus probability, because I love possibility. I mean, I love opportunity. I love places like New York because the possibility there is endless.

The possibility versus probability. You're flying a jet plane through a storm, and your instruments have all gone down, and you're not sure what to do next. Now, somebody comes up from the back who's going to give you some advice, and you check with this person, are they a pilot or not? Have they ever flown in a storm or not? Now, the person who wants to give you the advice has never flown, has never flown in a storm. Now, is it possible that this guy could be right? is possible. But are you going to take his advice? That would be a really bad idea, just because it's possible to somebody has no reason for giving you good advice would have it.

I think that really does help us really clearly understand. There's an opportunity cost to going after too many deals, right? We're wasting our time. We're wasting our focus. We have less time to work on the clients that do actually want to work with us. And it's actually an uphill battle to work with somebody who didn't want to work with you to begin with. And so it brings me to my next question, why should we not try to convince people to work with us? Chris, I'll give it to you and then, Steve. It's good if you're a masochist, if you want to torture yourself, if you want to put you through a lot of unnecessary pain that's not going to get you anywhere. I'll apply a concept that I've picked up from a buddy of mine, Joe Polish runs a genius network. He talks about half versus

elf. Elf is an easy, lucrative and fun. is hard, annoying, lame, and frustrated. And he says, don't work with halves. Do work with elves. So my company, we involved this in our methodology, and I tell my team, walk away from the halves because they're getting in a way of the elves. But the interesting thing, before they would walk away on their own, they collected some data. And of the halves that we closed deals with, two things were true.

It took us no less than twice as long to close the deal and implement it. And he worked from two times to five times as long. But let's say it was only twice as long. So you fight that uphill battle and you win, you just took a 50% cut in pay. Secondly, the haf's don't repeat. So you took a 50% cut in pay to work with someone that you were never going to work with again.

Neither of those two things make sense. Yeah, it's so interesting because as an entrepreneur, you're sort of taught, and even just any salesperson, you're taught to follow up, follow up, follow up, convince them, right? But I looked back on my own journey of all the, I have a social media agency

and it's award-winning agency, we do great work. And I think about all of my worst clients were people that I really fought to be, like, to have them join me. And now that I read your book, I realized that I was starting off on the wrong foot to begin with. And that's why I was starting off from a really weak place trying to convince them to work with me.

It always works better when somebody's excited to work with you. Steve, what are your thoughts? There's no lack of people who want to work with you. There's enough people out there. There's an abundance of people who want to work with you. I don't want to spend my time trying to convince somebody to work with me because it sets up a very different expectation. If I have to convince them, that means they were thinking about working with someone else. And so I have this great presentation and I convince them I'm the person.

Or most likely, I've lowered my fee as part of that effort to convince them. So now there's some resentment on my part, whether I want to admit it or not. And then the first thing that goes wrong, they're going to be jumping down my throat because I convinced them to go with me. They didn't choose me. I convinced them. And so it just sets up the wrong dynamic. And life is just too short to work with people who don't want to work with you.

Stop convincing altogether. Yeah. Don't ever do it. And one of Chris's great sayings, I love this, is if you're explaining, you're losing. If you're explaining, you're losing. And it's not about explaining your value. It's about do they perceive you as a trusted advisor or not. So a quote that I think really brings it all home from the book is it's not a sin to lose business. It's a sin to take a long time to lose business. So let's move on to how we can focus on these high probability opportunities and not waste our time being the fool. And I know you guys mentioned something called a cold read in the book. So what questions should we ask ourselves to understand

whether we're the fool or the favorite? Ask yourselves, well, how can I fearlessly find out early on without hurting anybody's feelings? Because I'm not going to, to ask legitimate questions. How do I allow myself to find out early on whether or not I'm the favorite of the fool? If you don't want to try it, you're holding yourself hostage. I mean, release yourself because you're the one that's holding you back. And this scares the heck out of so many people. If they can get over this hurdle, if they can just put themselves in a mindset to find out, then they're going to be a long way towards using these skills, because it's about releasing yourself in many ways. Steve, would you agree? Absolutely. And this is a concept that I really resonated with because in football, this is what we were

trained to do. Read the situation. Read and react. Read and react. And we would get a scouting port, a scouting report every week about this thick that had all the other team's tendencies in that book. If we were on the 20-yard line, they came out in a brown formation, and it was third and four, 28% of the time they were going to run this play, 22% of the time. They were all, again, these tendencies. And so you had to learn, you had to memorize all. You have to memorize all. all these things. And so when you lined up, you were reading, you know, before the ball was even snapped, what you thought was going to happen. And this pertains in real estate. There's lots of clues. And you're looking for the clues. You just have to know what you're looking for.

No one knew that there was a favorite and a fool. The moment you start looking for the clues, they're all over the place. And again, this is all about saving time, like you just shared. It's not a sin to lose business. It's a sin to take a long time losing business. And the real reason why real estate agents work seven days a week is because they don't work five. If they actually work five days a week, actually work rather than spending time chasing after business they're not going to get, they wouldn't have to work seven days a week. They wouldn't have to be on call 24-7. So I take sales calls all the time.

they usually start with some sort of discovery call where you try to figure out what's the client's problems, can I help them, can I not help them? So what are the things that we can do in that conversation to know whether we're the full of the favorite? What are the things that people do or say that will give us clues? The first thing is to just ask

what is the most horrifying question for everybody until they understand how good it is it is. And that's to say you're the person, you got a lot of options out there. I mean, I got solid competitors. You could go to them. They got great resumes.

Why me? That is like the magic phrase. I mean, it's an emotional intelligence, surgical strike. Why does certain things to people that are vastly different than what is normally portrayed out there? Why is it's a emotional intelligence surgical strike? You should never ask why unless you want them to defend you. Because why always triggers defensiveness. which is the bad advice.

Find out their why is good advice, but it doesn't tell you that you shouldn't ask them why. Except if the why is about you and you are going to get an unguarded, honest answer or you're not going to get an answer. And if you don't get an answer, why you, there ain't no why for you there at all. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

Happy New Year, Yap, gang. I just love the unique energy of the New Year. It's all about fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now. 2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours, the year where you take control over your career.

And it starts with Shopify. I've built plenty of my own businesses on Shopify, including my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. So it's a two-day workshop. People buy their tickets on Shopify. And then my mastermind subscription is also. on Shopify. I built my site quickly in just a couple of days, payments for set up super easily, and none of the technical stuff slowed me down like it usually does because Shopify is just so intuitive. And this choice of using Shopify helped me scale my masterclass to over $500,000 in

revenue in our first year. And I'm launching some new podcast courses and can't wait to launch them on Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person, just like the millions of entrepreneurs that they power. You can build your dream. team store using hundreds of beautiful templates and set up is fast with built-in AI tools that help you write product descriptions and edit photos. Plus, marketing is built in so you can create email and social campaigns easily. And as you grow, Shopify can scale right along with your business. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash profiting. Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's

Shopify.com slash profiting. Yap, fam, hear your first. This new year with Shopify by your side. Hello, Yap gang. I know my young improfiting listeners want bigger businesses and a better life, and the new year is the perfect moment to reset and commit to your growth. But let's be real. You can't build an empire if your finances are all over the place.

That's why getting into it QuickBooks is one of the best first moves you can make this year. They've got powerful money management tools built right into their platform. and they have them for every stage of your business, whether you're a solopreneur or a small business. And I love that QuickBooks helps you get paid faster, pay bill smarter, and even gives you access to funding when opportunity pops up. So QuickBooks can help you with bookkeeping, can help you with getting paid, can even help you with projections and understanding where your business is at financially.

Plus, QuickBooks Money Solutions reduces manual work by half and keeps your money and your books perfectly synced. That means less time staring at spreadsheets and more time, actually building the vision that you started with. That's the upgrade that every profiting entrepreneur needs. Start the New Year's strong, take control of your cash flow with QuickBooks Money Tools. Learn more at quickbooks.com slash money. Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

What's up, Yap Gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first touch points every single cold customer has with your brand. Think about that for a second. When people are searching on Google, everybody who interacts with your brand first is seeing your dot com initially. But here's a problem. Too many companies treat their website like a formality instead of the gross tool that it should be. At YAP Media, we are guilty of this. I am really due for an upgrade from my website and I'm planning on doing that with framework this year. because small changes can take days with my other platform and simple updates require tickets. And suddenly we're just leaving so much opportunity on the table.

And that's why so many teams, including mine, are turning to framework. It's built for teams who refuse to let their website slow them down. Your designers and marketers get full ownership with real-time collaboration, everything you need for SEO and analytics with integrated A-B testing. I love that. I love testing and making sure that we've got the best performing assets on the page. You make a change, hit publish, and it's live in seconds. Whether you're launching a new site, testing landing pages, or migrating your full.com,

Framer makes going from idea to live site fast and simple. Learn how you can get more out of your dot com from a framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com slash profiting for 30% off a framer pro annual plan. That's 30% off in 2026. Again, that's framer.com slash profiting for 30% off, framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. That's so interesting. So basically you're asking, why me?

Because you want to get a gauge of how much they respect you. And if they've picked you already and how much research it is on. So if they say, if I say, why me? And they're like, holla, you're the number one LinkedIn expert. Everybody knows you make all the influencers on LinkedIn. Then I know, okay, I am the favorite. But if they say, I Googled you and you popped up and I'm interviewing three other people, then I might be the fool, right?

Or that one or would a lot of people throw back on you, the person who either is taking advantage of you on purpose. And a lot of people are doing it by accident. They don't mean to be. You know, they're taught that it's okay, get three bids. But they're going to say, well, it's up to you to convince me. And if they throw it back on you like that or in some fashion, you are the fool in the game. Steve, what are some other things that we can do during this Cole Reed to gauge the situation to understand it for the favorite of the fool or what clues. Who do people give?

In the book, we give a very specific outline. A, are they calling you or are they just calling real estate agents? Once you start listening for it, you'll hear whether they're actually calling you or you're just part of a cattle call. That's one. Secondly, do you fit the profile, meaning are you the person that they are looking for based on, again, what they've done in the past? Three, can you make an emotional connection with that person?

meaning can you get several that's rights by labeling what they're thinking and feeling, getting in alignment with where they are? Four, and this is an important one, is the conversation collaborative? Are they open? Are they sharing what they want? Or are they being very guarded and they just want to ask questions and get information? And then the fifth thing is actually asking for a commitment. And this was outrageous.

We now have agents getting a commitment for a listing without even going out to the house. They're getting it over the phone in 15 minutes. This is unheard of in real estate. Everyone thinks they, again, have to go through the preparation, go do the appointment, go do all the follow-up. We're having people get that commitment right online because they're the favorite. And if you are my favorite, I have no reason to withhold that information. from you? Would it be wrong to assume, and it's a simple line, would it be wrong to assume that we're going to be working together? And when you're the favorite, they say, no,

absolutely, we're going to be working together. So those are five things that you can run through to help determine whether you're the favorite or the fool. I love that. And I know you hinted and teased some strategies that Chris always talks about, and we'll make sure we cover that in the interview as we go along. So let's talk about some fools tactics that I found out in your book. There's a couple things that people do that are fools tactics. One of them is free consulting. So why is free consulting a fool's tactic? Yeah, this is another one that it took me quite a while to wrap my mind around. I did this for a while too, you know, and I refer to this as a drug dealer approach. Let me give you a sample of what I could do and you're going to get addicted and you're

going to want more. We did that a lot in the earlier days of Black Swan. And it finally came together because we're coaching private equity firm, and they're telling their people, because their people want to do the same thing. Here's how we're going to help you as a private equity firm. Here's the groundwork we're going to lay out. And these guys said, never, never, never give them any of our intellectual property until after they made a commitment to work with us.

Because as soon as we give them a taste of what we know, the unavoidable aspect of human nature is you're less valuable. As soon as you give away some of your value for free, you are by definition less valuable. There's no way around that. So the gratitude that you hope for is just not going to come through because it's not being spirited on the other side.

They're human. And you've given them something for free, so people tend to value things as to what they paid for it. So if it was free, they didn't think it was that valuable to begin with. And secondly, you now have less to offer. Is ignore human nature at your peril

and there's just no way around that to not give free consulting. Okay, so let's move on to the next essential truth number three. Humans are hardwired to be negative. Yeah, well, there ain't no way around that. I mean, survival wiring, which we've all inherited, the pessimistic caveman survived. We're the descendants of the pessimists. They walked by a big dark cave.

The pessimist says, you know, yesterday, Steve went in there and he never came out. And, you know, I'm going to take that as a hint. I ain't going in either. Now, the optimistic caveman says, you know what? Yesterday, Steve went in there and he never came out, but I'm an optimist. I'm going there anyway, because I'm optimistic. And that guy got eaten too. And he doesn't have any descendants.

And that's, you know, that's the wiring that we've all in there. And so there's going to be a lot of negativity when we have these negotiations and sales conversations because we're all showing up to them, hardwired to be negative. So Steve, can you explain to us how he can use the label? to diffuse some of this negativity? Well, again, most salespeople think they need to have solutions. Whenever there's a problem, they feel like they can't discuss a problem without having a solution in hand.

And so oftentimes they avoid the problem altogether where they try and sugarcoat things or or spin things or edit the truth in a way, rather than you don't need to have the problem. all you need to do is label how someone is thinking and feeling. And if you keep labeling, that's going to diffuse the negative emotions. And then you're going to let them process and let them come up. Because again, it's their decision. When there's a problem, what you need to do is lay out the landscape. Here's what's going on.

Here are the options. Here are the consequences. And then you simply put it back on them. how would you like to proceed? And most salespeople think they've got to solve all the problems. You know, you don't have to solve the problems. A, you don't have the ability to make decisions for people, only they can make decisions. And we have a whole chapter in the book.

Put responsibility where it belongs. And if your home isn't selling, it's because you're not willing to either lower the price or stage your home in the right way or do certain things. It's not that the agent isn't doing their job. You're not doing your job. However, I as the agent take all that on me. Somehow, I'm not doing what needs to be done. And agents do this all the time.

So it's learning to put responsibility where it belongs. And where it belongs is on the decision maker. Can you guys give me like a real life example or just any sort of example of labeling and how it works, how you would use that to diffuse negativity, maybe, Chris? You know, and I love that Steve brought the staging thing up because it's a problem for a lot of sellers. They don't want to stage your house. Now, an agent is telling me about this one time, and she's thinking to herself, all right, so what are the likely emotions that are going through because they don't want to stage your house?

And as soon as they start staging their house, suddenly they feel like they're guests in their house, as if they don't live there. And they're king, you know, the king of the castle, king or queen of the castle. They don't want to be made to feel like in their own home that they're a guest or they're an intruder. So she just says to them exactly that. She throws a label on it. Like it seems like you're reluctant to stage your house because it makes you feel like an intruder in your own home. It makes you feel like you're a guest that has to get out of the way.

And it seems like these people that you've never met before suddenly have more right to be in your house than you do. Those are all labeling the emotions and the dynamics that the sellers predictably. going through based on, you know, how does this make no sense? What are they seeing this? What kind of craziness is going on in their head? Well, what would you feel like if you've got to get out of you, if you got to remodel your house for strangers that you've never met

and you've got to get out of there every time somebody wants to go? Suddenly you're a guest, you're the intruder in your house. She throws this out at them and they literally go, that's right. I guess we do need to stage your house. Just by hanging a label on the stuff that they were going through. And because you mentioned it, And I think Steve mentioned it too.

What's the importance of hearing that's right? What does that tell us? That's right. Is what people say when what they've just heard is the truth. Unequivocal, unvarnished, just the truth. And they can embrace it. They're not obligated to. They freely embrace it.

It's what people, the emotional connection that Steve talked about before. It's an indicator of the beginnings of emotional connections or really solid emotional connections. And versus you're right. You know, you need to stage your house because, you know, Your house isn't going to sell. You start explaining, given all the reasons, when you're explaining you're losing,

how do you know you're losing, the other person saying you're right versus that's right. Such a little nuance, but you're right means that they don't feel understood and they're just kind of shushing you, right? Exactly. That's right means you understand me. I'm aligned.

Yeah, that's right. All right. Essential truth number four, the fear of loss is the primary motivator of human beings. known as the prospect theory. What does that mean? Yeah, well, Steve, I know you hit this all the time, so I'm going to ask you to knock this one out. Salespeople are trained to pitch benefit, gain, an opportunity. You know, it's the whole idea of getting a yes. If you're in sales, how many times have you been taught? Get the yes. Get the yes. And by reaching for yes,

what you're actually creating is resistance. People love. to say no. No makes people feel safe and protected. And so, you know, we haven't touched on this, getting in asking no-oriented questions. And we want to play to the no. Would it be impossible? Would you be imposed? Would it be too much to ask? And people have a hard time not saying no. And so you phrase your questions in a way where no serves you. And this, is a great tool. The most basic example, is now a good time to talk or is now a bad time to talk. You're going to get a much better response to is now a bad time to talk than is now a good time to talk. Yeah. I love that. And I know that has to do a lot with people wanting control, right?

So they'll be in control when they say no first. This is a hack I use all the time from Chris is getting people to say no because I know that it makes them feel in control like they're making their own decisions, and that's why it's so powerful. Chris, would love to understand in terms of the actual fear of loss being bigger than the fear of gain. I'd love to understand that. Well, yeah, and let's do a seller example. It's got their house overpriced.

And they're worried about what they'll lose if they cut the price. And to get them to think about a different loss would be, how much does it cost you to leave your house on the market overpriced? Because suddenly now, you've got them thinking about a different loss. And it is the tipping point for decision making. And when people can't see things the way you do, I guarantee you they're seeing a different loss than what you are. And that's one of the challenges for real estate agents.

In a sales a number of years ago, a gentleman was selling retirement packages, benefits, to companies. And they said, look, if you let us handle your retirement accounts, we'll get a 20% higher rate of return. That's pitching gain. The same pitch. otherwise, let us take a look at your retirement accounts. All right. So don't go with us, and it's going to cost you 20% every day. Do nothing. Don't lift a finger. And it's each and every

day that goes by, it's going to cost you 20%. It's the very same proposition. One is about what you're going to gain, and the other is what is in action going to cost you. And you need somebody to take action. They're far more likely. Again, these are percentages. This is a Vegas world. they're much more likely to change their approach, change their decision if they're focused on a different loss. Yeah. So basically the main thing that we need to understand is when we're trying to convince someone, we should focus on what they're going to lose, not necessarily what they're going to gain. And a lot of us have been taught value, value, value, give all the ways that they're going to win. But it's really about what are they going to lose if they don't work with you. Exactly right. It's not the only driver of decision making. It's just the biggest one. Okay, so let's get to you. Essential Truth number six. People will die over their autonomy. And why don't we talk about these no-oriented questions since I know that's relevant? Well, that was, you know, to me, and then I'll hand it off to Steve. The first clue about why hostage negotiation applied to every aspect of life was Jim Camp's book in 2002, which was a business book, start with no. He just lays out. And he states in his book, people will,

die to preserve their autonomy. And I remember thinking at the time, that's why we have hostages to go shitters in the first place, because people were getting killed right and left, because law enforcement would show up surround the house. As they come out, it will kill you, which is to take away somebody's autonomy. And that's effectively what they're saying when SWATs surround you. And we had SWAT for years. And people were dying right and left, refusing to come out over nothing. And that was about people's preservation for autonomy. And so that's why this human nature thing applies to everything. And then Steve has picked up on it very quickly as soon as he saw this stuff, particularly the no-oriented questions he was talking about before. I use this hack all the time,

especially if somebody's ghosting me. Like if I'm in a sales conversation and somebody goes to me, I'll be like, were you giving up on your LinkedIn journey or something? And then they'll be like, no, no, I'm sorry. I just missed my email the last few days. It always gets them. They always respond. Yeah, nice. So as we wrap this up, I know we're running, we're out of time. So essential truth number vision drives decision, and then we'll wrap up this conversation. How people see the future is how they're going to make up their mind. The future, since it hasn't happened, it's an illusion. It's in everybody's head.

But you've got to understand how they see in the future. And that's the whole purpose of the labels, the mirrors, the tactical empathy, everything. And as Steve said before, it's seeking for us to understand is not enough. Seeking for us to demonstrate what your understanding is, because then, of course, you're trying to figure out what their vision of the future is. and in trying to flesh that out with them by being a sounding board, by discussing it with them,

by throwing them at them what you think they're seeing, they're going to tell you you're on track or they're going to correct you. Now you can understand where you have to go. Do you have to try to get them to see a different future? Again, because it's all imaginary anyway, or are you happy with what they're seeing at the time? People are going to take action going forward

as to how they see the future playing out. Fusion drives decisions. Okay, to close out this interview, I'm going to ask you guys a question that we ask all our guests on the podcast. And that's what is one actionable thing our young improfitors can do today to become more profitable tomorrow. And I know this book is for real estate agents, but let's take it wider to just sales in general. What's one actionable thing our listeners can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? Let's start with Chris and Steve. Use this sentence before you give anybody a pitch, an idea.

say, you know, before I give you my perspective on this, here's what I think your perspective is and lay out what you think their perspective is and you can't give your pitch until you've gotten a that's right out of them. The trigger point is that's right. Then you can go forward. Until you get it right, you're on weak ground. Oh my gosh.

That's such a good tip. Steve, what about you? The most important decision you can make and the best way to make more money is charge what you're worth. Most people are reluctant to charge what they're actually worth because they're afraid they're going to lose business if they do. And there's something that I call the adjustment standard. We adjust to the standards we set in life.

And this is why we wrote the book, the full fee agent. The most important decision for a real estate agent is what fee am I going to charge? And when I make a decision to charge a full fee, I've got to adjust everything up to that. I've got to become better at what I do. What most agents do is they lower their fee and they adjust everything down to that lower fee. And so charge what you're worth. I love that.

And a great way to segue into the full fee agent, your new buck. Where can everybody find it? It's on Amazon. I bet, you know, the best price, the best location to pick up a book is always on Amazon. Follow on stuff if you want to learn more about what we can do for you,

how we can coach you, whatever you're in, whether you're in real estate, whatever you're in. Black Swan, L-T-D-D-com, B-L-A-C-S-W-A-N-L-T-D-com. It's a website, follow up with me or Steve, whatever you need. We're going to be there for you. Awesome, and we'll stick all your links in the show notes

so people can find you easily. Thank you guys so much for joining us today on Young and Profiting Podcast, and I really enjoyed your book. Thank you. Thank you. You guys know how much I love having Chris Voss on the show. He officially holds the record in terms of number of appearances on Yap, and rightfully so,

because he always brings the value. And this time around, I was really fascinated by his negotiation tactics and how they work in the world of real estate. Something that really stuck with me from this interview was the idea of the fool and the favorite. One of the biggest sales misconceptions is that we have to change people's minds and convert hesitant prospects into paying customers. But that's not always the best tactic.

If you have to convince someone to work with you, that means they didn't already see you as a trusted advisor. So they're going to question your capabilities as soon as the first thing goes wrong. You'll save yourself a lot of time and a lot of stress if instead you seek out prospects who already see you as the favorite, who want to work with you. All my best clients are people who were excited to work with me and knew that I produced great work before they actually met with me. and the clients that I struggled the most with are always the people that were hesitant to work with me and people that I really tried to convince to take a shot on me and my company. Like Steve said, life is too short to work with people who don't want to work with you. So stop wasting your time on potential customers who see you as the fool and instead put all that energy towards

prospects who already see you as the favorite. Remember this line. It's not a sin to lose business. It's a sin to take a long time to lose business. I hope you'll guys enjoy this episode. If you want to learn more about negotiation, sales strategies, and influence in real estate, be sure to check out Chris and Steve's book, The Full Fee Agent, and the link is in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcasts. If you listen, learned, or profited from this episode, be sure to drop us a five-star review on Apple or your favorite podcast platform. And share this podcast with your friends and family. So many people would love this podcast if they just knew about it. So make sure you share Yap by word of mouth. If you like watching

your podcast videos, you can find all our videos on YouTube. And you can also catch me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. Big shout out to our amazing YAP production team. You guys are crushing it. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the podcast princess, signing off.